BigDog Newsletter August 2021

August 2021 Newsletter

Wintery Days

NDIS National Workforce Plan 1

Newsletter Editor Notes The games of the XXXV Olympiad Australia will welcome the Olympic Games for a third time after Brisbane won the right to host in an unopposed race, the International Olympic Committee announced Wednesday.

Of the 80 votes distributed to IOC member nations in Tokyo asking whether they accept to elect Brisbane, three abstained, five voted “no” and 72 voted “yes.”

It will also mark the second time Australia has hosted the Paralympic Games, which were first held in 1960.

Brisbane’s election means the next three hosts of the summer Games have been secured. Paris will host in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028.

Census - Tuesday 10 August 2021 The Census is the most comprehensive snapshot of the country and tells the story of how we are changing. It counts every household and every person in Australia. Census data is used to plan and deliver services across Australia. The Census isn’t just numbers, but what those numbers tell us – every stat tells a story. That’s why your participation is vital.

A Reminder

In This Issue 2 Editor Notes 3 Where to from here?

4 NDIS Updates 6 NDIS National Workforce Plan 7 Community Responses 8 Community Partnerships 8 NDIS Financial Sustainability 9 NGO Training Infographic 10 Toowoomba Community 11 Rockhampton Community 12 Safety Updates - Zero Tolerance 13 Staff Updates

Get your employment terms update signed and returned as you are holding up the pay rise for others.

14 What’s happening in August

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Where to

From Here

Held just 10 days after the sudden announcement to ditch Independent Assessments, the timing was drop dead perfect for the Where To From Here conference. On screen and in discussion, we assembled 1,700 of the nation’s key NDIS decision makers and influencers to fill the void this question begs.

It was the first time the whole service sector has been together since 2015 and we expressed our dismay that after 8 years of the NDIS, the big ideas we hoped to achieve are still a long way off. As you would expect, we also acknowledged how incredibly difficult everything is right now. The mood got pretty bleak.

Then something happened about halfway through, Minister Reynolds began her speech by thanking Labor’s Jenny Macklin. In one short sentence she signalled a return to NDIS bipartisanship! The Minister even showed pride in the NDIS and demonstrated that she would promote it as an insurance scheme, not a welfare program. She then committed to: • restart the National Disability Strategy, the plan for all levels of government to address mainstream inclusion • focus on Tier 2, the up till now missing piece of NDIS community development

putting it nicely). While we agree it’s incredibly hard to have any faith in this government, at least these are the right commitments at the right time. They are promises that we can hold her accountable to. Most importantly, it shifts the debate from Minister Robert’s politics of fear and deliberate misinformation to focus on the issues that matter.

Right on the Minister’s heels, original NDIS leaders, Bruce Bonyhady and John Walsh reminded us of what the scheme is intended to do. It is a scheme for every Australian, a scheme that should build capacity at every level of the nation. They insisted that we use our collective energy to demand a return to focus on what the NDIS was meant to achieve. All the major newspapers immediately picked up and ran with this message.

With this momentum, speakers, the audience and even a singer and comedian all somehow coalesced. As a collective, we found the answers to where to from here?

The answers are this simple and this complex: The government and NDIA must do the hard yards to rebuild trust, focus on mainstream inclusion, deliver genuine co-design and reconnect with NDIS original purpose and intent.

• return to genuine co-design.

Organisations need to both demand and assist the government to hold true to their promises.

We also need to hold our organisations true to purpose, and that purpose is that people with disability are in control of their lives. Whenever we stray from what we promised, we need to get back on track.

A lot of the WTFH reaction was highly sceptical about the Minister’s commitments (that’s

And the word used most for WTFH was “Everyone”

• address the needs of those not eligible for the NDIS, the 4.5 million people with disability outside the scheme • enhance plan flexibility

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Updates NDIS National Workforce Plan Rob Woolley DSC NDIS News Analysis We don’t need to overstate the challenge of finding a suitably sized and skilled provider workforce to deliver on the promises of the NDIS. It’s a challenge that has been slowly growing over the past few years. It’s always in the background, pervading the day-to-day operations of providers, but any possible solutions often feel beyond providers’ control.

Well, the Department of Social Services (DSS) has released a document that aims to turn potential solutions into reality and put them into practice. Following from the 2019 NDIS Market and Workforce Strategy, the NDIS National Workforce Plan: 2021–2025 was released in June. It reminds us of the scale of the workforce challenge: there are currently 3,175 unfilled vacancies, and (more dauntingly) forecasts suggest an additional 83,000 NDIS workers will be required by 2024. This is a significant increase on the already eye-watering 270,000 workers currently employed by providers. I don’t think anyone would say this is one of those government documents that overstates the problem – almost every provider we talk to mentions workforce as one of their biggest organisational headaches.

