BigDog Newsletter September 2021

Carnival Time Capras

September 2021 Newsletter

1

Newsletter Editor’s Notes ‘A tragic and wasted opportunity’ Australia’s inglorious exit from Afghanistan from a war that killed 41 Australian troops, seriously injured another 260 and where a staggering 500 others have taken their own lives since 2001. Australia invested more than $10 billion in a war that also perhaps irreparably damaged the reputation of the elite Special Air Service (SAS) amid allegations of war crimes against the most decorated living Australian soldier.

To my son-in-law William and all the others, thank you for your service.

Business Disability Awards

In This Issue

This year the keynote speakers are Paul Hockey the first disabled person to climb Mt Everest and Australian voice-over artist Ian "Lofty" Fulton, who in recent years, is the narrator of MasterChef Australia, his voice is heard in more than 180 countries. Chances are you've heard him.

2 Editor Notes 3 Zero Tolerance 4 NDIS Updates 5 Transition Guides Updated 6 Community 7 Community Partnerships 8 Staff Training Updates 9 NGO Training Infographic 10 Toowoomba Community 11 Rockhampton Community 12 Safety Updates Vaccination 13 Staff Updates 14 What’s happening in September

BigDog Newsletter Privacy Notice: Please note that as a subscriber to our BigDog Newsletter which supplies news and events relevant to this organisation, your email address or any other personal information collected will only be used for the purpose for which you gave it to us and will not be disclosed to any other person, body or agency except where you have provided your consent or it is required or authorised by law.

2

BigDog Support Services Magazine

Zero Tolerance 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. Built around a national evidence-based framework, Zero Tolerance is: •

A way for organisations to understand actions they can do to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect and violence of people with disability

•

A clear message that abuse, neglect and violence are not okay

•

A way of thinking about abuse as a human rights issue not a disability issue

• A collection of resources to educate and train staff at all levels to understand their responsibilities in preventing and responding to abuse • A way of working collaboratively within and outside the disability sector to prevent and respond to abuse 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.

People with disability feel safe when providers:

An organisational commitment to act on:

• Respect people’s choices and decisions

•

anything that makes a person with disability be or feel unsafe

• Involve people with disability in planning their services

•

anything that doesn’t support a person’s human rights

• Ensure that staff can do their job properly

•

anything that we could be doing better

• Get to know people and treat them as an individual

3

Updates 3 New Practice Standards The NDIS Commission is in the final stages of developing three new NDIS Practice Standards. The development of these standards has occurred in consultation with stakeholders and NDIS providers, and academic and other industry experts. They are the result of commitments made by the NDIS Commission to explicitly address quality and safety in mealtime supports following the scoping review of causes and contributors to deaths of people with disability in Australia.

Mealtime Management Practice Standard, providing guidance and ensuring compliance in safe and quality practice by registered NDIS providers in the delivery of mealtime management to people with disability.

Severe Dysphagia Management Practice Standard, providing guidance and ensuring compliance in relation to safe and quality practice by registered NDIS providers in the delivery of severe dysphagia management to people with disability and Emergency and Disaster Management Practice Standard, to strengthen guidance to NDIS providers on complying with their obligations to ensure the health, wellbeing and safety of the NDIS participants they support during COVID-19, or future emergencies or disasters.

The Standards are in the final stages of development and before they are released the Commission is required to consult with state and territory Ministers, Information about transition periods and details of the new Practice Standards, including resources to support their implementation.

4

Compliance focus on unauthorised use of restrictive practices NDIS Commission focus is on compliance activity on registered NDIS providers and their compliance with requirements to facilitate the development of behaviour support plans and obtain state authorisation (where required) where there is, or is likely to be, ongoing use of a regulated restrictive practice.

The use of a regulated restrictive practice that is not authorised for a person under relevant state or territory requirements or included in a behaviour support plan developed by an NDIS behaviour support practitioner is unlawful and presents serious risks to NDIS participants.

