FOR NDIS accredited services, call After-Care on
1300 46 46 63
NDIS made easy
After-Care “No Hassle” NDIS supports
Now you have a choice about how you manage your daily living and social/community participation supports.
With After-Care, you get the highest standard of care as well as regular direct support with scheduling and co-ordination of services.
We’ve found that most people just want enough high quality, reliable support to meet their needs now and in the future, with a minimum of fuss. Life really is just too short and busy to be wasting it with endless paperwork and multiple phone calls. We deliver community based supports designed to help you have maximum control of your support services whilst getting the most value from your NDIS Plan.
How It Works?
What are NDIS Core Supports?
Core Supports in your NDIS Plan are there to provide the practical, ongoing , long-term supports that help you with everyday life. As a specialist in home and community support provider with over 20 years of experience, After-Care provides 2 categories of Core Supports;
Assistance with Daily Living
The most common supports come under the heading of Self-Care. Self-Care involves a support worker coming to your home and assisting you with everyday activities that maintain your wellbeing and healthy lifestyle such as showering, dressing, toilet assistance, transfers, getting ready for school or work, and meal assistance.
Another area of support comes is broadly described as activities of Daily Life. This can include working with you on a wide range of personal domestic activities such as cooking your favourite meal, all aspect of home cleaning and laundry. It also includes house or yard maintenance such as lawn mowing, weeding, small home modifications, gutter cleaning, even changing a light globe.
Assistance with Social and Community Participation Support
This involves you going out into the community to participate in your preferred social or recreational activities, with assistance from a support worker. After-Care can provide this support on a 1:1 basis but in the holidays we also run small group holiday programs with a 1:3 support worker ratio that includes some of the activity costs.
How to get core supports
- Meet with an After-Care NDIS specialist. We’ll work together to customise a schedule of supports to meet your needs based on your NDIS Plan.
- We’ll match support workers to your needs and preferences. We take care of the co-ordinating and make sure that all the compliance requirements are met so that the NDIS payments are trouble free.
- Then you can relax and enjoy your supports whilst we make sure they run smoothly and reliably.
The After-Care difference explained
NDIS Registered Provider
After-Care We take quality seriously. NDIS registration means we have to have lots of extra protections meet strict government quality and safety requirements that holds the provider accountable. Getting all these safeguards in place takes extra time and effort. That’s why our rates are set to the NDIS Temporary Transformation Pricing (TTP) rate. Registered providers have to listen and consult with participants, treat people fairly and be respectful.Unregistered providers There are lots of ‘ndis providers’ who ‘do ndis’ but they aren’t registered. You may get good service when you start but if things start going wrong, unregistered providers often have less interest in fixing the problem or listening to you.
Temporary Transformation Pricing (TTP)
After-Care Maintaining safeguards and high standards for participants takes lots of extra time and effort. That’s why our rates are set to the NDIS Temporary Transformation Pricing (TTP) rate. Unregistered Providers These providers, who are often private individuals or ‘independent contractors’ have no obligation to look after participants and can tend to just start doing what they want once you become reliant on the supports they provide. Even though they’re unregistered, many of these providers are cheeky enough to still charge the maximum NDIS rate. Some of them hide this by having lower hourly rates but then add on extra costs each week that registered providers are banned from doing. Please click here to download After-Care NDIS Service Prices.
Direct After Hours support
After-Care runs our own afterhours service to when you call, you are speaking to directly to an specialist After-Care AfterHours Coordinator who can provide you with support straight away. Traditional providers use overseas messaging services and contract their afterhours services to other companies who don’t know your regular workers or services. If you are self-managing, there is no support. If a worker calls in sick, you’ll have to make the calls to find a replacement or do it yourself.
Scheduling and Coordinating services
After-Care uses a ‘one call’ approach to all requests for supports. This means you only call or email us once with your request. During office hours your call is always answered by a person, we then follow up and call or email you back with the details of what supports have been arranged. If we can’t meet your exact requirements, we work with you to find a satisfactory solution to your support needs. You don’t have to chase us or call again to find out what is happening with your request. Traditional Disability providers will often have you leaving a message and waiting for a call back that may take days. Self-Managing You will be doing all the coordinating yourself. You may need to use a phone app or online system to coordinate your services. If you have the IT skills or are well organised then this can work well but if anyone call is sick, then you’re it.
