Mark Howells

People working in aged care should have access to the same legal rights as people working in other settings. One concern I have with the new Aged Care Act is that it creates broad powers for the Commissioner, Complaints Commissioner, or System Governor to compel people (not just registered providers or aged care employees) to produce information or answer questions, including compelling them to take an oath or affirmation [Ch6 Part 10 Div 3]. The threshold for applying this power is very low. As far as I can see the Commissioner just needs to believe the person has information relevant to whether a provider is complying, not that there is non-compliance; the Complaints Commissioner and System Governor just need to believe the person has information relevant to their functions [clause 488-489]. Standard legal protections are narrowed in relation to this power to exclude protection from a person making themselves liable for a penalty and legal professional privilege [compare s17 & s47 of the Reg Powers Act with clause 496 of the Bill]. The Bill already provides substantial monitoring and investigation powers under Ch 6 Part 2 – Part 5, which are broadly consistent with the Reg Powers Act but also allow warrantless entry where the Commissioner believes there is immediate and severe risk of harm to an older person [Ch6 Part 5]. The powers created under Ch6 Part 10 Div therefore, in my view, represent an extreme impingement on individual rights by the state without explanation or precedent being given. The Bill is supposed to be about human rights, but core element of human rights is protection from coercion by the state. This is mostly a matter of principle. A good provider will pretty much always be happy to answer questions from the regulator. And a good regulator won't misuse this power. However, we shouldn't design laws that rely on everyone being a good person. There are bad apples in business. And there are bad apples in government too. And lots of harm has been done in service to good intentions. Realistically providers will be well advised enough to make responses that protect their interests. E.g. That they are unsure. Can't remember. Need time to check their records and will come back with a written response. Individual workers are the people most likely to go into this process without representation and fall victim to misuse of this power. #agedcare

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Some information was released overnight about the LNP Housing Plan, ahead of today's State Budget reply speech. While there are still many details to come, it's encouraging to see some of the proposed measures in scope, including shared equity programs and major infrastructure partnerships with local government to increase housing supply. New and innovative concepts for maximising church-owned land and utiliising vacant bedrooms make for interesting reading. And if the reports are accurate, there is a strong commitment to achieving housing targets leading up to 2046. Q Shelter is looking forward to unpacking all the details and providing useful budget analysis for the sector. This will include areas of convergence with the major parties on housing policy and differences in approaches. https://lnkd.in/g6FcR_Qh Stay tuned. #StateBudget #Housing #Homelessness #HomeMatters #BetterTogether #Queensland

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#TLDR #HealthAdvocacy #Job https://lnkd.in/g9fUqZDD For many people in the WA health system, Health Consumers' Council WA is known for its engagement and systemic advocacy. But what's less visible, is the important work we do supporting individuals to understand and assert their rights in health. This free service - thanks to funding from the WA Department of Health and the Mental Health Commission - is available to anyone accessing any type of healthcare in WA: public hospital, private hospital, GPs, mental health, community health. (The only exception is people who have been involuntarily admitted to mental health services - who are able to access advocacy from the Mental Health Advocacy Service.) Some typical enquiries include ✅️ being asked to support consumers with disability to support their advocacy because they are finding it hard to get their voice heard and fear they're not being offered treatment due to assumptions about their disability ✅️ helping an Aboriginal consumer to make a complaint about not being heard as they sought healthcare for a family member ✅️ supporting a family to meet with hospital staff as the family try to find out what happened to their loved one ✅️ attending an appointment with a consumer and their GP to support the consumer to be heard after the relationship had become tense We don't advertise our service, but there's always a wait list. This role is available because of some short term funding we've been given, but we have a plan in place to extend access to this for more people in the WA community. To my mind, individual advocacy is an essential pillar of clinical governance, particularly in a system with so much power imbalance and complexity. We're looking for an experienced advocate to join our team - details at the link below - and support people in the community to understand and assert their health rights. This is one of four roles we're advertising at the moment.

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Yesterday's data on disability prevalence tells a disappointing story, with increases in severe and profound impairment rates in older age groups from 2018 to 2022 I suspect this is driven by collection method changes as this is the first time an online survey has been offered (or possibly the impact of COVID) as there are similar increases across all age and sex-cohorts. However, it does mean we'll need to be more cautious interpreting the previous downward trend. Another interesting finding is that the extent to which people feel their needs are being met has dropped significantly for the second consecutive survey in a row. Noting that most people in the survey are living in the community it does raise some questions about how well home care is working since the move to individual budgets, and the emphasis on additional investment into home care packages rather than commonwealth home support. I don't draw any definitive conclusions from these results, since the answer to this sort of question can be heavily influenced by changes in expectations. But it should prompt some further investigation of what is going on.

