We’re Seeking Psychosocial Recovery Coaches

Why?

The NDIS included Psychosocial Recovery Coaching (PRC) in the July 2020 NDIS Price Guide. Our problem is finding practitioners and organisations able to provide this service under the NDIS.

Recovery Coaching and Positive Behaviour Support can be powerful allies in making life better for people. As specialist therapists we are eager to refer to and support any organisation or practitioner who is providing person-centred PRC.

The medical system, on its own, is frequently limited in its capacity to help people recover mental health and their quality of life. That’s where the NDIS can help.

Psychosocial Recovery is about social reconnection and the development of empowering skills that restore freedom, meaning and function. It’s a powerful, consumer-led, person-centred, and participatory model of support.

Who’s PRC for?

Psychosocial crises are part of ordinary life. We all need a coach, or a wise friend to mentor and guide us through a period of grief, overwhelm, learning, social adjustment or personal growth.

PRC is for people who are accessing NDIS because of chronic psychosocial impairments.

What’re the barriers to PRC?

Here are some barriers we see:

• PRC is a new thing in the NDIS. It’s a change. Change takes time to understand.
• The NDIS does not tend to fund PRC for people with Support Coordination in their NDIS Plan. It’s PRC or Support Coordination. Rarely both.
• To become a PRC you need all the knowledge and skill of a Support Coordinator (e.g. what’s the difference between SIL, SDA, and Short-term Accommodation?) AND experience in Mental Health support.
• PRC is paid by the NDIS at an hourly rate about 20% less than Support Coordination.

What’s the opportunity here?

• When the NDIS announced last month they were no longer going to allow Support Coordination to be funded from Core, this was a worry. Who will guide Participants (without a Support Coordination budget) through the NDIS jungle now?
• What if all the mental-health savvy Support Coordinators were enabled to do a bit of PRC?
• This would preserve Support Coordination for many clients
• Support Coordination service providers could continue to employ and recruit staff
• Behaviour Support Providers could refer a lot of work to PRC services
• At the right volume, PRC could be part of a sustainable business model for providers, in spite of the lower hourly rate compared to Support Coordination
• Coaching is a mutually gratifying and rewarding role, likely to promote high levels of engagement among workers and Participants alike.

Who could benefit?

• NDIS Participants with Psychosocial disabilities
• Disability workers, Mental Health workers, and Support Coordinators
• Providers of Support Coordination who wish to diversify their service offering and stay ahead of change

Please contact us if...

• You are in a Support Coordination agency or in a team of Disability or Mental Health Support Workers,
• You have ideas on how we can make Psychosocial Recovery Coaching more easy for people to access, or
• You know lots about PRC (we do not), and are you willing to educate us more?

Please reach out to us at [email protected]

Cheers,

David Ackling-Jones