SCIA’s Policy and Advocacy team has put together this survey on accessing Disability Service Providers and support workers.
We understand it has been a struggle for some with finding service providers that have the capacity to assist, with a shortage of quality and well-trained support workers.
We have had lots of anecdotal feedback from the community in finding supports and the negative experiences with interacting and communicating with some service providers. We held a recent SCIA network forum on this topic and received lots of feedback, good and bad. Some of those issues included: resourcing and a lack of availability of support workers; a lack of flexibility in getting support at the time needed; privacy concerns; lack of communication from providers on changes to workers and shift times; workers not showing up for services; coordinators and office staff lacking understanding and empathy.
The market has changed a great deal recently with the introduction of online platforms that introduce people directly to support workers, and independent contractors or sole traders that offer additional ways to access support, alongside the traditional model of disability service providers.
We would like to get a better idea of how people use these services and what the experience has been. We will use the information to target our advocacy in engaging with the disability service sector and funding bodies on addressing the concerns that people have raised with us.
It should only take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Click here to participate in the survey.
