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Resident-Led Support Models in Specialist Disability Accommodation

  • 8 mins read
Resident-Led Support Models in Specialist Disability Accommodation
  • 8 mins read

Table of Contents:

Resident-Led Support Models in Specialist Disability Accommodation

The norm in shared supported accommodation is that support is in place and residents are fitted into it. The roster is there, staffing is determined, and the resident's day is set before they arrive.

There's another design approach, one that's less common and unusually well-suited to housing providers.

What resident-led actually means

Not residents who are running rosters. It means the arrangement is based on the way residents want to live, and changes as that changes. Different wake-up times, because people are different. Shared supports that residents choose, rather than being passed on. Workers the resident appoints. The arrangement reconsidered at review points, rather than just carried on.

The housing provider's leverage

You're not the support provider, but you set the conditions.

The physical design either lets people follow individual routines or forces synchronisation, and you know which yours does. The information given to new residents either describes a fixed configuration, or one they have some say in. And the building's culture, which residents read, treats a resident's preference as either reasonable or as difficulty.

Where it gets complicated

Shared supports are real compromises. One person's wishes can affect another's, and if everyone is promised everything, they'll end up disappointed rather than given a real choice.

What works is being transparent about the trade-offs, with a process for settling them that residents are part of, not a decision made elsewhere and announced as settled.

How this plays out in practice

Imagine a house where everyone wakes at 7am, because that's when the shift starts. One resident has been described in her notes as resistant to routine for two years. She has simply never been a morning person.

The resident-led version asks what she would choose, and then discovers that a slightly different team and a slightly later start are possible, and the resistance disappears, because it was never resistance in the first place.

Next steps

Ask one resident in one of your dwellings what they'd change about how their support works, and pass it to their coordinator. That's the whole practice, repeated.

Connect Your Vacancy With the Right Person. Resident-led arrangements start with Support Network, where residents and families select their own workers.

About the Author

Michelle Flynn

Michelle Flynn

Head of Marketing & Innovation | Building Australia’s Connected Care Ecosystem | Support Network

Seasoned marketing and innovation leader with two decades of experience turning complex service organisations into growth engines. Currently Head of Marketing & Innovation at Support Network, where I am building Australia’s most connected disability and aged care ecosystem.
I lead the growth of Support Network’s national Partnership Program — a free, Australia-wide collaboration network that already connects trusted providers, Support Coordinators, plan managers, allied health and community organisations so that when the right opportunity arises, we know exactly who to call. [Read more]

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