We have long needed a more comprehensive roadmap for addressing the workforce challenge, beyond the hollow rallying cry of “support growth in the market.” The Workforce Plan has four components: to support and retain existing workers, to grow the workforce, to maintain quality of supports, and to support sector efficiency and innovation. From this vi-

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sion, there are 16 initiatives that the Commonwealth government will implement, across three key priorities: 1. Improve community understanding of the benefits of working in the sector and strengthen entry pathways.

2. Train and support the NDIS workforce to support retention and meet the needs of participants.

3. Support efficiency and innovation through reduced red tape, new service models and innovation, and improved market information.

So, we’ve got one vision, four components everyone needs to work together on, three priority areas, and 16 initiatives. That’s a lot of buzzwords, even for DSS, so let’s look at each of the priorities in more detail to find the relevant information.

Priority 1 Improve community understanding of the benefits of working in the sector and strengthen entry pathways.

To achieve this, the Plan highlights five initiatives:

1. Promote opportunities in the care and support sector.

2. Develop a simple and accessible online tool for job seekers to self-assess their suitability for new roles based on values, attributes, skills, and experience.

3. Improve effectiveness of jobs boards to match job seekers to vacancies in the sec-

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tor.

4. Leverage employment programs to ensure suitable job seekers can find work in the sector.

5. Better connect NDIS and care and support providers to employment and training providers and workers (that is a serious number of “and”s in one clause!)

Priority 2 Train and support the NDIS Workforce to support retention and meet the needs of participants.

The initiatives for this priority area are:  Develop micro-credentials and update nationally recognised training to improve the quality of supports and enhance career pathways.  Support the sector to develop a Care and Support Worker Professional Network.  Work with the sector to establish a skills passport.

new business opportunities.  Support participants to find more of the services and supports they need online.  Explore options to support allied health professionals to work alongside allied health assistants and support workers to increase capacity to respond to participants needs.  Enable allied health professionals in rural and remote areas to access professional support via telehealth.  Help build the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled sector to enhance culturally safe NDIS services.

Overall, it’s good to see a well-researched approach, and this is the most useful NDIS Workforce Plan to date. But until some of the more deep-rooted problems are addressed by forces broader than just DSS, the challenge will continue to grow and affect choice and control.

 Support the sector to increase the number of traineeships and student placements, working closely with educational institutions and professional bodies.

Priority 3 Support efficiency and innovation through reduced red tape, new service models and innovation, and improved market information The initiatives for this priority area are:  Improve alignment of provider regulation and worker screening across the care and support sector.  Continue to improve NDIS pricing approaches to ensure effective operation of the market, including in thin markets.  Provide market demand information across the care and support sector to help identify 5

Community Community responses to the NDIS National Workforce Plan I am always disappointed when I see links between the disability support workforce and other allegedly adjacent sectors. This Plan is clearly looking to rise all boats with a single tide, referencing the aged care and the veterans care workforces. It is a strange reference for most providers, as only 1% of NDIS providers deliver NDIS, aged care, and veterans’ care. The fundamental aims, purposes, and structures of the NDIS are different from the aged care sector. We can’t expect an expert disability support worker to be able to function as effectively in the aged care sector: different vibe, different culture, different expectations, different skills, different setting – it’s just different.

Drawing links like these really undervalue the principles and foundations of the NDIS. I wouldn’t ask my plumber to wire up a new plug socket.

It’s not necessarily a huge problem, but throughout the Plan there are references to the importance of creating (and filling) these jobs at a critical time in the post-COVID recovery of the Australian economy.

DSS is quite up-front about this, and it’s an economic reality... but I can't shake an uneasy feeling about where it might end up. I am comfortable with being selective as a sector. In my provider days, I was very careful in my hiring decisions, because the human, quality, cultural, and financial costs of getting it wrong were much greater than the benefits of just finding a body to fill a role and thus increase revenue. If the subtext is that “jobs need filling for reasons beyond the Scheme,” I worry about the pressure on providers and participants to accept sub-par services in the name of propping up the economy. In short, we can be part of the solution, but that can’t be our main responsibility.

