ACT Allied Health Market Capacity Building Project

ACT allied healthmarket capacity building project

Final report 31August 2017

Progress overview

National Disability Services (NDS) received a grant from the ACT Government through funding from theNational Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The aim of this grant was to improve the capacity of the ACT allied health (AH) sector to respond to the opportunities and demand for services under the NDIS and to establish a host entity to continue this work and sustainably support the ACT allied health sector.

All milestones of the projecthave been achieved.

A steering group and stakeholder group were established to guide and support the work of the project. The stakeholder group chose seven deliverables for the project:

• Institute some speed dating/(i.e. networking) events,
• prepare a list of AH practitioner/practice listings,
• undertake and publicise a market scan of the delivery of AH therapies to NDIS participants,
• create an on-line NDIS AH information hub,
• conduct information webinars relevant to AH NDIS practice
• stage a conference to more formally share experience and
• supportan interest-based working group to facilitate discussion about student placements.

The speed dating events were successful with at least two more to be organised after this project ends.

The list of AH practitioners listingshas been created and incorporated in the ACT allied health NDIS Hub which was launched at the NDIS in Practice conference in August 2017.

At the NDIS in Practice conference the results of the market scan were presented. The conference presentations (where we received permission to share) can also be found on the ACT allied health information hub as are the recordings of the three webinars delivered during this project.

National Disability Practitioners (NDP) will continue develop, update and host the information hub and support networking events in the future. NDS will support networking events by making its office available as a venue (if needed). NDS and NDP will also continue to work together to organise, record and caption a fourth webinar with the NDIA and the ACT Human Services Registrar on registering as an NDIS provider in the ACT.

In order to develop and sustain the momentum generated by the project we recommend:

(i)that the Office for Disability permits NDS and NDP to publicise and share this report with interested stakeholders.

(ii) theOffice for Disability work with AH stakeholders in a collaborative model to develop a project to addressthe lack of opportunity for allied health students to gain disability sector experience or exposure during their training.

Key activities

Establish the steering group

After signing of the deed of grant between NDS and ACT Government, a group of ACT representatives of AH associations was reconvened in February. This was the AH working group during the Disability Workforce Innovation Network (DWIN)project. This group agreed to be the steering group for this project and metapproximately every three weeksfrom commencement (See Appendix A for steering group members). The final meeting was held on 18August 2017.

Establish the stakeholder group

The steering group decided that a wider stakeholder group was needed to guide the project. They assisted the project manager to identify key stakeholders and actively encouraged them to be involved in this project. The first stakeholder group meeting was in March 2017. In this and subsequent meetings the stakeholder group has provided clear guidance on the direction of this project and its deliverables. The last stakeholder group meeting was on 24 May 2017. After four meetings the project deliverables were clearly identified. The steering group decided to no longer have stakeholder group meetings, but did invite stakeholders to join working groups for development of the deliverables. While only a few stakeholders took this opportunity, many remained supportive of the project and assisted it by distributing project and event information to their networks.

Decide on deliverables of the project

The stakeholder group considered what would be most beneficial to improving the capacity of the ACT AH sector to respond to the opportunities and demand for services under the NDIS. Three key requirements were identified: (i) knowing the market, (ii) supporting practitioners to enter and succeed in the market and(iii) increasing exposure of students to the disability sector.

Knowing the Market: Good knowledge of the NDIS AH market is needed for AH practitioners (AHPs) to be able to refer clients to other AHP’s, form multidisciplinary teams around a clientand identify service gaps and market the opportunity to enter it or expand their services. The establishment of an online networking platform was discussed but rejected as a way of sharing such knowledge. This had been one of the solutions coming out of the DWIN sponsored AH forum held in 2016, but stakeholders doubted if they would engage with such a platform and questioned itssustainability and longevity. Also, for AHP’s to feel comfortable to refer clients to others they wanted to have personally met the professionals to whom they were referring: they did not want to only know them from their online profile. It was therefore decided to develop three deliverables to increase market knowledge of the nature and scale of AHPs practicing in disability support:

• Speed dating (networking) events: Stakeholders were keen to expand their network and to meet other AHP’s providing NDIS funded services. Networking events with a speed dating format were suggested and widely supported.
• List of AH practitioner/practice listings: Listings of AHP’s and/or the practices in which they work already exist. Several allow searchers to search on location and find out if the AHP or the organisation is registered for/provide services under the NDIS. However, experience had shown that stakeholderswere not aware of the range of listings both with and across different areas of practice. It was considered that a list that collated the different, more restricted and profession-based listings would provide an overview where AHP’s could find others with practices providing services to people with disability that might be complementary to their own.
• Market scan:To gain insight into the current ACT AH NDIS market stakeholders decided to develop and test a market scan. This scan would capture the kind of providers and professionals working in the NDIS market, their client groups and the existence and scale of any waiting lists.