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🌟 Have Your Say: Mandatory Registration for Supported Independent Living (SIL) and Support Coordination 🌟 The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission is seeking your input on proposed changes to improve the quality and safety of Supported Independent Living (SIL) and support coordination services. 🔑 Key Highlights: Mandatory Registration: All SIL and support coordination providers will be required to register with the NDIS Commission, ensuring stronger safeguards and consistent support standards. Transition Period: Providers will have time to align with these new requirements, while participants continue to receive uninterrupted supports. 📢 Why Participate? Your feedback will shape how these changes are implemented, ensuring they address the needs of NDIS participants, providers, and the broader community. 📅 How to Get Involved: Complete the survey: https://lnkd.in/gVaE_sp8 Submit written feedback: [email protected] 💬 Share your thoughts by March 2025

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MyCareSpace connects thousands of NDIS Participants with NDIS services every year, allowing Participants to choose the NDIS Providers they want to work with. We strive to offer Participants access to Providers who understand their obligations to the community and offer a quality service, regardless of their NDIS Registration status. We are working on our submission to the NDIS Provider and Worker Registration Taskforce which is providing advice to Bill Shorten on the design and implementation of a 'risk-proportionate' model of registration. Many Providers may not have the time or resources to make a submission, so we invite all NDIS Providers to share your opinions with us so that we can include them with our submission. If you are a Provider of NDIS services, big or small, registered or unregistered, HAVE YOUR VOICE HEARD by completing our Survey. #ndiscompliance #ndisproviders #ndistaskforce #qualityandsafeguards Natalie Wade Angela Vithoulkas Debra Zinman Chris Hall Heather Pollock Walter Tran Rohan Pardasani Rick R.

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Join over 200+ aged care professionals already registered for our August webinar to learn how data and technology can drive productivity and value in your organisation. Hear from industry expert Luke Benson from Blue Bike, who is collaborating with several large aged care providers on the latest tech strategies. Gain insights into the most common mistakes providers make and the key areas to focus on for achieving success. Register now: https://hubs.la/Q02K8J_j0 #MakingAgedCareBetter #AgedCareAustralia #DigitalTransformation

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Government Grant funding between $80,000 and $400,000 to support projects which prevent technology facilitated abuse of women. Projects should be focussed on the prevention of online harm and enhanced safety for women and children. For example projects may: - Aim to change community attitudes and behaviours, - Focus on the perpetrators of technology-facilitated abuse, or - Seek to protect and support women and children. Up to $600,000 of the total funding is allocated to organisations delivering projects that focus on prevention of tech-based abused of First Nations women. Eligible applicants must: - Hold an ABN. - Be registered for GST. - Have an Australian bank account. - Be a legal entity. - Be a non-government organisation, NFP or charitable organisation registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit commission. - Be financially viable. Eligible applicants for priority funding as a First Nations focussed project must: - Be an Aboriginal Controlled Community Organisation (ACCO), or - Be an organisation that is primarily focussed on achieving outcomes for First Nations communities, or - Be an organisation that is partnering with one of these eligible entities. Applications must be submitted by rpm (ACT local time) on 16th December 2024. For more information and to access the online application form follow the link below. If you need assistance with your application or an independent review to increase your potential for success please contact GrantSmart vie direct message.

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Taking NDIS referrals can be a overwhelming mix of phone calls, texts, emails, and documents. It is no wonder NDIS providers can take longer to create Support Plans. Due to the wild array of inputs, there are risks, however, that important nuances can be missed, which can lead to worse participant outcomes. It is CRUCIAL to get this data right, be comprehensive, and to turn around Support Plans as fast as possible, so that proper supports can commence! We cannot forget that Support Plans are a basis for training our support workers too. If you would like how to know how to AUTOMATICALLY create Support Plans then come check out my Webinar this Tuesday 7th May at 1pm. Type "interested" in the comments below or send me a DM to get the details.... #ndis #intake #support #optimisation

