Community services

When you work with people with a disability you are supporting people in a way that profoundly impacts their life. How rewarding and life-changing is that? This online disability course is ideal for those who currently work in the sector or those aspiring to work in the industry.

The Induction to Disability course offers professional development for disability workers, including providing skills to facilitate the induction of staff and volunteers into various health and disability service roles. You will learn how to facilitate the empowerment of people with a disability and communicate confidently in disability services. You will also study how to follow safe work practices in direct client care and manage personal stressors in the work environment.

Learning Outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking an online disability course include:

• Learning how to facilitate the empowerment of people with a disability
• Exploring legal and social frameworks and disability and support services in Australia
• Gaining an understanding of the types of disability and legal, political and social frameworks
• Studying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)
• Examining the Charter of Human Rights, Australian legislation, privacy legislation and national and state/territory anti-discrimination legislation
• Understanding mandatory reporting legislation, child protection legislation and Duty of Care
• Attaining knowledge of the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020 and the National Standards for Disability Services
• Gaining insights into access and equity policies, ethical requirements, the dignity of risk and service provider strategies
• Learning about social justice, social models of disability, social construct and community attitudes, discriminatory attitudes and disability sector values
• Exploring advocacy services, rights-based service delivery, communication techniques and person-centred approaches
• Gaining an understanding of family partnerships, how to engage with carers and families and augmentative and alternative communication
• Studying adaptive technology, interpreter and translation services and collaborative decision making
• Examining how to provide individualised support, confirming plan details and client’s goals and expected outcomes
• Understanding how to assist with bathing, showering, dressing, oral hygiene, elimination and meals
• Attaining knowledge of independence, decision making, health and safety standards and procedures and Standard Operating Procedures
• Gaining insights into protocols, developing and maintaining trust and a person’s preferences and strengths
• Learning how to assemble equipment including transport equipment
• Exploring negligence, the dignity of risk and safe, comfortable and healthy environments
• Gaining an understanding of how to seek assistance from professionals and case management administration
• Studying regular performance evaluations, reviewing individualised plans and self-determination
• Accessing communication protocols, industry terminology and how to deal with difficult or complicated situations
• Studying threatening behaviours, barriers to effective communication, assertive communication and how to avoid, defuse and resolve conflict
• Examining how to report difficulties to your supervisor, mandatory reporting and equal opportunities and anti-discrimination
• Understanding client and employee rights and responsibilities, how to complete documentation and how to continuously improve
• Attaining knowledge of how to follow safe work practices for direct client care
• Gaining insights into policies, procedures, codes of practice, safe work practices, health and safety policies and legislation and how to report and manage work hazards
• Learning about behaviours of concern, work and occupational violence, risk management and how to perform a client home checklist
• Exploring violence incident report forms, how to work off-site safely and securely, document control and manual handling and lifting procedures
• Gaining an understanding of hygiene and inflectional control, waste disposal and how to report risks of infection
• Studying safety signs and symbols, how to conduct safety audits and implement safe workplace policies and procedures
• Examining how to manage stress and fatigue and evaluate training, commitment and systems

 

And more!

Opportunities in the Disability Sector

In August last year the Business Council of Australia chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, put forward a plan to help lift the country out of the COVID recession and address the mounting issue of Australia’s unemployment rate. She urged the government to focus on ten industry “winners” to support sectors in which Australia could be a world leader. One of those winners was the disability sector, mainly because it is an industry that strengthens communities, helps people and drives social change.

Dubbed the “greatest nation-building project on earth”, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is set to deliver $22 billion in services and support to Australians every year. These funds go directly to people with disabilities and their families, who use it to access services from businesses, local providers and therapy centres.

Funding is not money that can be spent elsewhere or saved by individuals, so every dollar of NDIS funding will bolster the Australian economy. As the Minister for the NDIS, Stuart Robert, commented, “It is expected that the NDIS will require an additional 90,000 workers over the next five years, almost doubling the currently estimated workforce of 100,000. This represents one of the largest job creation opportunities in Australia’s history.”