Same day call back
After-Care will get back to you with an answer to most requests on the same day. If you ring after 3pm, the latest we will have an answer for you is early the following morning. Traditional Disability providers can take days or weeks to come back with an answer. For self-managing clients, it just depends on how responsible and responsive your personal carers are as individuals. Some may be great and others may need lots of chasing.
Plain English Agreement
After-Care We believe on focussing on building lasting working relationships with clients, not trying to trap them with complex legal documents. Our NDIS agreement is 6 pages long and just focusses on meeting the necessary compliance requirements set by the NDIA. You can end the agreement with just 24 hours’ notice. Traditional Disability Providers It’s like they already know they will disappoint you before you start. Their agreements can be up to 10 pages long and clearly written by lawyers with set notice periods in writing if you want to leave. Self-managed If the support provider isn’t NDIS registered, there may not be an agreement to protect your rights.
Over 20 years’ experience as a Disability in home care provider
After-Care We’ve been a private in home support specialist for over 20 years. That’s all we do. After-Care’s business success is built on offering great service at a fair price, that’s why people keep coming back. Traditional Disability Providers Many of these not-for-profits boast about being over 50 or 100 years old but actually they’ve often got limited experience providing direct in home support. They’ve had years of getting steady funding whether they do a good job, a bad job, or an indifferent job. They’re still working out how to deliver under NDIS and don’t always know what ‘customer service’ means. Self-managed It can be a hit and miss arrangement employing your own workers with some having many years of experience and some just jumping on the bandwagon for some quick cash.
Longer office opening hours
After-Care’s office is open from 8.30am to 5pm daily. Traditional Disability Providers run big offices but they often don’t open until 9am and some close their office by 4.30pm! Sometimes the only person you can speak with is the receptionist. Self-Managed Hopefully your workers are easy to get hold of and are reliable in keeping their phone on when you need to contact them.
In Home Care Specialists
After-Care Unlike other providers we just focus on providing high quality individualised in home and community based supports. We have spent 20 years building up our expertise, a dedicated quality management system, and a team of personal support workers. Traditional Disability Providers these days are mostly large, state or national bureaucracies who operate residential houses, employment and day programs. In home support is not core business for them, it’s just an afterthought. Self-Managed If you employ your own workers, you’ll have to make sure they are up to the task.
High Intensity and Complex Needs Support
Many of After-care’s support workers are capable of providing specialised or more skilled support needed for participants with very limited communication, behaviour support needs or high medical support needs. Our workers are trained by After-Care’s registered disability nurse in a range of specialist procedures and positive behaviour support approaches as required. Traditional Disability Providers often have a long list of supports they won’t provide. If you need specialist supports, it can often be a complicated and lengthy process to organise the necessary training. Self-managed Employing your own workers means you have to organise their training or do it yourself. Every time a worker leaves, you have to start all over again.
Daytime, Evening, Weekend and overnight availability
After-Care has a wide range of workers available every day of the week from 7am through to 10pm at night, plus overnight support if required. Traditional Disability Providers often have highly limited availability on weekends and evenings so if there is a cancellation, they often can’t find a replacement. Self-managed When you organise your own staff, it’s often really easy to find workers who will work during the day but many don’t want to work weekends or evenings which can leave huge gaps in your support. This can mean you have to change your supports to suit the availability of your workers, rather than your needs being the focus. This is a common issue that creeps in over time.
Cleaning, house and garden maintenance
After-Care offers a full range of in home support services including our own fully personalised gardening and home maintenance teams. We also have a network of vetted, reliable tradesman to carry out home and garden modifications. Unlike Traditional Disability Providers who mainly just do personal or social support, we can have the same worker can provide cleaning and personal support in the one visit. Self-Managed You can organise these yourself but if the work isn’t done to the right standard, you’re the one who has to sort it out.
School Holiday activities & Programs
After-Care knows how busy holidays can be for families with children. That’s why we run a community based holiday program for participants who require 1:3 worker support that includes activity costs and transport. For participants who need 1:1 support, we can use our local knowledge to provide suggestions for suitable child friendly activities. Most Traditional Disability Providers either don’t offer programs or only offer programs based at the same school the participant goes to all year. Self-managed participants have to find their own activities and coordinate it all themselves.