The Plan seems to be relatively well referenced and researched. I don’t get the sense that it has been written by a new graduate Project Officer in a dark corner of a Canberra office and then sent straight to the designer (which is more than can be said for some NDIS documents). But there is an overall lack of active participant voice. Yes, providers are the ones doing the recruiting, but participants are the ones ultimately picking the workers, or at least they should be. So, I would hope in the future implementation of this Plan, they are more centrally involved.

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Community

Partnerships

Game Day Sponsorship 5 pm Saturday 7 August 2021 Browne Park BigDog are the game day sponsors for the upcoming game against the Papua New Guinea Hunters.

The management team will be travelling up from Toowoomba to attend the match and meet the Rockhampton management team, the Capras players, who are also support workers and the coaching team and executives from the Capras.

Join us for what should be an entertaining game and support community partnerships and events and meet other members of our BigDog family.

WhatsUp in Disability

Jul/Aug Magazine Stories in this issue include: • Tony Wigan • Community Radio • SCHADS Award Shake Up • Something about Bella • Gig Economy

To obtain a copy of WhatsUp in Disability magazine or to be a sponsor, please contact WhatsUp via: Office

11-15 Alexander Street, Toowoomba

Email

admin@whatsupindisability.org

Online

www.whatsupindisability.org

• Business Disability Awards • Have another go Jade

Steven Paull President 7

Financial Sustainability The weekend before the ministers meeting, the Agency released their annual summary of the financial sustainability of the NDIS. After reading the 84-page report, I can honestly say I understand the financial situation of the NDIS significantly less well than I did before. And it seems I am not alone, as the states and territories don’t appear to know what is going on either. One of the outcomes of Friday’s meeting was “agreeing to undertake further work to understand the assumptions and cost drivers that underpin the actuarial modelling.”

The one thing you can take from the report with absolute certainty won’t come as a huge shock to you – the government is not happy with how much the NDIS is costing and plans to do something about it. All of this indicates that, even with IAs off the table, we can expect the conversation about Scheme sustainability to continue.

The headline-grabbing point from the report was the prediction that by 2029-30 the NDIS would cost $60bn, which is $22bn more than what the Productivity Commission projected in 2017. The question is how reliable this modelling is. To answer that, you would probably need a far more financially savvy mind than mine and access to considerably more raw data. However, when viewing this document in the context of the 2019-20 Annual Report (the Total Participant Costs ($m)

2016-17

Report

closest thing I can find to a previous sustainability report), there is reason to be sceptical.

Last year’s report did not put a dollar figure on how much the NDIS would cost by the end of the decade, but it did suggest that it would be the equivalent of 1.7% of the nation’s GDP. In the latest sustainability report, however, that estimate has gone up to 1.96%. That’s a small difference in percentage points, but in the context of Australia’s GDP we’re talking many billions of dollars.

It’s also worth acknowledging that the NDIS hasn’t really had a huge budget blowout to date. The sustainability report makes a big deal of the fact that 2019-20 was the first year that the NDIS cost more than was budgeted.

At the start of that financial year, the government budgeted $16.3bn for the NDIS, but actual expenses were more than planned, at $17.6bn. However, if you look at the table below, you will see all previous budgets predicted the NDIS would cost more than $17.6bn that year.

So, you can’t really lower your projections substantially and then be surprised when you exceed them. The 2020-21 year did see the NDIS cost more than was budgeted, but the total amount spent was still within the range of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 estimates.

2017-18

2018-19

2019-20

2020-21

Budget 2021-22

26,487

Budget 2020-21

21,750

23,807

16,262

20,903

22,116

15,139

19,537

21,064

22,300

8,045

14,267

17,856

19,165

Budget 2019-20 Budget 2018-19 Budget 2017-18 Budget 2016-17

3,487

8,813

15,905

20,077

Actual Participant Costs

2,238

5,418

10,460

17,589

23,297

Actual Costs to Budget

-1,249

-2,627

-4,679

1,327

1,577

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BigDog Support Services Magazine

Infographics

Training

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Toowoomba Community

Sharon

Cr Tim McMahon Visits Tim has the Environment and Community portfolio and visited the Paul Myatt Community Centre to learn about some of the things that we do and what we offer to our community.

Tim wrote: Steven Paull runs BigDog Support Services and the question he often gets asked is ‘what do you guys even do?’

Well think of everything a big, loyal dog does.

Protection, assistance, help, a friend when needed and support to its owner.

This is what their company does.

They employ about 160 locals between here and their other base in Rocky.

Thanks for the vital role that yourself and other groups like this have in our community.

Look for the puppy lapel pin!

They offer support for those in the community who need it and they operate a busy community centre on Alexander Street.