The majority of these new jobs are likely to be support worker roles that, as Robert explains, “means more young people, students, out-of-work job-seekers and people returning to work will be able to gain meaningful employment – work that fundamentally connects us and makes us kinder to each other”.

In addition, to support workers, new job roles in the sector will include therapists, coaches, social workers, inclusion specialists and assistive technology equipment providers. It also includes those in more specialist roles such as psychologists and behavioural support practitioners. And new and growing companies in the sector will require in-house staff across a range of departments from marketing and finance to IT and product design.

There is also an area of innovation around disability including online services like Telehealth and support worker platforms through to the development of cutting-edge technologies and hardware such as 3D printing. So the potential for start-ups, entrepreneurship and innovation in this sector is huge.

Then there are also the 365,000 plus NDIS participants to consider, which is estimated to grow to 500,000 participants over the next five years. With increased support and funding comes an increased capacity for these individuals and their family members to join the workforce. Over the coming years, this will have a massive impact on the nation’s recovery and also lead to a more inclusive society.

As experts have said, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reset the way we think about the Australian disability sector, positioning it as central to our entire community’s recovery and future prosperity. The industry is already benefiting from a world-first insurance scheme and, despite the current economic turmoil, it has led to a boom in disability service jobs. And you can be a  part of it with the skills and knowledge you will gain from undertaking an online disability course!

Future Trends in Disability Support

The NDIS was launched in July 2013, and since then it has delivered tangible change on many levels from technology to legislation. When you study an online disability course, you will become familiar with some of the trends that are set to change the entire disability landscape. Some of these include:

Home-based support

There is a wider trend of individuals choosing to move away from group supports particularly in large facilities. In many instances, this trend has been accelerated due to the challenges of COVID.

Support relationships

Building on the above trend of increased demand for home-based support, there is a strong trend towards establishing regular Support Workers and building robust relationships with them. Relationship building focuses on customer-first service as the primary goal, and again, in the current COVID climate, provides a much safer option by limiting the number of interactions with different people.

It is thought that this more person-centred and personalised support will lead to opportunities and skill development, and as we move out of COVID restrictions will see participants building more natural support networks and engaging more in their local communities.

Technology

Technology that enables client-directed choices to book and match with support workers seamlessly has moved forward in leaps and bounds. Optional accessible programs like the NNA Direct Support Service places control in the hands of the client and provide a simple way of finding and engaging a Support Worker.

Customer-first service delivery

This involves providing ways for greater choice and control moving forward as well as increased ways to deliver choices. It leads to increased quality and safeguarding, ensuring clients that purchase support have ways to confirm they are receiving the support they are paying for. It also involves independent checks to ensure providers are delivering quality support.

NDIS plan flexibility

A review undertaken in 2019 found elements of the NDIS Act were too rigid and a range of changes was proposed. This included providing more information for participants to support how they engage with the NDIS scheme, limiting wait times and increasing transparency on NDIA decisions. Hence, plans have been implemented to offer greater flexibility around how participants can spend their funds including making

Core and Capacity Building funds flexible. This opens up the ability for participants to get the support they need when they need it.

Health reviews

Australians with a disability were found to be three times more likely to delay seeing or not see a specialist because of cost. Two in five have also had difficulty physically accessing medical facilities and one in six experienced discrimination by health staff.  With NDIS participants wielding more control over how their core funds are utilised, services such as NNA Direct Support’s NDIS nursing services will therefore reduce, rather than increase support and increase a participant’s overall wellbeing.

 

Source: Joanne Kerno, 2020, Predicting the Future of Disability Support Services: A Service Manager’s take, Clickability

 

Feel confident to support clients and the induction of new workers and volunteers into various disability services roles with an online disability course such as our Induction to Disability.