Collaboration is defined by Wikipedia and dictionary.com as a process where by 2 or more people, entities or organisations work together to complete a task or achieve a common goal. Now there is a novel concept that I do not think that very many providers within the NDIS fully comprehend! For the survival of the scheme which we now have in Australia to assist people with disabilities to experience the same quality of life that most people take for granted, and for the survival of some of Australia’s most vulnerable people, everyone and I mean EVERYONE, from Bill Shorten all the way down to very people the NDIS is designed to help, plus all those in between, we must take a collaborative approach moving forward. So what is a collaborative approach and what does it look like for the NDIS?
Disability care in Australia has moved from one end of the pendulum to the other and we must find a middle ground. We have gone from a very clinic approach of segregation to disability care where by people with disabilities were given funding and supports based on a clinic diagnosis and opinion, which still exist to some degree with carers not understanding what client directed care means and the need for medical documentation to prove someones level of care and whether or not their disability is “permanent” which is based on a medical report and someones interpretation of that report rather than a universal approach to funding based on the needs of individuals with a disability.
The individual funding model that we now have means that rather than providers tendering to government for funding for their survival the industry is now run on marketisation which is driven by individualised funding. This results in providers needing more clients than they can cater for which results in service quality being compromised by services being cut short or participants being sent unqualified carers or carers that do not fully comprehend the complexity of the participants needs due to a lack of training. Also, providers are trying to survive on less than $20 per hour per participant which is less than minimum wage and these are largely small mum and dad businesses we are talking about. How is any business meant to operate with those kind of margins? Bill Shorten and the NDIA must understand on a very deep level the complexities associated with disability supports as no 2 participants needs are the same so support workers must attend every participant on a daily basis, even if they have been to them a thousand times, as though it is the very first time they are attending to them. This is how you build what we in marketing call, know, like and trust factor, because until you build these 3 things no participant or other provider is going to want to do business with you. When I started in marketing it was 5 touch points before someone was comfortable to do business with you, now they google you and make a decision in 3 seconds. How many times do participants have contact with your organisation before they trust you enough to want to do business with you? Let me know in the comments.
Similar schemes to the NDIS are running very successfully in other countries like the UK and Europe. So why cant Australia get it right? I think partly because the people who are on the ground have been so used to a clinical “get in get out, do what I have to” approach to care but now individual funding has decentralised support and given choice and control to participants not providers. This means providers must go the extra mile for every participant in their care or the participant will simply go else where. Bureaucrats who think they know what is best for an individual based on what someone taught them out of a text book will not survive very long in the NDIS. People with a disability are very unique individuals with extremely vast and unique needs that can not be boxed and providers as well as the NDIS must start to see participants as such or very soon they will have no participants, no participants means no business. This has lead to commercialism in an extremely competitive market with 8,763 providers trying to help 573,342 participants as of 31st December 2022. This means that on average every agency has 65 clients to care for. Every agency and independent carer is now a business owner vying for every participant possible to be able to stay financial viable as they can only charge as per a price guide set by the NDIS, similar to the way Medicare runs. This means providers must be able to morally and ethically communicate their message to a very specific audience or risk not being able to provide the very care they want to provide at the level that they want and that is so desperately needed.
This will require a collaborative approach that facilitates inclusion by all providers, participants, the NDIS and governments on all levels. How do providers do this? Firstly, by concentrating on the one thing they do really well, CARE! Secondly, by effective communicating their message to the participants and organisations they want to work with. There are so many agencies not only because of supply and demand but also because we are all unique with our own unique way of doing things and that is OK. Not every participant is your participant and nor should they be.
Reach out if you would like help clarifying your ideal participant or if you are struggling with ways of finding your ideal participant. www.hasslefreemarketing.com.au or email: greg@hasslefreemarkting.com.au Lets all start collaborating to make the NDIS stronger and better for all most importantly to be able to give people with disabilities the same chance at life that all those without disabilities have. After all we are “STRONGER TOGETHER!”
