CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
National Steering Group on
Self-Directed Services and Personal Budgets
National Steering Group on
Self-Directed Services and Personal Budgets
Developing self-directed care and personal budgets in disability,
mental health, aged care, chronic illness management, and
special education.
mental health, aged care, chronic illness management, and
special education.
Expressions of interest are invited from individuals, families and support organisations wishing to participate in a National Steering Group on Self-Directed Services and Personal Budgets.
The National Steering Group will guide and coordinate initiatives around Australia in self-management of care and support packages in aged care, disability, chronic and mental illness, and special education. It will play a leadership role in developing tools and systems for individuals and families to use in self-management, and in collaborating with services and support organisations in developing and implementing self-management practices.
The National Steering Group will guide and coordinate initiatives around Australia in self-management of care and support packages in aged care, disability, chronic and mental illness, and special education. It will play a leadership role in developing tools and systems for individuals and families to use in self-management, and in collaborating with services and support organisations in developing and implementing self-management practices.
The Group will be convened at The Self-Management Conference on 2-3 May 2010 in Melbourne. This conference will review developments towards self-management around the country, and take initiatives to further the take-up of self-management of care and support by large numbers of Australians.
Click here to express your interest in joining the National Steering Group.
THE SELF-MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE Click here to express your interest in joining the National Steering Group.
Doing It Ourselves in Aged Care, Chronic and Mental Illness, Disability and Special Education
2-3 May 2011
Melbourne - Angliss Conference Centre
Register Here
Key Speakers
Anita Gordon has been self-managing her disability package in the ACT for the last two years, and has been able to increase threefold her number of support hours. Her method is now being trialled throughout the ACT. [photo, top right: Anita]
Anita Gordon has been self-managing her disability package in the ACT for the last two years, and has been able to increase threefold her number of support hours. Her method is now being trialled throughout the ACT. [photo, top right: Anita]
Rachel Johnson is Director of the Mamre Family Support Associaton in Brisbane, which has been assisting families to self-manage funding and directly employ support staff for over ten years.
Rob Gill is General Manager of Manawanui In Charge Ltd in Auckland, which pioneered the introduction of individualised funding in New Zealand between 2005 and 2009.
Lyn Zanchetta manages her 40 year old daughter Lisa's Home First disability package.[photo, right: Lyn and Lisa]
Margaret Gray manages her 92 year old mother's EACH aged care package.
Siegried Drews managed his wife Mardi's 24 hour care needs through a technology portal he designed himself to assist in the direct employment of staff.
Siegried Drews managed his wife Mardi's 24 hour care needs through a technology portal he designed himself to assist in the direct employment of staff.
Suzette Gallagher has managed her 45 year old son Shaun's disability package for many years.
George Vassilou manages both his ageing mother's care package and his 23 year old daughter Natasha's disability package.
This conference is concerned with the practical question of "How" to make self-management viable and doable by large numbers of individuals and families. It will examine working models from around Australia and New Zealand, and explore strategies for making self-management happen on a large scale. It will explore ways of improving the available infrastructure, technology tools, peer and professional supports.
This conference is concerned with the practical question of "How" to make self-management viable and doable by large numbers of individuals and families. It will examine working models from around Australia and New Zealand, and explore strategies for making self-management happen on a large scale. It will explore ways of improving the available infrastructure, technology tools, peer and professional supports.
The style of the conference will be one of learning from peers, sharing information, and networking.
KEY PRESENTERS
Anita Gordon - Disability
Anita has been using a wheelchair since she had a stroke in 1998. Over the last two years she has been developing a method of self-managing her ACT disability support package.
By self-managing her funding and directly employing her own support staff, Anita has found that:
By self-managing her funding and directly employing her own support staff, Anita has found that:
- She has been able to increase her number of support hours by three times, after cutting out administration and brokerage fees payable to agencies.
- Her costs of purchasing equipment have dropped by up to 50% compared to the cost of purchasing through government.
- Support workers have become affordable on weekends and public holidays.
