Supporting People with Disability to Access Rewarding Employment: A Handy Support Coordinator’s Guide

Support Coordinators play a vital role in building participants’ capacity to explore rewarding employment opportunities. We outline the essential steps and skills required to adequately prepare your clients.

ByMary Ingerton, Managing Director at Support Coordination Academy.

Securing a rewarding job.

It’s a goal most of us aspire to – including people with disability.

Fortunately, the NDIS supports participants with their employment goals, and plenty of job pathways exist.

As a Support Coordinator, you play a vital role in bringing participants’ employment goals to life.

To ensure you can best execute that role, we detail how you can successfully prepare your clients for the workforce.

NDIS Support for Employment

There are various options available to NDIS participants to access support, develop skills and engage in employment within the NDIS Price Limits and Pricing Arrangements. 

For the NDIA to allocate these resources, a participant must have a specific goal focused on exploring, gaining and/or maintaining employment within their NDIS plan.

The aim of the funding is to empower a participant to overcome barriers to accessing rewarding employment.

The following are some of the resources available:

Within the Core budget:

• Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation.
• Supports in Employment.
• Specialised Supported Employment.

Within the Capacity Building Budget:

• Finding and Keeping a Job
  • Employment-related Assessment, Counselling and Advice.
  • Employment Assistance, including those aged 15 to 25 years.
• Other support items to assist successful development and placement in employment can be provided by a Support Coordinator, Psychosocial Recovery Coach or Support Worker.

Evaluating Client Readiness for Employment

Here are some important factors to consider when evaluating client readiness for employment:

Understanding Employment Readiness

To evaluate client readiness for employment, a Support Coordinator first needs to understand how to assess a participant’s readiness for work and identify any barriers the participant may face.

Employment readiness involves assessing whether a participant possesses the skills, confidence and resources needed to engage successfully in the workforce.

When supporting a participant to build their capacity to be job ready, a Support Coordinator needs to be mindful about making assumptions as to what employment means to that individual. 

The aim is to encourage a participant to share their interests and long-term vision of what employment looks like for them and adopt a person-centred approach – actively involving the individual in discussions about their employment goals and aspirations.

Assessments

There are various ways a Support Coordinator can help a participant to assess their readiness for employment.

A Support Coordinator can assist a participant to access a comprehensive employment-readiness assessment and counselling support to assess and build the skills of a participant to be job ready. 

Funding to access these services is available under the Finding and Keeping a Job budget category, as referenced earlier.

Mainstream government-funded services like Workforce Australia Employment Services are available, which offer a range of skills training, disability management services and employment support services.

As a Support Coordinator, you can assist a participant assess their readiness by exploring past work experiences, hobbies and desired roles.

Ask questions such as: ‘what type of work excites you the most?’ or ‘what challenges have you faced in a workplace setting?’. 

Identifying Barriers

Common barriers a participant may face in gaining employment include:

• Skills gaps or lack of qualifications or training.
• Practical issues like transportation, childcare or access to assistive technology or adaptive tools.
• Workplace concerns like accessibility or lack of inclusive practices.

Understanding the barriers a participant may face in accessing employment will assist a Support Coordinator to identify strategies to overcome these challenges. 

Strategies could include:

• Researching courses that a participant could access to develop the necessary skills to gain employment.
• Identifying transport options available in their area or, if appropriate, accessing assistive devices through NDIS funding.
• Supporting a participant to advocate for workplace modifications, such as flexible hours or accessible facilities.

Developing Effective Support or Action Plans

A great tool to assist a participant to work towards their employment goals is to develop a specific support or action plan. 

This enables a participant to review their progress against their goals and develop strategies to overcome barriers. It also provides the participant with something tangible that they can own and take responsibility for.

The aim of an Action Plan is set achievable objectives, by breaking a goal down into actionable and manageable steps. 

Let’s look at a Scenario to provide an example of what this could look like.

Scenario

Let’s say you are working with a participant who has an intellectual impairment, which impacts their ability to problem-solve complex situations and process and remember information.

Their goal is to gain paid employment in a workplace where they can interact and talk with others, as they love chatting and meeting people. 

However, the individual has never had a job or even participated in voluntary or other work experience opportunities. And they don’t know what kind of role they are interested in.