Reporting the unauthorised use of a restrictive practice is an important safeguard for NDIS participants. Where the use of the restrictive practice is, or is likely to be, ongoing, providers have obligations to actively facilitate the development of a behaviour support plan and obtain any necessary authorisation.

Where the NDIS Commission identifies through their assessment of Reportable Incidents that relate to unauthorised use of restrictive practice that providers are not complying with their obligations under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Restrictive Practices and Behaviour Support) Rules 2018 they will consider appropriate compliance or enforcement action.

There are guides on their website on facilitating behaviour support plans and restrictive practices.

BigDog Support Services Magazine

Transition

Guides

Trevor Watts MP Toowoomba North David Janetzki MP Toowoomba South More than ever, there is a need to empower young men and women living with a disability. Ensuring that they are informed and prepared will help them seize opportunities at high school and ultimately prepare them for life beyond school in the broader community.

Preparing school leavers with the knowledge, skills and confidence to participate successfully in the community and the economy is essential to securing young people's future and the future of Queensland. Careful planning and preparation helps ensure a smooth transition into employment, further education, vocational training and life in the community.

The Guide is well researched and connects students with a range of services and resources that will make a difference to their lives.

This guide is designed to give young people an overview of the supports available through government agencies and the community. As a live document it contains links to websites, Facebook, Twitter and other online pages.

Every student should have the opportunity to work towards their heart-felt desires and aspirations – and this Guide is an important step to helping them get there.

The guides are free to download at www.bigdogsupport.com.au/about-us/ information-booklets/ or click on either of the images at the top of the page.

5

Our Community

BigDog has been a sponsor of the Breaking Free concert event at the City Golf Club for over 10 years and it is our honour to be there again in 2021 as it had to be cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19. Join us in celebrating Mental Health week and enjoy a night of 50’s music.

6

BigDog Support Services Magazine

Community

Partnerships

Wind Back the Clock Tour Due to interstate closures the concert has been rescheduled to Saturday 25th September. As a sponsor of FM102.7 Radio BigDog is going so come along and join us for a great night, for a great cause.

WhatsUp in Disability

Sep/Oct Magazine Stories in this issue include: • Alyce Nelligan • NDIS Narional Workforce Plan • Independent Assessments • Where to from here conference • Business Disability Awards 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

• NDIS in brief • Zero Tolerance

Steven Paull President 7

Training

Updates

New courses from NGO BigDog

Traineeship Support

Lots of things have been happening at the NGO Training Centre including new courses.

Congratulations to all those who are currently undertaking the Certificate III traineeships through Aurora Academy.

All their courses are currently being reviewed by a team of experts and NDIS auditors to provide our employees with the most up-todate NDIS compliant course content.

In addition, they are re-designing all their courses with a new improved format. These new courses will be rolled out in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the new Epilepsy course has been developed with their new design guidelines.

NGO are also in the process of recruiting participants (which they call their Change Champions) who will share their experience living with a disability and what they expect or would like to see from their Support Provider. These will be captured in short videos that will be added to the re-designed courses.

The new epilepsy course will give support workers and in-depth understanding of what epilepsy is and what it means to have epilepsy for a person with disability. After this course, support workers will be able to know the different seizure types and how they commonly present, provide safe epilepsy management including seizure safety and injury prevention, and know how to support a person living with a disability that has epilepsy.

In September, Seizure Management is being added and in October an Introduction to Mental Illness will be available.

These courses will be released to your individual portal later this year as there are still a number of courses that other support staff still need to complete before the next performance appraisals planned for December this year.

8

The User Choice program through the Queensland Government has provided a funding contribution of $4,160.00 towards the cost of training and assessment for eligible Queensland apprentices and trainees.

BigDog, as part of our support for your training has paid your $498.40 Student Fees to assist you financially in undertaking the Certificate.

Trainees are reminded that a training contract is a legally binding contract for the training and employment of a person as a trainee. The details of the compulsory and elective modules appear on your training plan.

