“Should There Be More Regulation of Support Coordinators? ”
Support Coordinators are sometimes engaging in unethical practices that reek of ableism, furthermore, participants are getting poor quality services-sometimes they are not even being listened to and their needs are not being met. Some Support Coordinators are not even interested in hearing what participants want or need. There is no “official” training for this role, and at times Support Coordinators are putting their own interests, above those of participants.
Unfortunately the failure to provide Support Coordinators with training is not the only reason why Support Coordinators engage in unethical practices. Some Support Coordinators hold ableist and paternalistic attitudes towards people with disabilities. Ableism refers to ” refers to attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities. While paternalism relates to the action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy and is intended to promote their own good.
According to the dominant view, paternalism is wrong when it interferes with a person's autonomy. For example, suppose that I throw away your cream cakes because I believe that eating them is bad for your health. This paternalistic action is wrong when it interferes with your autonomous decision to eat cream cakes.
Sometimes Support Coordinators have a notion that they “know what’s best” for the participant, regardless of what the participant wants or needs and that the participant has unrealistic expectations or they don’t know what they really need. Due to the combination of absence of proper training, ableism, paternalism and sometimes even arrogance, Support Coordinators have engaged in unethical practices.
Examples of these unethical practices include sham contracting support workers, blatantly ignoring the needs of participants, trying to make out participants and families are being unreasonable-when in fact it just the fact that they can’t handle the demands of job, paying commissions to allied health professionals, sharing the plans of NDIS participants-without their consent, Support Coordinators thinking that they “own” the funding of participants and Support Coordinators asking for reports from Support Workers, when they know this is unethical.
It is important for NDIS Participants to know their rights and that they do not have to put up with unethical practices from Support Coordinators. If they feel that they can advocate for themselves, they should do so. If they are unsure or are uncomfortable with the idea of advocating for themselves, maybe get a friend to help them or get assistance from an advocacy organisation, that has the ability to advocate on their behalf.
It may also be the case that participants do not how to make complaint. If a Support Coordinator is employed by a Disability Service provider, the issue should be raised with that provider. If a Participant is unhappy with the income or is engaged with an independent Support Coordinator, they should contact the National Disability Insurance Agency. It is quite common for Participants to be fearful of making complaints, for fear that they will be labelled as “troublemakers”. However, complaints should not be seen in a bad light, but an opportunity to improve and enhance the quality of support coordination provided to NDIS Participants.
While the NDIS has got a Code of Conduct that applies to all services provided under the scope of the NDIS-including the provision of support coordination, as evident by the unethical practices depicted above, it either needs to be more in-depth or more widely publicised or distributed amongst Support Coordinators.
The NDIS emphasises the importance of respecting individual rights to freedom of expression, self expression, and decision making in accordance to relevant laws and conventions, respecting the privacy of people with disability, acting with integrity, honesty and transparency, acting promptly on concerns in regards to quality and safety of supports provided to people with disability, preventing and responding to all forms of violence, exploitation neglect and abuse of people with disability and taking steps to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct.
While someone working in the disability sector for a considerable period of time has a good chance of understanding the NDIS Code of Conduct, could someone walking off the street- applying for a job as Support Coordinator, understand the same Code of Conduct? Should it be an onus placed on job applicants applying for the position of Support Coordinator, to research the NDIS Code of Conduct? Or should the onus be placed on Service Providers to ensure Support Coordinators employed by them have knowledge of, and understand the NDIS Code of Conduct?
Currently there is no specific Code of Conduct for Support Coordinators and while the existing Code of Conduct covers all services offered by NDIS, there is a vast amount of difference between the role of support workers and the role of support coordinators.
If there was to be a specific Code of Conduct for support coordinators, the first element would have to include “do no harm”. This is due to the fact that currently, in some instances some support coordinators are doing more harm than good to some participants, for example support coordinators who have no experience working with people with mental illness, are working with people who have mental illness.
The Code of Conduct could also outline expectations when it comes to working with individuals, families, allied health professionals and support workers, as well as rules surrounding consent being given to share the NDIS plans of participants and the fact that support coordination funding is allocated to participants, not support coordinators.