Entering the market: AHP’s, both those entering the market and those already in it, need information to successfully set themselves up as a provider and thrive under the NDIS. Stakeholders identified that a lot of information is available in the sector, but this is not easy to find or access. It was decided to develop three deliverables to support this:

• NDIS information hub: Collation of relevant NDIS information into one place was seen as important to support the ACT AH market. The project was to develop an online clearing house to centralise, identify and host NDIS information and resources for ACT AHP’s. Key features of this were that it would be publicly accessible and that it hold NDIS relevant information for all professions - be it current NDIS practitioners, new entrants to this market or students.
• Webinars: Stakeholders expressed a desire to gain expert knowledge from outside but especially also from within the ACT AH market on NDIS related business and clinical topics. Webinars were seen as the most efficient way to deliver on this for high level topics e.g. setting up a business and registering as an NDIS provider.
• Conference: To gain and share knowledge on more specific topics stakeholders asked NDS/NDP to organise an AH NDIS conference toaddress key topics in more depth than a webinar could and to hear from ACT based providers and practitioners about what works for them and what does not when operating under the NDIS - from both a business and clinical perspective.

Increase student exposure to the disability sector: The DWIN AH working group had previously identified that the ability of the sector to offer students opportunities to gain exposure to and experience in the disability sector will impact the ACT AH market capacity to respond to the service demand under the NDIS in the future. The steering group and stakeholder group confirmed that this is an issue that needs collaborative action for it to be resolved. It therefore advised and requested NDS to bring together an interest based group of service providers/practitioners and education providers for information facilitation and discussion on what is the best model for student and industry placements in the disability sector given the current environment.

Development of the deliverables

NDS worked with the steering group and National Disability Practitioners (NDP) to develop the different deliverables.NDP operates as a separate division of NDS. NDP’s mission is to be a professional membership association dedicated to informing, developing, recognising and connecting individuals working in the disability sector. Given its focus it was agreed that NDP was the suitable and logical stakeholder to be the host agency that could continue to support the ACT AH sector and the developed deliverables of this project.

Speed dating events: The idea of a speed dating event was welcomed with great enthusiasm by the stakeholder group. Several stakeholders offered to host a speed dating event at no cost to the project. The first event was hosted by Neurospace on 18 May, the second by CIT on 27 June and the third by Therapy4Kids on 20 July. NDP organised and facilitated these events.

List of listings: Several steering group members researched listings of AHP’s to contribute to the combined list. The combined list nowincludes the AH professional associations, NDIA provider listing and the ACT Community Directory. The finalisation of the list wasundertaken by the ACT representative of Australian New Zealand Art Therapy Association (ANZATA). The list is available on the ACT NDIS information hub. It has been shared with stakeholders who have been granted permission to share it on their websites as well.

Market scan: The market scan built on the ACT Government AH mapping initiative conducted in March 2016. We thank the ACT Government for sharing their questionnaire, telephone script, dataset and analysis. Based on these resources, the steering group developed a scan with eight questions that was handed out at the speed dating events. The idea was to gather a first rough overview of the ACT NDIS AH market. The results of the market scan were presented at the ACT allied health NDIS in Practice Conference. Now that the scan has been tried and tested it has been handed over to the steering group to take back to their professional association to coordinate and align a potential periodic scan amongst their respective membership bases. The steering group realised that this will not result in a full overview of the ACT AH market, but it has the virtue of providing a sustainable way to coordinate data collection between these different organisations in a simple and practical way.

NDIS information hub:The development of this hub has been taken up by NDP. It is placed within the NDP website and publically accessible (NDP ACT Allied Health Hub).It was launched at the ACT allied health NDIS in Practice Conference. It already holds a range of resources in five different categories: NDIS business resources, NDIS clinical resources, Discipline specific resources, List of practitioners and Education and event. NDP will continue to include updates and checking for new and relevant information after project end.

