NDIS, Mental Health and Organisational Change: Learning from the WA Disability Sector’s Journey

toward Individualised Services

Ian Moore Executive Manager, Mental Health & Disability Services

Ian.moore@unitingcarewest.org.au

Introduction

• A framework for understanding the interface between mental health and disability

• Some Implications for changing relationships

• Maintaining mission in a market environment

• Workforce capacity building

About UnitingCare West

• Established by Uniting Church in 2006

• Support, serve and empower people most in need

• Twelve Service Areas across three Directorates (40 individual programs)

• 300 staff and approximately 300 volunteers

• Four streams of revenue – Annual Turnover $30m – Government Funding

– Individual Resourcing

– Philanthropy

– Social Enterprise

Definitions

WA Disability Services Act (1993) Australian Institute of

Health and Welfare (AIHW)

Disability Discrimination Act (1992)

Definitions

The World Health Organisation (WHO):

“Disability is the umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions, referring to the negative aspects of the interaction between an individual (with a health condition) and that individual’s contextual factors (environmental and personal factors)”

World Health Organisation

Implications for changing relationships

Funder

Service Consumer

Provider

Consumer

Services

Implications for changing relationships

Funder

Service Consumer

Provider

Consumer

Relationships

$ Choice and

Control

Key Questions… Relationship

• What services do people really want?

• What do we offer in terms of choice and control?

• How do we measure outcomes? How do we articulate these?

• Do people know who we are and what we do? What is our marketing strategy?

Funding • What does it cost to deliver a unit of service? e.g. an hour of personal support or an

hour of facilitated intervention etc.

• What do we bring to the consumer in terms of value add?

• Do we understand our cash flow?

• Does our organisation have the financial/administrative systems to cope with the extra demand?

Mission in Market

UnitingCare West is a:

• Faith based community service agency;

• Missional focus on ‘Most in Need’;

• Not for profit organisation;

• Based on the values of Empathy, Respect, Integrity, Inclusion and Commitment;

• Delivering Government funded services as well as self funded and philanthropically funded services.

Changing Policy Trends

• market liberalisation, low tax, low spend, pro-market, growth, jobs Economy

• targeted, means-tested, work- based, equity-focus, conditional, capped unit cost

Social/Policy

UCW PHaMS Participants and the Intersection

with NDIS

SPMI with complex needs – 49%

SMI (temporary/episodic or without complex needs) –

41%

Need for psychosocial support with or without formal diagnosis - 10%

Projected Australian Government funding for

NDIS and other disability services

Key Questions…

• Who are the people who currently access our services (age, geographic areas, specific needs, cultural background etc.)?

• Who do we want to be supporting in the future? Do these people know who we are and what we do?

• What does person centred planning look like form a recovery perspective?

Mission in Market

Key Questions…

• Who are the people who currently access our services (age, geographic areas, specific needs, cultural background etc)?

• Who do we need to be supporting in the future?

• Do these people know who we are and what we do?

• How do we continue to support people who might not be eligible for funding in the future?

• How do we continue with policy and advocacy work that will not be covered by funding?

• How do we ensure that our organisation remains vibrant, mission driven and sustainable under the trend towards a stronger market focus for community service delivery?

Workforce Capacity Building

Recruitment and Retention

Peer Workforce Strategy

Training & Skill Development

Responsiveness

Key questions….

Workforce Capacity Building • Who are we trying to recruit? What is the best way of targeting these people?

• What makes us an employer of choice? What is our value add?

• How do we celebrate and support diversity in the workforce?

• What is our Peer workforce development strategy?

• What is our staff competency profile? What gaps are there? And what are our strategies to address this?

• What is our current culture? What are staff attitudes towards the sector changes?

• What is our current retention rate? What do we know makes our staff happy/unhappy?

• What do flexible contracts mean for our organisation and the consumers of our services?

• How do we ensure that staff have a work life balance?

summary

• Don’t underestimate the impact of this reform on how you currently deliver services.

• Develop the capacity to work with uncertainty.

• Learn from the consumers of your services about what they need and what they want – don’t assume anything.

• Advocate for those at risk of losing access to services.

• Start now.