The participant is reasonably independent, can access public transport and has previously completed courses with extra help from student support services at TAFE. 

The participant is an adult, makes their own decisions, does not have any informal supports and lives in a Supported Independent Living (SIL) arrangement. 

The Action Plan would break this goal down into achievable steps.

• Getting a work-ready assessment to assess the participant’s functional barriers and recommended strategies to overcome these barriers. This includes identifying their strengths, appropriate roles and responsibilities and considerations – meaning the safeguards and supports the person may require to access and maintain paid employment.
• Mapping out who within their support network can assist the participant to gain employment. For example, a psychologist they work with to help manage their emotions and ensure they make safe choices within the workplace, a close friend who is keen to provide support or a support worker who they have a trusted relationship with.
• Identifying opportunities for the person to explore what employment might look like for them. For example, the person participating in a course on getting work ready, the Support Worker finding opportunities to volunteer based on the person’s interests or linking the person in with Supported Employment opportunities through Disability Employment Services.

In this scenario, the main role of a Support Coordinator is to empower the participant to achieve their employment goal while ensuring their voice, preferences and aspirations are central to all decision-making.

This involves providing tailored guidance, coordinating appropriate supports and fostering the person’s confidence and independence.

Support Coordinator Role

A Support Coordinator needs to have a specific set of skills to assist a participant to access rewarding employment. These include communication skills like active listening and strength based approaches to resolving issues, understanding how to work collaboratively with the participant’s support network, researching and linking in employment opportunities. A Support Coordinator uses these skills throughout each step in the process to gain rewarding employment. 

Understanding the Participant's Goals and Preferences

• Engaging in active listening to fully understand the participant’s desire for employment.
• Exploring the participant’s interests, strengths and potential workplace preferences to identify suitable job opportunities.

Exploring and Choosing Employment Options

• Providing clear, accessible information about different types of work environments, industries and roles that align with their interests.
• Coordinating visits to potential workplaces, arranging a job trial or workplace visit to help the person explore and visualise employment opportunities.
• Collaborating with job placement services to identify entry-level roles that match the participant’s skill set.

Building Employment Readiness

• Supporting the participant to develop essential skills for the workplace, such as punctuality, communication and basic customer service.
• Help the participant understand workplace expectations, including appropriate behaviour, dress codes and communication with colleagues and supervisors.
• A Support Coordinator could support a participant to build these skills by collaborating with TAFE student support services or training organisations to provide further courses and support, if required, to enhance employability.

Coordinating Supports for Ongoing Success

• If a participant is living in supported accommodation, liaising with the participant’s SIL provider to ensure their daily living arrangements are compatible with their work schedule.
• Collaborating with employers to arrange reasonable adjustments in the workplace for things like additional training, extended supervision or a quiet space to take breaks.

Ensuring Participant Understanding and Engagement

• Collaborating with the employer to understand how to break down complex information about employment processes into manageable, clear steps to help the participant make informed decisions.
• Reinforcing the participant’s understanding of their obligations as an employee, such as attending work consistently, communicating absences and respecting workplace policies.

Fostering Confidence and Independence

• Encouraging the participant to celebrate small milestones, such as completing an interview or starting a trial shift, to build self-confidence.
• Gradually reducing reliance on external supports as the participant becomes more comfortable and competent in their role, promoting greater independence.
• Empowering the participant to advocate for themselves in the workplace, ensuring they feel confident to communicate their needs or seek help when necessary.

By adopting a person-centred, collaborative and empowering approach, Support Coordinators can ensure participants are adequately supported throughout the process of finding and sustaining rewarding employment.

Need More Information?

There is plenty to unpack when it comes to supporting participants to gain rewarding employment.

If you have any questions about the topic or require other assistance as a Support Coordinator, contact us today.

And if you are looking for employment opportunities for your clients, discover more about what Endeavour Foundation offers. We are one of Australia’s largest employers of people with disability.

To help you build your skills, Endeavour Foundation has partnered with Support Coordination Academy to offer free online professional learning sessions for Support Coordinators.

To register your interest in future webinars, sign up below.

Support Coordination Academy provides essential training and resources for Support Coordinators across Australia.