Webinars:NDP hasorganised and offered three webinars during the project. Recordings of the webinars will shortly be available via the ACT NDIS information hub. The first webinar covered the topic of creating your vision for starting a private practice (6 June) and the second followed on from that with the topic of preparing yourself to start a business (14 June). Both these webinars were delivered together with Maida Learning. The topic for the third webinar was on A snapshot of the ACT AH workforce (29 June). This was delivered by NDS’ National Manager Workforce and Carecareers. A fourth webinar is planned for October on how to become a registered NDIS provider in the ACT. This webinar will be delivered jointly by the NDIA and the ACT Human Services Registrar. NDP regularly runs webinars on a wide variety of topics relevant to disability practitioners. A selection of these will be offered to ACT AHP’sfollowing the project via the ACT allied health hub.

Conference:NDS and NDP organised the NDIS in Practice conference for ACT allied health practitioners on Saturday 12th of August with a view to creating a sustainable model for a program that NDP can continue to host on an annual basis following the end of the project. The aim was to provide a forum for ACT allied health practitioners (from a variety of disciplines) to be informed of changes that are transforming the ACT disability sector and hear how others are responding to the opportunities and challenges. Stakeholders from several professions formed the conference working group. A call for papers was sent out in early June urging potential speakers to come forward with their ideas for a presentation.This was sent out through NDS’ and NDP’s networks and the professional associations and other stakeholders.A total of eight proposals were submitted. These were reviewed by the conference working group and based on these a conference program was developed and additional speakers were approached. The final program (see AppendixB) had a total of nineteen speakers from nine different allied health professions and other backgrounds, two facilitators, an opening by Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith MLA and a welcome to country by Matilda House. Unfortunately, days before the conference and on the day itself three speakers had to withdraw including the speaker from the NDIA.

Interest based group on student sector exposure: Discussions within the stakeholder group made it clear that service providers were (i) not aware of the different ways students can gain experience during their studies in an industry and (ii) that the way student placements were set up within disciplines differed with some more suited to the disability sector than others. Responding tothis, the University of Canberra mapped how student placement are set up within the different disciplines as a basis for discussion with service providers on how placements and other opportunities can best be tailored to make it more attractive for providers to take on students in their organisation.The steering group tried to find a stakeholder to run this discussion as this would need leadership beyond the end of this project and bring together interested providers to join it. Unfortunately, interest from providers in this discussion at this point in NDIS transition was low.The steering group therefore decided to no longer pursue the establishment of this group and concentrate efforts on the other deliverables.

ACT Disability Network Facebook page: Following the final speed dating event it was recognised that there was still appetite for more allied health networking events and stakeholders willing to host more events. However, with the end of this project in August 2017 there was the question how interested practitioners could receive regular updates about new events and updates to the ACT information Hub. Therefore the ACT Disability Network Facebook page was created and launched at the NDIS in Practice conference. At present the page has 23 members and is being administered by NDS and NDP staff.

Output measures

Engagement

Steering group: The first steering group meeting was attended by eight people. Engagement after that varied with one member withdrawing from the steering group due to overloaded work schedule. Six members regularly attended steering group meetings. The steering group met ten timesover the course of the project.

Stakeholder group: The contact list for the stakeholder group consisted of 40 people. A total of 23 people attended or dialled into the first stakeholder meeting and eight were an apology. Attendance steadily dropped after that with an increasing amount of late on the day apologies due to work commitments. Stakeholders indicated that as the months progressed time pressure increased for providers in the thick of the NDIS in the ACT. The stakeholder group met four times.

Speed dating event:A total of 44 people registered for the first speed dating event with 31 actually attending. For the second speed dating event 28 practitioners and three students registered and 26 practitioners were in attendance. All but three had not attended the first event. The third event was smaller with 18 registrations and 14 attendees.

Webinars: For the first series of two ‘Starting a Private Practice’ webinars (6 June and 14 June) 20 ACT practitioners registered and 9 attended. All registrants were sent follow-up materials. The third webinar was called ACT allied health snapshot (29 June). For this webinar 11 ACT practitioners registered and 4 attended the live event. All registrants were sent the recorded link (most of those unable to attend requested this). Two people requested the link post registration.