As a trainee you must: • Work towards achieving the competencies agreed in the training plan • Keep the training record for the traineeship in your possession • Acknowledge that all workplace instructions and any other material that comes into your possession as a result of the training remains the property of BigDog • Not terminate employment with BigDog unless the traineeship is complete, or the training contract has been cancelled • Any pro-rata tuition fees paid by BigDog will be repaid if training is not completed The training contract ends on the signing of a completion agreement acknowledging the completion of the training.

A further congratulations to those trainees who are powering through their modules using the online training portal at Aurora.

BigDog Support Services Magazine

Infographics

Training

9

Toowoomba Community Centre An exciting month of new activities is planned for this month and we will be travelling to different places around the world every 2 weeks to discover things about their culture, history and most importantly their food.

We commenced with a stop over in Italy and as the picture on the back page shows, we enjoyed a lunch of pasta (that we made ourselves) and desert.

Mid month we will be travelling to Thailand and as a special treat we will be having lunch at one of Toowoomba's best Thai Restaurants.

Due to popular demand we have also commenced a second day of 10 pin bowling which will be at noon, so lunch on Monday will be at the Bowling Alley and not in the park.

Lots of things, lots of fun!

BigDog Day Service Toowoomba Paul Myatt Community Centre 11-15 Alexander Street North Toowoomba 4350 Coordinators Billy Mills and Jess Wright Phone: 4512 6020 dayservice@bigdogsupport.com.au 10

BigDog Support Services Magazine

Billy & Jess

Rockhampton Community Centre Rockhampton Day Service changed it up a bit the last couple of weeks! With a combination of our regular activities we also added a bit of Putt Putt golf and some construction work.

SARAH & Michelle

And, what better way to finish our quick stop in Australia with an Aussie BBQ at the beach with a bit of cricket… next around the world destination is Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Catch the video we made on our Facebook page where we are travelling by plane to LA. Beach Day Out at Emu Park is where we will again have our tent and displays. We will be providing coloured hair extensions and there will be some challenging activities and other give ways on the day.

So come and join us for a great day!

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

11

Safety Updates

Steve

Support Workers and Vaccination The NDIS have advised service providers that participants have a choice over which support workers they want to support them and at BigDog we encourage them to do so.

Participants can ask BigDog to encourage the support worker working with them to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

If the support worker doesn’t want to be vaccinated, and this is an issue for the participant, they can contact BigDog to make other arrangements which may mean finding a different support worker for the participant.

People with disability and disability workers are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

We are reminded that some people with disability are at greater risk of becoming very sick if they catch COVID-19, so getting vaccinated is very important.

12

BigDog Support Services Magazine

Staff Updates

Ann

Welcome to our new Accounts Team Leader Leanne Gilkison is an experienced accounts and NDIS reporting person who has already made a number of positive changes to the way that we invoice and record our supports.

We are really excited to have you on our team and look forward to working with you in the future.

Employee of the Month ($50 voucher) Jeremy McLachlan is always covering shifts at the last minute. He is very invested in his job and goes above and beyond for our day service clients in Rockhampton.

Staff Birthdays

September 2021 3rd 4th 9th 11th 14th 19th 22nd 26th 28th

Courtney S Cheryl A Radean Laxmi Henry Ashley Wendy G Melissa G Jedidiah

Have a great day!

Jeremy is one of our Capras boys and he brings to his role elements of his sports training and character.

Toowoomba SIL Houses Coordinators As our SIL homes have increased in number, Sharon has been transferred to assist Mel in their coordination.

During COVID-19 closures Sharon undertook this task with gusto and has lots of ideas to maintain the quality.

Toowoomba Day Service Coordinators Billy has been promoted to coordinate the Day Service with Jess who continues in her role, and everyone is excited about the ideas and changes he has in mind.

13

What’s happening in

September

Carnival of Flowers

Thursday 9th September

14

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

16

BigDog Support Services Magazine