A specific Code of Conduct for support coordinators won’t eradicate support coordinators engaging in unethical practices altogether. However what it will do, is clearly spell out to support coordinators, the behaviour in which is expected of them. Whether they choose to abide by the Code of Conduct is up to each individual support coordinator, however if a support coordinator does not choose to abide by the Code of Conduct, there should be serious consequences for doing the wrong thing.
These consequences could include being required to do a certain amount of training, being confined to assisting other Support Coordinators for a certain period of time, or being required to be supervised for a certain number of hours. In the case where there has been gross misconduct causing injury or even death to a participant, the Support Coordinator should be instantly dismissed.
Senior Social Worker/Assessment Officer/Play Therapist for Gladstone Allied Health Services
2yMelissa thank you for that well written piece. I am a Senior Social Worker and I have come across some great support coordinators but a lot of not so good. I worry that I have seen unethical practices, no adherence to a code of conduct and blurring their roles of level 1 and level 2 with SSC, who are required to hold a min of a bachelor in social services or allied health. Their really needs to be more interaction with the ministers office and NDIS and the safeguard commission to come up with some mandatory training with mandatory modules of each role. Thanks just venting
Specialist Support Coordinator at CoAbility - Independent Support Coordination
2yHi Melissa . I totally disagree with your views. Most support Coordinators are very passionate about their clients and will do everything they can to guide them through the maze of their NDIS plans. We listen, we care and do our utmost to help them achieve life goals and to explain people's rights and to make sure other Service Providers are not ripping them off. I have been working in the disability field for over 35 years I started out as a volunteer in the field then working in paid employment while having a family and studying for my Disabilty degree. I now work as a Specialist Support Coordinator and you have to have a degree in Disability and/or Social work to be a Specialst . Like many of my experienced colleagues I was employed by the Department (DHHS) now known as DHFS as a disability Case Manager. When NDIS came about many of us became NDIS Planners or Support Coordinators or moved on to Child Protection. This was a process that involved interviews and careful consideration. I became a Planner, however I felt it was more rewarding and helpful to work in a more hands approach with people and became a Support Coordinator, despite dealing with constant administration and bureaucracy.
Support Coordinator - Sterling Support Coordination
3yI'm a Support Coordinator - I've worked in the disability field for 20 years and was made redundant in my role with Disability Services when NDIS commenced. I became an SC with a provider because i wanted to continue to work in this industry. I think that one of the downsides of NDIS for SC's is that some people think it's a one can just step into on a whim, with limited knowledge or training or understanding of the role. I often am asked by people what they can 'do" to become an SC, I and many of my fellow SC's work extremely hard to translate the NDIS for participants - i personally undertake extensive training & personal development including research of at least 3-4 hours to keep abreast of changes within the NDIS I am very transparent with participants that i support that SC is there to help build capacity, and i encourage participants to have a say in their services. I am also very clear that if a participants decision is contrary to the guidelines, that its their choice & control to proceed. I take my profession extremely seriously, and it frustrates me to hear of SCs that do the wrong thing & view the NDIS as a cash cow. But I also know there are a lot of great, effective SC's out there!
It is not enough to know better, we must do better
3yCompletely agree with everything here Melissa! I think support coordinators also thrive on participants not understanding the NDIS or how to use it themselves for great results. I think there needs to be a lot of focus on support coordinators involving their participants/ their informal supports in decision-making, enlisting service providers and monitoring these providers. It should be a goal of every SC to build their participants capacity and confidence to be able to manage their plans in a way that gives them the most choice and control.
Support Coordinator at Access4u
3yOn the other end of the scale, there are participants that know how to screw the system and will literally dump you for not supporting their choice and control when the support coordinator knows it isn't right. I don't think it is a fair assumption to assume that your a support coordinator with greedy or bad intentions. I do think that there need to be clearer guidelines along what a support coordinator is and does. We are capacity builders not personal case managers. Training with DSC is good and gives some good guidelines to go by.