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🍻 Pub Testing the NDIS Bill Part 3 of 6: “What do we want? Review rights & NDIS supports tailored to individual needs” 🍻 🚨 Content Warning 🚨 ⚠️ This video series discusses scenarios potentially leading to the preventable deaths of people with disabilities, including by suicide. Viewer discretion is advised. The Government is encouraged to respond meaningfully to our concerns.⚠️ This unscripted discussion addresses some of the things keeping disability advocates Uli Cartwright and Cat Walker up at night, and some of the concerns we covered in our submissions to the two Senate inquiries on the NDIS Bill which have not yet been addressed at the time of publication. After a very long day, we started from a discussion of the difficulty government officials seem to have understanding that debts against NDIS participants cannot exist unless somebody makes a subjective judgement that they have misspent their funds. The previous clip questioned the double standards and messaging around integrity, and the impact on participants. This one goes into review rights and why they matter in the context of compliance and changes to the definition of funded supports. All of the topics we touch on must be considered in the context of the potentially devastating consequences of vulnerable individuals receiving a government debt notice, as our submission co-author Kath Madgwick knows all too well. However, when it comes to WHAT we can access with our funds and how NDIS support is defined, there are also risks of other adverse outcomes – including death – if we cannot access supports we genuinely need, when we need them. And don't forget: Debts can still be raised on the 'in' list items. Targeted review rights for how a participant has spent their plan – and on what – are therefore not only essential procedural fairness, but would legally enforce a person-centred lens on determinations potentially resulting in a debt being raised. External scrutiny of that process is critical to ensure participants are not punished for failure of the Agency to provide appropriate support tailored to that individual's needs, because even when people do get it wrong, the first question should be if appropriate recognition of – and support for – that person's situation was lacking. Duty of care first, above all. We hope NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is listening. We hope the wider community is, too. (Bill Shorten might also like to unblock Uli on here.) Anthony Albanese Australian Labor Party Department of Social Services (DSS) Daniel White Uli Cartwright Kath Madgwick David Pocock Jordon Steele-John Jacqui Lambie Dr George Taleporos (GAICD, PhD) Rosemary Kayess Sam Paior JP, MAICD Corri McKenzie Chris Coombes Belinda Kochanowska Georgia van Toorn Annie Crowe ♿️♾️ ⭐️ Marayke Jonkers PLY (MAICD ) Samantha Connor William Ward-Boas Jarrod Sandell-Hay Helen Dickinson Ellen Gould Naomi Colville Jess Harper Mark Pietsch The Australian Neurodivergent Parents Association

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Please read and share. Outdoor Health Australia (OHA) is encouraging all members of the community to fill in two short surveys: 1) Outdoor Health Australia NDIS Supports Survey - closing mid-day Thursday 22nd August - to help OHA best reflect the needs of the outdoor health community when advocating to NDIS: https://lnkd.in/gVf2jXKU 2) The NDIS supports consultation survey - closing 5pm Sunday 25th August, but even you have already completed NDIS survey you may be able to complete it again to add additional feedback. https://lnkd.in/ggNJiUn4

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Apparently, the nation needs an Australian Sports Commission in 2024, because .... well, because sport seems to need a Canberra bureaucracy like every other facet of life in the 21st century. After all, without a #Sports #Commission who would allocate and receive sporting grants, report on those grants to other managers, record and evaluate that data, and then work on allocating and receiving next year's grants? Never mind that Australia's sporting #culture and legacy was established 150 years ago when nobody imagined, in their wildest dreams, that running around and hitting balls would ever need a #managerial class and career paths and financing mechanisms and communications strategies, since we managed, somehow, to build a global #reputation as a nation of #bronzed athletes without any bureaucracy in sport at all. None whatsoever. How did that happen? How did we ever manage to learn to #hop, #skip and #jump without an Australian Sports Commission in Canberra?

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Early intervention is where it all starts, providing best outcomes for vulnerable children.

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Economic Abuse Awareness Day - 26 November Economic Abuse Awareness Day is observed on 26 November. Terese Edwards from Single Mother Families has authored an insightful Op-Ed, and today featured a webinar with key experts discussing significant findings and recommendations for improving child support and related policy changes. For more details, refer to the full report at https://lnkd.in/gGvyZBqd. https://lnkd.in/g9TAzE2d #16DaysofActivism