- Relationships with support workers and continuity have improved by selecting and dealing directly with support staff.
Click here to register your interest in Anita's model if you or a family member receive a disability support package.
George Vassilou - Ageing and Disability
George is a pioneer in family-management of disability supports for his daughter Natasha. George is also a pioneer in applying the same methodology to the management of supports for his elderly mother.
Following a profile of his family-managed arrangements on The 7.30 Report on ABC Television in November 2009, George has, with approval from the Federal Minister for Aged Care, established an important precedent - families are entitled to self-manage Home and Community Care funding packages for their family members if they want to.
We'd like to hear from families wanting to self-manage their aged care package. We will make available tools for managing the package, supply information and support on how to proceed, and direct families to appropriate host agencies willing to host family-managed arrangements.Following a profile of his family-managed arrangements on The 7.30 Report on ABC Television in November 2009, George has, with approval from the Federal Minister for Aged Care, established an important precedent - families are entitled to self-manage Home and Community Care funding packages for their family members if they want to.
Click here to register your interest in George's model if you or a family member receive an aged care package.
Rachel Johnson - Mental Health and Disability
Rachel is Director of the Mamre Family Support Associaton in Brisbane, which has been assisting families to self-manage funding and directly employ support staff for over ten years.
Mamre has developed a philosophy of the "natural authority" of families in the care and support of their loved ones, which underpins its radically innovative work.
"Mamre believes that, regardless of capacity or skill, families have a natural authority and are entitled to influence the direction of their family member's life, if they have remained faithful and committed to that person's development and well-being.
Mamre intends to be a radical Christian community response to the expressed needs of families, rather than a professional service response."
Click here to register your interest in Mamre's philsoophy and approach to self-managed disability supports. Margaret Gray - Ageing
Margaret's mother will be 93 in November. She has no dementia but is ACAS-assessed as High Care as she is wheelchair bound and frail. She lives with Margaret and her husband in outer metropolitan Melbourne in a house they bought to accommodate her care. In January 2010 they were allocated an EACH aged care package.
The EACH package is worth $43,205. It appears there is no requirement for Approved Providers to allocate the entire package value to an ageing person’s requirements. This means that only 75% of the package, or $32,409, is available for services for Margaret's mother which must be accessed using an agency and the rule of thumb here is that work is charged at a 50% mark-up on the rates actually paid. [When an agency charges a flat hourly rate of $36.50, care workers are paid $19.]Margaret's mother will be 93 in November. She has no dementia but is ACAS-assessed as High Care as she is wheelchair bound and frail. She lives with Margaret and her husband in outer metropolitan Melbourne in a house they bought to accommodate her care. In January 2010 they were allocated an EACH aged care package.
Of a package of $43,205, our overheads are $4,448, leaving $38,757 for hours of service instead of the $16,204 that the Approved Industry Providers leave us.
Click here to register your interest in Margaret's model.
Lyn Zanchetta - Disability
Lyn's daughter Lisa is 40 years old. She was born with Spina Bifida, and several years ago, was diagnosed with kerato-conus (thinning of the cornea). Lisa is wheelchair bound, and has a busy life.
Lisa was originally on the Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS) Home First Program, and since May 1st 2008, Lyn have been managing Lisa's support package ($60,000) herself, doing Direct Payments and Direct Employment.
Lyn have a team of 6 carers. They all follow a care plan, and they all receive a good hourly rate, much more than any service provider would pay. Lyn pays them fortnightly, and does the quarterly tax, super, and group certificates at the end of the financial year. She prepares all contracts, pay workcover, and as she has full control of Lisa's package, she is able to use it all on Lisa's care and equipment.
These arrangements cut out the middle man (service provider) who would otherwise take around $18-20,000 of the $60,000 to manage the fund.
Lisa was originally on the Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS) Home First Program, and since May 1st 2008, Lyn have been managing Lisa's support package ($60,000) herself, doing Direct Payments and Direct Employment.
