When navigating the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), two essential roles are often mentioned: NDIS Support Coordination and NDIS Psychosocial Recovery Coaching. While both are designed to help participants manage their plans and supports, they serve distinct purposes. In this blog, we’ll break down the key differences between these two services to help you make an informed choice.
What is NDIS Support Coordination?
Support coordination is a capacity-building support that assists NDIS participants in making the most of their plans. The role of a support coordinator is to help participants:
- Understand and implement their NDIS plan effectively.
- Connect with service providers, community services, and mainstream supports.
- Manage and coordinate supports to achieve personal goals, including building capacity for independence.
Support coordination focuses on helping participants manage the various aspects of their support plans, including negotiating service agreements, handling provider relationships, and preparing for NDIS plan reviews.
There are three levels of support coordination:
- Support Connection – Helps build the participant’s capacity to connect with supports independently.
- Support Coordination – Assists with coordinating a mix of supports and developing skills to manage services.
- Specialist Support Coordination – Provides support to participants with more complex needs or environments that require intensive support.
What is NDIS Psychosocial Recovery Coaching?
Psychosocial recovery coaching is also a capacity-building support, but it is specifically designed to assist NDIS participants with psychosocial disabilities, such as mental health conditions. The role of a recovery coach is to:
- Provide mental health-specific support tailored to the participant’s needs.
- Help participants build resilience and develop the tools to manage the impact of mental health conditions on daily life.
- Work alongside participants to set recovery goals and develop a plan to achieve them.
Recovery coaches have specialised knowledge in mental health and are focused on supporting participants as they manage the complexities of mental illness. Recovery coaching is more hands-on in building a participant’s psychological resilience and improving mental well-being, while also helping participants navigate and access appropriate NDIS and community supports.
Key Differences Between Support Coordination and Recovery Coaching
- Focus of Support:
- Support Coordination focuses on managing all aspects of the NDIS plan, including accessing various services, budgeting, and coordinating supports.
- Recovery Coaching is specifically designed for participants with psychosocial disabilities, focusing on mental health recovery and resilience.
- Expertise:
- Support Coordinators are generalists who help participants manage their overall NDIS plan.
- Recovery Coaches have specific expertise in mental health and psychosocial support, enabling them to provide targeted, mental health-focused assistance.
- Service Approach:
- Support Coordinators help participants with broader needs, such as finding suitable housing, arranging transport, or linking with community services.
- Recovery Coaches focus on helping participants manage mental health challenges and improve well-being while linking them to appropriate supports.
Choosing the Right Service for You
If you need help managing your entire NDIS plan, connecting with various services, or coordinating your supports, support coordination might be the best fit. However, if you have a psychosocial disability and require targeted support to manage mental health and develop resilience, a psychosocial recovery coach may be more suitable.
Remember, you can have both support coordination and recovery coaching in your NDIS plan. Your NDIA planner will help you decide which supports will best meet your needs.