Support coordination is a reasonable and necessary funded support. Not everyone will have support coordination included in their plan. You’ll need to let your Planner, Early Childhood Partner or Local Area Coordinator (LAC) know the reasons why you need a Support Coordinator.

They may assist you to locate and connect with a Support Coordinator and provide them with your plan information so they can understand your plan and assist you.

Here at Supporting Solutions – QLD, we’d love to have a chat and help you with your current needs and future goals!

Supporting Solutions QLD is an NDIS registered, independent service provider. We help you understand your plan, activate it, and find service providers and products best able to meet your individual needs. We are here to work for you and with you – to provide you with expert, unbiased support to help you achieve your goals and dreams.

Our friendly, experienced, and compassionate team at Supporting Solutions – QLD have extensive experience in Australian Disability Services. We care deeply about you, the participant as well as the role your family plays in your support and care.

We are here to:

• Help you understand, implement, and maximise your NDIS Plan
• Show you what supports and services you can access with your NDIS funding
• Help you find the right service providers to suit your needs
• Link you to government and community services you may be able to use
• Assist you in communicating with providers about their support, services, and costs
• Help you negotiate with providers to obtain the right service to achieve your goals
• Assist you with developing service agreements between you and your providers
• Support you in liaising with your providers should points of conflict arise
• Assist when you need to prepare your plan review
• Be there for you in times of crisis
• Encourage and support you to build your independence to exercise choice and control over your plan, and your life

If you’re feeling anxious about where to begin, please know that at Supporting Solutions – QLD, we are here to help get you started on the right path and make sure it’s the perfect one for you.

The role of a Support Coordinator is to work with you to help you make the most of your NDIS funds. Once your plan has been approved, we can begin to work together. Your Support Coordinator can help you decide which are the best providers to connect with, so you get the most value and best results from your funding.

There are three levels of support coordination that may be funded in your plan:

1. Support connection
   
   This fundamental support will help you develop your ability to connect with informal, community and funded support. Support connection enables you to get the most out of your plan so you can keep working toward your goals.
2. Support coordination – coordination of supports:

This medium level of support will assist you in building the skills you need to understand, implement, and use your plan.

Your aim may be to increase your capacity to maintain relationships, manage your everyday tasks, live independently, and be included more in your community.

Our Support Coordinator can help you receive the best mix of support to achieve these goals. We will help you develop the skills you need to understand, implement, and use your plan to gain the most from it today, and in the future.

3. Specialist Support Coordination

This is a higher level of support coordination that is only funded in exceptional circumstances. It’s for people with high or complex needs requiring a qualified, experienced practitioner such as a Psychologist, Occupational Therapist or Social Worker.

If you receive this funding, a Specialist Support Coordinator will help you manage the challenges in your support environment. These may include health, education, or justice services. The aim of a Specialist Support Coordination is to reduce any barriers to you implementing or using your NDIS plan and to ensure the consistent delivery of the services you require.

More information is available in our free online brochure – Your Guide to Support Coordination.

There are three types of support budgets that may be funded in your NDIS plan,

1. Core Supports Budget
2. Capital Supports Budget
3. Capacity Building Supports Budget

Here is a brief explanation of each. You can find more information in the Using Your Plan Booklet.

Core Supports

The Core Supports Budget is to help with your everyday activities, current disability-related needs and to assist you in working toward your goals. This budget is the most flexible and allows you (in most cases) to move your support from one category to another.

There are four categories:

1. Assistance with daily life – such as showering, dressing, house cleaning and mowing or yard maintenance.

   2. Consumables – for example, continence products, minor modifications to assist with mobility, low-cost products you need for your everyday independence or for minor repairs such as fixing a punctured tyre on your wheelchair.

   3. Assistance with social and community participation – this could cover the cost of a support worker to help you take part in social or community activities.

   4. Transport – this budget helps fund you to travel when you are unable to drive yourself or catch public transport, so you can achieve your goals. Your Support Coordinator will help explain how you can use your Transport Budget.

Capital Supports

Capital Supports Budget is allocated for higher cost items. This could include specific assistive technology, home or vehicle modifications or any one-off purchases you may need. Funds in this budget must be used for their specific purpose and not for anything else.

The two main categories are:

1. Assistive Technology – including equipment for mobility, personal care, communication, and recreational inclusion such as communication devices, wheelchairs, or vehicle modifications.
2. Home Modifications – might be used for Specialist Disability Accommodation or for installing items like an accessible shower or wheelchair ramp.

Capacity Building Support

Capacity Building Supports Budget is for developing your skills and independence to help you reach your goals. Unlike your Core Supports Budget, your Capacity Building Support Funding can only be spent on supports within that specific category.

There are nine categories:

1. Support Coordination – provides a fixed amount of funding for a Support Coordinator to help you get the most out of your plan and engage with support providers.
2. Improved living arrangements – this is to help you find and maintain an appropriate place to live.
3. Increased social and community participation – covers the cost of development and training to increase your skills so you can participate in the community, social and recreational activities.
4. Finding and keeping a job – this could include employment-related support, training and assessments that help you find and keep a job.
5. Improved relationships – this support is aimed at helping you develop positive behaviours to better interact with others.
6. Improved health and wellbeing – this funding might enable you to access diet or exercise advice to help manage the impact of your disability.
7. Improved learning – this may include training or advice to help you transition from school to a TAFE course or university.
8. Improved life choices – this is to assist you to manage your plan, funding and to pay for services.
9. Improved daily living – this could cover assessment, training or therapy that will increase your skills, independence, and participation in the community and can be delivered individually or in groups.

Our Support Coordinators at Supporting Solutions – QLD, are here to help you navigate your way through the many different types of budgets to help find solutions that will work best for you.

A good Support Coordinator will be beside you every step of the way so you can understand and use NDIS funded supports to work towards reaching your goals.

You will want a Support Coordinator who is experienced and professional with plenty of information and connections to be able to assist you. They will treat you with respect and be calm, caring and patient.

They will also empower you by helping you build the skills you need so you can move towards using your plan more independently to connect with community supports and services.

Your NDIS plan is based on the discussion you had in your planning meeting. It will be available on the NDIS myplace portal approximately 24 hours after it has been approved. A printed copy of your plan will also be delivered to you either in person or through the mail.

Within each support budget, there are several support categories. Your plan may not have funding for all the support categories. You may only have one or two, or you could have more depending on your individual needs.