Latest / Sarah Knows Support Workers / Why NDIS Support Worker Matching Matters More Than Funding, Hours or Compliance

Transcript

Why NDIS Support Worker Matching Matters More Than Funding, Hours or Compliance · Sarah Knows Support Workers

• 0:00
  Hi everyone, it's Sarah. No support workers tonight.
• 0:02
  I'm doing something solo. So we're going to talk about
• 0:04
  something solo that is really, it tickles my heartstrings.
• 0:08
  It means a lot to bring this to you, so I hope you don't mind.
• 0:11
  I've put it all together. So here it is.
• 0:13
  The most powerful choice in the disability care is who shows up.
• 0:17
  And so when we talk a bit about disability care, we always talk
• 0:20
  about plans, support plans, care plans, behaviour plans, we talk
• 0:26
  about the policies around it. But there is one choice that
• 0:29
  matters more than all of that. And it's not written on any
• 0:32
  form. It's who shows up.
• 0:34
  So I have worked in the disability sector for a decade
• 0:37
  and a half across the organizations, across all
• 0:40
  different systems. And again, two people can have
• 0:43
  the same funding, the same goals, the same plan, but live
• 0:46
  completely different lives to each other.
• 0:49
  The difference is not the paperwork.
• 0:51
  The difference is the person that shows up who walks through
• 0:55
  their door. Because care is not delivered by
• 0:57
  systems. Care is delivered by humans, and
• 1:00
  humans bring energy with them. They bring patients or they
• 1:04
  bring pressure, they bring curiosity or they bring control.
• 1:08
  They bring presents, or they will bring the burnout with them
• 1:11
  and the people receiving support.
• 1:13
  That's immediate, even if they cannot explain it.
• 1:17
  We like to believe that someone qualified enough.
• 1:20
  The rest will all just work itself out.
• 1:22
  But disability care isn't about a technical job.
• 1:25
  It's real. It's relations, it's emotional,
• 1:29
  it's deeply personal. Who shows up determines whether
• 1:33
  the person feels safe, whether they feel rushed, whether they
• 1:36
  feel listened to, whether they feel like a burden or a human
• 1:40
  being. I've seen people, I've seen some
• 1:42
  people thrive because the right person has showed up.
• 1:46
  Not perfect, not like a superhero or anything, just
• 1:49
  right. And I've seen people shut down,
• 1:52
  regress or disengage. Not because they didn't want
• 1:55
  support, because the wrong energy walked into that room and
• 2:00
  walked into their space. That's not a failure of a person
• 2:02
  with a disability. That's a failure of choice.
• 2:05
  We say choice and control are sent up to disability care, but
• 2:09
  too often choice stops at the provider, the type of services,
• 2:14
  the funding category. Rarely do we treat who shows up
• 2:18
  as the most critical decision of them all.
• 2:21
  And yet that decision somehow shapes somebody's confidence,
• 2:24
  their independence, their trust, their sense of dignity.
• 2:26
  Every single day, the truth is uncomfortable.
• 2:29
  One wrong match can undo months of progress.
• 2:33
  One wrong match can unlock things no therapy can ever
• 2:37
  touch. And we don't talk about it
• 2:39
  enough because it forces us to look on how we recruit, how we
• 2:43
  roster, how we retain people. It forces us to admit that
• 2:48
  availability is not suitability. In disability care, we often
• 2:52
  reward people who say, yes, everything more shifts, more
• 2:55
  hours, more responsibility. But because.
• 2:59
  But just just because somebody can show up doesn't mean they
• 3:02
  should. And just because somebody is
• 3:03
  available doesn't mean that they are lying.
• 3:06
  Good care isn't about feeling shifts.
• 3:08
  It's about protecting relationships.
• 3:09
  It's about recognizing that support workers isn't just
• 3:13
  providing help. They are shaping somebody's
• 3:15
  daily experience of the world. Who they are, manners.
• 3:19
  How they listen matters. How they manage their own stress
• 3:24
  matters. Burnout doesn't just affect
• 3:26
  workers, it leaks. It leaks into tone, into body
• 3:29
  language, into patients, into presence.
• 3:33
  And people receiving care carry that weight, and often in
• 3:37
  silence. So when we ignore who shows up,
• 3:40
  we don't just risk a workforce well-being.
• 3:43
  It's a quality of life. Imagine if we treat every match
• 3:47
  the same seriousness as medication.
• 3:50
  Imagine if we said this relationship matters, This
• 3:53
  choice matters. This person's personality,
• 3:55
  values and energy matters just as much as their resume.
• 4:00
  Because they do. The most powerful choice in the
• 4:02
  disability care isn't in policy. It's made every day.
• 4:06
  Who we send, who we keep, who we move on, and who we listen to
• 4:10
  the most, and most importantly, who the people receiving support
• 4:15
  actually want in their space. If we truly care about dignity,
• 4:19
  if we truly care about choice, we would just stop treating
• 4:22
  people as interchangeable. Because care is not
• 4:25
  interchangeable, and neither are the humans who deliver it.
• 4:29
  So next time we talk about improving disability care, let's
• 4:32
  start with the most powerful choice of them all.
• 4:34
  Not the plan, not the funding, but who shows up.
• 4:37
  Thank you.