Support Coordination series: NDIS Participant plan reviews

Conducting NDIS participant plan reviews is an often-daunting task for Support Coordinators. These expert tips help to make the process easier.

By Mary Ingerton, Managing Director at Support Coordination Academy.

It’s an essential requirement many Support Coordinators struggle with…

How to show evidence of outcomes achieved and support provided to an NDIS participant when it comes time for a plan review.

The answer is by implementing best practice structured processes to gather information and evidence and analyse and report on outcomes achieved.

It sounds straightforward enough, but what do these processes actually look like?

Let’s break it down into practical terms…

Person-Centred Planning

When first meeting with a participant, a Support Coordinator implements a comprehensive planning and information-gathering process with that individual and their support network.

The aim is to glean a snapshot of a participant’s current situation, which can be used to measure progress over a period of time.

Here is some of the fundamental information that should be gathered when a Support Coordinator first starts working with a participant, to truly understand their unique needs.

A Participant’s Goals

Consider what a participant’s goals mean to them. For example:

• How they want to achieve their goals
• What needs to change or occur for them to succeed
• Supports that are already in place to help them reach their goals
• Have their goals changed?

This is a particularly useful process if the goals listed on a participant’s NDIS plan are broad.

Impact of the Disability

Account for how a person’s disability impacts their ability to complete daily tasks, e.g., to undertake personal care, access their community or express their needs.

It is helpful to use the NDIS six domains of substantially reduced functional capacity to evidence how a person’s disability impacts their ability to complete daily tasks.

Gaps in Supports

Also consider who is in the person’s extended support network, and identify gaps in supports: This includes:

• Informal supports: People and their important connections, such as family, friends, culture, religion and living arrangements.
• Community connections: Access to and participation in their community. Does the individual feel included or are they isolated? Who do they interact with? What are their passions, interests and aspirations?
• Mainstream services: Other government services they currently access or could access, such as health, education, mental health, etc.
• NDIS-funded supports: The participant’s disability-related support needs and supports already in place. Do these supports and their NDIS funding continue to meet their disability-related needs?

In Support Coordination Academy’s NDIS Support Coordinator Training, a Plan Unpacking Guide is used as best practice to provide Support Coordinators with a clear process to gather information and support a participant to understand their NDIS plan.

Reviewing a Participant’s Support Needs

Once a participant has been linked into supports, a Support Coordinator continues to review a participant’s support needs through scheduled check-ins.

This helps to build a collaborative working relationship with the participant’s support network and assists a Support Coordinator to monitor, observe and document the progress or challenges for a participant.

In highly complex situations, especially where there are multiple stakeholders, check-ins involve regular case review meetings with the participant and their support network.

The purpose of these meetings is to share updates, identify barriers and risks and agree on actions that each person or provider will take responsibility for, to mitigate the impact of any risks occurring.

From there, a scheduled NDIS review is often held within the three months prior to a participant’s NDIS plan concluding.

A Support Coordinator will complete an NDIS Progress Report to detail and evidence how a participant has progressed towards achieving their goals, identify any barriers or risks and mitigation strategies and consider a participant’s future goals and related support needs.

Evidence of a Participant’s Supports Needs

Two activities that can help to make evidence-gathering of support needs easier are:

• Reporting responsibilities within Service Agreements
• Building collaborative working relationships with the participant’s support network

A report, which could be in email form, a template to populate or a formalised allied health therapy report, should include:

• How the provider has supported the participant to work towards achieving their goals and outcomes achieved
• Any identified barriers, and strategies to overcome these barriers
• Any risk and mitigation strategies that are in place to minimise risks occurring
• Recommendations for future support needs, based on the participant’s goals

More comprehensive reports, especially if a participant’s support needs have significantly changed, would include an Occupational Therapy Functional Capacity Assessment.

Expert Help at Hand

When it comes to NDIS participant plan reviews, there’s a lot for Support Coordinators to get their head around.

If you have any questions about this topic or require other assistance in your role as a Support Coordinator, contact us today.

To help you to build your skills, Endeavour Foundation has partnered with Support Coordination Academy to offer free online professional learning sessions for Support Coordinators.

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Support Coordination Academy provides essential training and resources for Support Coordinators across Australia.