They give fresh produce to those in the community who need it through @ozharvesttoowoomba They are committed to ensuring that people with disabilities live as independently as possible and they offer day trips, community activities and get people making connections.

BigDog Day Service Toowoomba Paul Myatt Community Centre 11-15 Alexander Street North Toowoomba 4350 Coordinator Sharon Price Phone: 4512 6020 dayservice@bigdogsupport.com.au 10

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Rockhampton Community

SARAH

August is here and day centre has been traveling the world! Every two weeks we choose a new destination, picking six topics to learn and explore.

First stop, Russia!

Day Service has been using all sorts of recourses to find information, one that we have been using is the library for the use of books to research and gathering any useful information about Russian’s foods, clothing, native flowers, population, language and money.

In the two weeks of learning about Russia we researched what the Russian traditions are and cooked two Russian dishes, made art and learnt how to speak Russian, that was a very interesting and funny day. Stay turned for our next destination.

We are very pleased with the results from converting one of the spare offices into our sensory room. With an ‘Under the Sea’ theme, it includes calming music and soft lighting.

Don’t forget about our next pie drive that has been sent home, orders needing to be in by the end of the month, if you have not already got your orders in or your needing a new form please come in and grab one from the office.

BigDog Day Service Rockhampton BigDog Community Centre 170 East Street Rockhampton 4700 Coordinator Sarah Dillon Phone: 4573 4611 rockhampton@bigdogsupport.com.au

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Safety Updates

Steve

Supporting safe and enjoyable meals The NDIS Commission is creating new elearning training modules for NDIS workers.

These short online courses will be on the topics of communication and mealtime management.

This module will explain the vital role of mealtime assistance for NDIS workers, and the risks and considerations when supporting someone with swallowing disability.

Zero Tolerance is an initiative led by NDS in partnership with the disability sector. It assists disability service providers to understand, implement and improve practices which safeguard the rights of people they support.

Real voices, stories, and perspectives of people with disability are an important part of this training.

The Zero Tolerance commitment is a commitment to recognise, raise and respond to any deviation from the human rights of people using disability services. It is a personal and organisational commitment to always have our eyes open and always be doing better to support rights.

There are opportunities for participants to feature in the 'Supporting safe and enjoyable meals' module. The producers of the module are looking for people with disability who have meal time support needs and are willing to present, act in scenarios, and feature in the voice segments. Participants may be asked about their experiences with mealtimes that can be included in the training for NDIS workers.

If you have a participant who wants to be involved, please email education@ndiscommission.gov.au to receive further information.

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BigDog Support Services Magazine

Staff Updates

Ann

Employee of the Month Greg Wheeler Greg is dedicated to his job, he’s flexible, goes over and above with all of his clients.

100% shift notes.

Greg has won a $50 Coles voucher .

Thanks Greg we appreciate all of your great efforts.

Aurora Training are proud to be now delivering the CHC43115- Certificate IV in Disability along with or CHC33015-Certificate III in Individual Support delivered externally or internally via our Cloud Based Learning Platform. Aurora Training’s campus are located in Toowoomba, Brisbane and the Gold Coast delivering F2F classes. Our campus are currently training external and internal students throughout QLD whom are employed and or seeking employment in the Community Services sectors. Our qualification has a rolling start with no limit on commencement dates, supervisor observations are also encouraged to fast track unit completions as eligible students under HLS funding are generally employed within the sector.

Staff Birthdays

August 2021 5th 7th 9th 11th 19th 24th 25th 26th 28th

Kaylah Teurewera Joshua Philip Mc Ethan Cale Luke Q Dee G Rhett

Have a great day!

• Total cost of $70.00 for non-concessional students for the entire qualification • Total cost of $42.00 for concessional students for the entire qualification To be eligible to complete the CHC43115 - Certificate IV in Disability under Higher Level Skills, individuals must hold Certificate III in Individual Support and or equivalent and be an existing worker in the Disability industry sector.

Contact Steven for further information on training.

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What’s happening in

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August

BigDog Support Services Magazine

Justice of the Peace This service is available at the Paul Myatt Community Centre 11-15 Alexander Street Toowoomba (please call first to make an appointment) The JPs in the Community Program is also available through major shopping centres, libraries, court houses and hospitals.

Contact Us BigDog Support Services

232 Ruthven Street Toowoomba QLD 4350 PO Box 234 Harlaxton QLD 4350

(07) 4632 9559 1800 22 44 32 www.bigdogsupport.com.au 15

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