Lyn have a team of 6 carers. They all follow a care plan, and they all receive a good hourly rate, much more than any service provider would pay. Lyn pays them fortnightly, and does the quarterly tax, super, and group certificates at the end of the financial year. She prepares all contracts, pay workcover, and as she has full control of Lisa's package, she is able to use it all on Lisa's care and equipment.
These arrangements cut out the middle man (service provider) who would otherwise take around $18-20,000 of the $60,000 to manage the fund.
Siegfried Drews - Health and Disability
I retired about seven years after a career in the corporate world, but life took an unexpected turn when my wife Mardi developed Motor Neurone Disease. I became busy coordinating her care, which involved 24 hour nursing support, and having carers coming through the house at all hours.
I retired about seven years after a career in the corporate world, but life took an unexpected turn when my wife Mardi developed Motor Neurone Disease. I became busy coordinating her care, which involved 24 hour nursing support, and having carers coming through the house at all hours.
Over the past five years, I have developed a technology platform to support the planning, logistics, administration and reporting functions associated with supporting Mardi's care. I found that doing all this manually is a nightmare. I also found that the agencies that supply carers can't be relied on, and so I've developed a match-making system for families who need carers to find and employ them directly. It's like an internet dating service for families who need carers.
The result is a portal through which Mardi's carers could be employed, rostered and paid electronically, other supports and services can be budgeted for, purchased and accounted for, and her public funders (the Victorian DHS) can view the flow of people and money as they wish. The portal integrates planning, budgeting, financial transactions, reporting, and local networking (if required) in a format applicable to children and adults in disability, chronic illness, mental health, aged care and education.
I am getting old so I have no interest in commercialising this. There will be no licencing or contracts. It will be free for users with the exception of a set-up fee (which I want to keep as low as possible) and an optional fee for customisation (if required). Its purpose is to enable self-management and to leverage integrated person-centred arrangements for consumers and families on a very large scale.The result is a portal through which Mardi's carers could be employed, rostered and paid electronically, other supports and services can be budgeted for, purchased and accounted for, and her public funders (the Victorian DHS) can view the flow of people and money as they wish. The portal integrates planning, budgeting, financial transactions, reporting, and local networking (if required) in a format applicable to children and adults in disability, chronic illness, mental health, aged care and education.
The portal is currently being trialled in two settings in Victoria. I will be available from the beginning of 2011 for large scale use.
It is incredible that the business practices of service providers in the field of care are about 30 years behind the rest of industry. We need a lot of political pressure from people with disabilities and families to force them to catch up and focus on the 'customer' and not on themselves.
Click here to register your interest in Sieg's technology platform for self-management.
Siegfried's self-management tool is called Web2Care. It was developed as a web-based portal through which his wife Mardi's carers could be rostered and paid electronically; additional supports could be budgeted, purchased and accounted for; a complete financial account could be generated electronically, and Mardi's public funders could view the flow of people and money as they wish.
The portal also contains a match-making function linking support workers with people who are seeking support workers, so that support workers and support recipients can directly find each without having to work through agencies.
The tool has three modules:
The Rostering Tool (Admin2Care) enables you to produce a roster of support, share this roster online with support workers so that variations can be made easily, with a time-tracker device for recording time worked, a wage and costs calculator, and a payslips, invoices, and report generator.
The Match-Taking Tool (Match2Care) enables support workers and people requiring support workers to find each other using a visual data base built on Google Maps to enable local matches, with search results linking to support workers and support recipients' profile pages, and to respective rosters showing 'Vacant Shifts' and 'Support Worker Availability'.
The Accounting Tool (Account2Care) enables you to keep track of all financial transactions and generate reports, not only related to your support activity, but to private and other business matters if you wish.
The process for participation is simple: consumers/families are invited to express an interest in this self-management tool. An initial assessment is made on suitability, and on approval participants register on the web-based system. Data entry is end-user controlled and maintained.
Click here to register your interest in Sieg's technology platform for self-management.
Click here to register your interest in Sieg's technology platform for self-management.
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