Submission to the Support Coordination Reform Consultation

The most effective part of the current model is continuity: participants can build a trusted relationship with a coordinator who understands their goals, risks, communication needs and service history. For complex participants, good coordination is not merely referral activity. It often involves active work across several systems.

• working alongside hospitals, mental health teams and allied health practitioners
• coordinating release or discharge planning from custody, forensic mental health or hospital settings
• liaising with guardians, substitute decision-makers and statutory agencies
• bringing providers and government agencies together when responsibilities overlap or break down

The future model should more clearly distinguish between general connection support and genuinely specialist coordination. Participants with straightforward needs do not require the same intensity, workforce capability or safeguarding response as people leaving prison, leaving secure care, or navigating cognitive disability, psychosocial disability and homelessness at the same time.

The mode of service should be determined by participant need, not provider convenience. Virtual engagement can work well for case conferences, short follow-up and some regional coordination. Face-to-face support remains essential where trust-building, supported decision-making, risk management or cultural engagement are central.

• Face-to-face should remain available for participants with significant cognitive or communication needs, psychosocial disability, trauma, low digital access, or complex transitions.
• Virtual options should complement, not replace, relationship-based specialist practice.

Specialist SCC capability is particularly important for people experiencing several issues at once: disability, justice involvement, unstable housing, behavioural complexity, safeguarding concerns, hospital discharge, cultural barriers or limited decision-making supports.

• This includes people transitioning from prison or forensic mental health settings into the community.
• It also includes participants in thin markets who cannot simply be referred to readily available local services.

For participants with higher and more complex needs, SCC workers require more than general disability-sector experience. They need demonstrated practice capability in disability, risk and safeguarding, supported decision-making, trauma-informed practice, psychosocial and cognitive disability, professional documentation, and working across mainstream and statutory systems.

• WIRU supports stronger minimum workforce expectations for specialist coordination roles, including relevant tertiary qualifications, professional supervision, ethical accountability and, where applicable, registration or accreditation with a recognised professional body.
• In specialist and high-complexity practice, qualifications such as Social Work, together with professional accountability through bodies such as the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), should be recognised as important indicators of workforce capability.
• Lived experience and cultural knowledge remain highly valuable, but they should complement - rather than replace - the professional knowledge, supervision and accountability required when workers are coordinating complex risk, safeguarding and cross-government responsibilities.
• The future SCC model provides an opportunity to strengthen workforce standards in an area where formal qualification requirements and professional oversight have historically been limited.

Participants should know who their worker is, what the organisation can and cannot do, how information is used, how to make a complaint safely, and that the coordinator does not have a financial interest in directing them toward particular supports. Conflict-free practice is an important safeguard.

The design should avoid assuming that bigger organisations are automatically safer or more effective. Small specialist services can deliver very high-quality coordination because they keep caseloads manageable, maintain senior oversight, and develop expertise in a clearly defined participant cohort.

Existing specialist workforce capability should not be unnecessarily lost during transition. Experienced coordinators hold significant knowledge about participants, systems and local service realities. Where current providers meet future requirements, there should be a practical pathway for those relationships and workers to continue.

Local knowledge should be assessed through practice and relationships: knowledge of housing, health, mental health, disability, Aboriginal services, justice and community networks, plus the ability to navigate real local barriers. A postcode or office lease is not enough.

The future model should support blended delivery: local workers where possible, outreach where necessary, telepractice when appropriate, and specialist metropolitan support where the participant needs expertise not available locally. Thin markets must be funded and judged realistically.

Participants facing justice involvement, psychosocial disability, cognitive impairment, homelessness, safeguarding concerns or limited decision-making support need access to specialist organisations that can coordinate assertively across systems. The new SCC model should preserve that pathway.