Ronny is a NDIS participant with a spinal cord injury living in Darwin, and identifies as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person. Ronny has had numerous support workers in the past and now has a small team from 123 Disability Care supporting him with daily activities and personal care.

Ronny’s support worker notified Harpreet, the manager, that Ronny has expressed his interest in participating more in cultural events and a return to country now that his health has improved and he is able to do more things. Harpreet is aware of the importance of connection to culture, country and community for Ronny.

Harpreet take a person-centred approach with the participants he supports and meets with Ronny in person at his supported accommodation. He asks Ronny what types of community and cultural activities he would like to participate in, when he would like to return to country and if he requires any support connecting with his community. Ronny is eager to return to country in the next six months and wants to be involved with the local community in weekly events and activities. He gets on well with his support workers and tells Harpreet that he would like them to support him with accessing the community more.

Ronny’s support team possess competency in the core capabilities set out in the Framework, and he has a diverse team with some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander support workers. However, as Ronny has new support workers that have never supported him in a return to country program, Harpreet identified that there are additional capabilities required to deliver culturally safe and appropriate support to Ronny.

Harpreet understands how important it is to work with NDIS participants and their nominated family and community members. He asks Ronny if he is comfortable participating in a team meeting with his support team to ensure that his community engagement supports are individually tailored. Ronny agrees and brings along two community members to the meeting where they design an implementation plan for accessing Ronny’s chosen community activities and return to country in the next four months and highlight the specific cultural elements his support workers will need to understand.

Harpreet has a great relationship with one of the training companies ‘Do it my way’ in Darwin. Harpreet advised ‘Do it my way’ that he would like the staff at 123 Disability Care to do a re-fresher training session to embed culturally appropriate considerations and delivering culturally inclusive supports to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants. However, the training must be in-line with the ‘Be responsive to my Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander identity’ additional identity capability outlined in the Framework. ’Do it my way’ advised Harpreet, that their training packages are always being refreshed to keep up with sector changes and ‘Do it my way’ is able to meet his requirements for the training.

While some staff are more experienced and identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, he plans to use the training by ‘Do it my way’ to also help support his team in keeping up to date with mainstream and community organisations in the local area that can provide support to participants that 123 Disability Care support who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

Lee is new to working in disability. She participated in an on boarding program and has had regular contact with her supervisor (Jeff) since starting work, checking in and getting advice as needed. Lee has now worked for six months, and she is meeting with Jeff for her first ‘in person’ performance review to talk about how she is going in the job.

Lee understands how important it is to establish a good relationship with the NDIS participants she supports and is generally good at doing this. She enjoys talking with participants and getting to know them, but there is one participant she is a bit concerned about. They get on well – maybe too well, and Amahle (the participant) has started to ask Lee to come with her to family events out of working hours. Lee went to one of these but is concerned Amahle sees her as a close friend rather than as a paid worker and will ask her to come to more social occasions. Lee does not want to upset Amahle by saying ‘no’. She decides to talk with her supervisor about how to handle this situation.

Jeff agrees that managing boundaries and expectations can be difficult and gives Lee some tips on how to handle this kind of situation in a respectful, positive, and professional way. He encourages Lee to raise the issue with Amahle in a low key but clear manner. He also arranges for Lee to do a short course on relationship management. He did the course himself a few years ago and it really helped him understand how to give feedback to workers in a way that is supportive rather than critical. He thinks some of the same techniques could give Lee confidence to discuss sensitive issues with participants rather than avoid them.

Jeff also decides to raise this as a topic in the next team meeting. While the other workers are more experienced than Lee, they can be set in their ways when it comes to managing relationships and agreeing on what both parties can expect from support. He plans to use some role play activities to help others open up about how they are approaching this issue.

XYZ Disability Services (XYZ) is a small service provider located in a regional centre in Queensland. One of their service delivery goals is to expand the business to offer support across a larger geographic area and to introduce new types of support to meet known participant needs. The service frequently declines requests for support from NDIS participants in more remote locations due to workforce and capability gaps. In addition, some of these requests are from participants requiring higher levels of health-related supports than the organisation currently provides. The Board decides it is ready to expand the business to support this growing demand.

Yasmin is the Chief Executive Officer and is responsible for briefing the Board members on workforce planning so XYZ can meet business goals. She uses the Workforce Management and Planning Tool to compare the size and capabilities of the current workforce to what she expects will be needed in the next 6 months, 12 months, and 2 years if the expansion of service goes ahead. Yasmin estimates they will need 20 additional support workers and 1.25 additional supervisors within the next 12 months. To support this growth, Yasmin will need to budget for costs associated with on boarding new workers and providing more intensive supervision in the first few months.

In addition to increasing the number of workers, she will also need workers with the right mix of capabilities. A number of recent inquiries have been from NDIS participants needing support to manage their diabetes. Yasmin expects to meet this demand by procuring external training for existing workers with an interest in developing this capability, as well as training some new recruits in this aspect of support.

Yasmin has also reviewed feedback from the last 12 months provided by NDIS participants and XYZ supervisors. NDIS participant satisfaction is generally high but is markedly lower among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants. Expanding into more remote locations will increase the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants being supported.

Yasmin allows for likely costs of training workers to provide more relevant and effective support of the expected NDIS participant needs and includes this as a key point in her presentation to the Board.