Safe, experienced, trained support workers
After-Care Every employee from the support workers all the way up to the Managing Director has a current Police Check, Working with Children’s check and Disability Support Worker check before they start working for us. They all have a minimum of Certificate III training and on average, at least 5 years experience supporting people with a disability. We also provide ongoing training to make sure our workers skills stay current and can meet your individual needs. This includes ‘Meet and Greet’ shifts and ‘shadow shifts’ if required. Traditional Disability Providers should be performing the same checks but often they have expanded rapidly to meet the NDIS demand and they have more recently trained workers on their payroll. They haven’t worked out yet how to provide ongoing professional development now that it is government funded. Self-managed If you employ your own workers, do you have the knowledge and skills to understand whether their training and checks are suitable and have been done properly? Many workers don’t meet the minimum requirements or have left other Disability Providers because of issues that you may be just about to inherit.
Locally based
After-Care has based on the Mornington Peninsula for over 20 years. We have only expanded the area we cover slowly and carefully so that we maintain the local knowledge and workforce that our high standards are built on. Traditional Disability Providers are increasingly becoming large corporate businesses. Sure they might have a local office now but will it be closed down in future? Their support workers may well be coordinated from an office on the other side of town by people who know nothing about your local issues. One of the attractions of Self-managed supports is that you often use workers that live close by. Often though, without an organisation to maintain worker professional standards, your workers can become too involved in your private life and start giving their opinions about your personal business, or worse still sharing your private information with their friends who live in the same area as you do!
Person centerd approach
After-Care has almost exclusively provided individual supports so we are totally focussed on providing the supports you want. All our systems are totally person-centred, otherwise we wouldn’t still be in business after 20 years as a private business. Traditional Disability Providers have always received funding whether they do a good job, a mediocre job or a bad job. Many are struggling to cope with the NDIS way of doing business where you can leave if you don’t like the service.
Self Managed You’d certainly hope your going to get person-centred services because you’re doing all the organising and training. Sometimes though, workers will take advantage over time to try and change arrangements to better suit themselves. Once you are reliant on a worker, they can end up having more influence over support times and days.
Minimum 1 hour bookings
After-Care is able to provide supports for just 1 hour at a time without any problems. This is what we have done for years and years and all our systems are designed for this type of support. Most Traditional Disability Providers expect a 2 hour minimum for each shift, even if you don’t need that much support. They often won’t do other tasks like cleaning either to make that extra time useful.
Self Managed You will have to negotiate the hourly minimum yourself.
Generous cancellation policy
After-Care We like to have at least 1 days notice but in some situations, you can cancel with as little notice as 4 hours without any cost. If it’s a long shift, we try not to charge for the entire shift. Traditional Disability Providers almost always want 1-2 days notice and always charge the whole shift time, no ifs, no buts. Self Managed Again it’s up to you to negotiate but if your worker relies on your NDIS supports for their income, they may be reluctant to let you cancel for free and over time this may become a cause of friction.
Flat weekend rates
After-Care As part of our commitment to fair, affordable supports, charges the current NDIS Price Guide TTP Saturday NDIS rate for both Saturdays and Sundays. Traditional Service Providers usually charge the maximum rates across the whole week. For Sundays, this can be over $22 difference per hour. They have to because their overheads are so high. Self Managed It depends on what agreement you have with your workers as to what you pay.
Choice of your vehicle or we supply a vehicle for community access
After-Care can either have our worker use your personal vehicle if you need one that is modified for your needs, or they can provide a standard vehicle. We also have a wheelchair suitable vehicle available in some circumstances. Traditional Disability Providers often have lots of paperwork and it can be a real hassle for their workers to use your vehicle. It can also be really expensive for them to supply a worker vehicle. Self-Managed Again, it’s up to you. If you are using young workers, they may not be on a full licence and have limited driving experience. Don’t forget to check their licence and car registration are current and have an agreement in place about insurance!
Support Booking Guarantee
After-Care Once a support booking has been confirmed by us, we guarantee you that we will make every possible effort to make sure that a suitable worker turns up to provide your support. This means you have peace of mind even if a worker has a personal emergency, their car won’t start, or they call in sick. Tradtional Disability Providers have a nasty habit of just cancelling the shift, often with such short notice that you can’t even get family or friends to help. Self-managed You are totally at the mercy of your individual workers and how dedicated they are. If they don’t turn up then you will have to chase them up yourself and find a replacement.
