For Providers: Tips on Supporting Your NDIS Clients Choice & Control
One of the founding features of the NDIS is ensuring more ‘choice and control’ for NDIS participants when it comes to their lives, funding, and support services. This means that participants are likely to seek out providers that act in their best interests. So… how can provider support choice and control throughout their clients’ NDIS journey?
Tip #1 Get to know your client
One of the best ways you can support your clients is by getting to know them personally. Get to know what their support needs are, their goals and any other information that they are comfortable sharing with you. The knowledge you can gain from your clients can be crucial in providing better services for them and building a strong, trustworthy relationship.
Tip #2 Always be transparent
Being transparent with your clients means you can provide them with the information they need to make more informed decisions about their plan, funding, and support needs. A great way to help ensure transparency as a provider is through a service agreement. Service agreements can make a huge difference to the way you are your client work together. It can be beneficial for both providers and participants.
Tip #3 Personalise your care
Everyone is different, and every client will have different support needs and wants. By working closely with your clients to better understand their goals, you can create more personalised support. This may include things like:
Communication preferences
Service agreements
How services are delivered
What expectations or goals your client has
Take the time to discuss all aspects of the support you can provide and work together with your client to create a personalised support plan.
Tip #4 Share information
As the saying goes, ‘knowledge is power’. You can share your knowledge with your clients and other participants (when relevant) to help them better understand their plan or the services you can provide. Some examples of how this could be done include:
Example #1: Provide resources
Appointments can only go for so long, which is why it can be beneficial to have a data base of resources, blogs, or even activities or exercises that you can share with your clients to help them in between appointments. This also provides an opportunity to build capacity.
Example #2: Disability Facebook groups
If you see a post in a disability group and you have the knowledge base to answer the question or provide some insights, this is an opportunity to showcase your knowledge without expecting anything in return. This not only helps provide key information that can help participants with choice and control, but it can also build trust and rapport with clients and potential clients.
Example #3: Create short form content
As a provider, you may be able to provide clients and other participants access to short form content. This can showcase your knowledge base while also offering information that could make a huge difference to a client or NDIS participant. This is something more and more specialists are doing on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
If you have a participant who is plan managed with First2Care, you can register your details with our First2Care team for quick and easy payment processing. Read more about First2Care Plan Management here.