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Positive Behaviour support: bang for buck? The NDIS developed the capability framework that set out the requirements for behaviour support practitioners, however, it was up to providers to ensure compliance with both. For some time, the number of allocated hours in NDIS plans for behaviour support has been dropping. This results in a situation where a participant and practitioner have limited hours to address behaviours of concern. Practitioners are utilising hours for reports to validate the regulatory requirements which reduces the available hours for face-to-face behaviour support. This does not suggest that evidentiary practices are redundant, yet it does create a situation where the primary support network question the use of hours. It is common for the support network and participants to request that certain reports not be done as they prefer the hours be directed to intervention strategies. As a result, behaviour support practitioners are in the position of having to educate them as to why they are necessary. The standard doesn’t allow participants choice and control. Therefore, behaviour support providers are having to say to clients we need to do these reports to “tick” the box yet offering little flexibility to meet the needs of participants. Effectively, behaviour support work has become very report and assessment-based rather than focused on teaching, and resolving the behaviours they were engaged for. This is a clear contradiction to the need for PBS, as hours are not being used to address behaviours of concern. Data collection from these reports is a big part of the work a BSP does. The data helps to validate the assessments and reports. It is clear evidence to back up their claims and helps participants to gain further support funding. However, primary support networks see this to be a burden to them, especially when they are experiencing carer burnout. There is also a lack of qualified behaviour support practitioners in this space. They need to have maturity and life experience to be more relatable to clients and their support networks. Behaviour practitioners need to stick around, go the distance and deliver for their clients. But this can’t be done when BSPs stay for 4 months, where they would complete a lot of report writing, and clients would not have made much progress in face-to-face hours. Clients want reliability, yet most providers can’t give them that as they see multiple practitioners. It is a cycle of meeting a new practitioner, understanding the situation, and then leaving without any real deliverables. Neither the client nor the provider benefit from this when both are genuinely powered by outcomes. I am in no way devaluing the work of a BSP, they play an important role in supporting clients. They follow the guidelines and meet the criteria at every step. But have we become too focused on data and reports, over the important things in supporting a participant? You can’t “cookie cutter” BSP work.

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This is new & exciting - Check out the link in Emily Gillmartin bio - #ReflectivePractice #generalpractitioners #burnoutprevention #professionalgrowth #medicalpractitioner

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The Ballarat Community Saturation Model supported by Respect Victoria looks like a potentially great initiative, 'though' will stretch already-stretched services https://lnkd.in/g8N5_jud While it is not for me - as a white, former-male (still with oodles of male privilege) who is not part of the community to speculate about might be involved in the model - I do wonder how responders in the community can be supported to engage with men who cause family and sexualised violence harm. This is not only about human, community and statutory services and practitioners - from a wide range of workforces - building skills in having safe, courageous conversations with men and others who cause harm, in ways that centre on the needs of adult and child victim-survivors. This is of course super important, and we have decades of skill-building to go here. It's also about any responder - friend, family member, business or government department, faith leader, mentor - that might collude or even inadvertently enable the person causing harm in his tactics of coercive control. And this is not only about courageous conversations to attempt to refer the user of violence to a men's behaviour change program, as important as this can be. It's also about many other community responses that can make a difference to victim-survivor lives. Some men are so down the rabbit hole of righteous indignation and "I'm the real victim here!" thinking that it's not about attempting to motivate him towards a program (at least not at the current moment). It might however be about his friends not backing him up when he insists on attending a community event that his former partner wants to go to but would avoid if he is there (why should she miss out on going, if he's the one who has caused harm?). It might be helping him to realise the damage he is doing to his children (who he professes to love) through his economic violence behaviours. It might be not colluding with his view that the Family Violence Intervention Order is a "crock of ...". All of these 'little' responses by those in the man's life can make a difference to the extent of harm that he is able to cause. Community 'natural' responders can be as, and sometimes more, important than those in formal service systems and statutory authorities. Just as victim-survivors can benefit from 'pods' of community-based support that they can draw upon to limit the harms they and their family experience due to his behaviours (and due to inflexible systems), and so that they are not resisting his violence alone, we can grow the capacity for community-based pods to respond non-collusively and 'supportively' to those who cause harm. Even if motivating him to participate in a men's behaviour change program is, at the moment, well out of reach.

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So today the Castlemaine Mail has published our story about our need to seek fair pricing from the NDIS. The Loddon Mallee Disability Alliance remains collaborative in our approach to see fair pricing. #4abetterndis #lmda NDIS pricing short-changing locals By Castlemaine Mail July 19, 2024 Leah Taaffe, CEO Community Living & Respite Services; Janette Martin, CEO Lifely; Natasha Williams, CEO Golden City Support Services; and Mike Amor, CEO Windarring are disappointed with the pricing review. The Loddon Mallee Disability Alliance (LMDA) has condemned the NDIS Annual Pricing Review for short-changing regional people with disabilities, cautioning that it could lead to the collapse of quality regional providers and leave participants across the region stranded unless pricing issues are addressed now. The alliance says the recently released NDIS Annual Pricing Review fails to meet the sector’s needs amid rising operational costs. Price caps for everyday supports increased by only 3.19 per cent, while therapies, support coordination, and plan management have remained stagnant for five years. “The government has ignored calls from reputable NDIS-registered providers to rectify known errors and ensure fair pricing that reflects the true cost of delivering quality disability services . “Regional providers face unique challenges, such as rising travel costs, staffing shortages, and the responsibility to deliver unfunded crisis and coordination services in underserved country areas, that NDIS pricing does not consider. “Our alliance members serve some of the state’s most vulnerable families. If just one or two providers close their doors, it will create a ripple effect, straining all disability providers and impacting our overburdened health services.

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