Working With Multiple Support Providers in One Property

When choice is genuine, there is a predictable operating consequence: two or more support providers in the same building, and sometimes even the same dwelling, with their own rosters, systems, expectations and perspectives of who's responsible for what.

This is the right outcome, and it's harder to run than a single provider. Both are true.

Where friction actually occurs

Typically not in care. It happens in shared space, access, communication about building issues, incident response when two providers are present, and who does what with things that aren't really anyone's.

If they are not addressed, they turn into conflicts that arrive as complaints against one another, aimed at the housing provider.

The building agreement

The real solution is a brief written document that addresses the building, not the care; how access and keys operate, what's expected in communal areas, what is reported to the housing provider and how, what to do when a fault happens in the building during a change of shift, how workers from different providers are expected to interact, and who to call on what.

It isn't a care document, and it shouldn't do the things that belong in one. It's the agreement for how this building works, handed to every provider working in it.

Coordination without becoming the coordinator

You can convene providers without owning their work. A brief, regular catch-up between the providers in a building, which you initiate but don't control, settles most of what would otherwise escalate. Once a quarter is enough.

The line is not to coordinate the care, it's to coordinate the building. If the conversation turns to whether a person's supports are sufficient, that's between the coordinator and the resident, not you.

When one provider is the problem

Sometimes one provider is a genuine problem: workers who ignore the building set-up, poor communication, an attitude toward your staff that won't shift. Document specifics, raise it directly, and if it persists, raise it with the resident's coordinator as a building issue, not a care judgement.

How this plays out in practice

Imagine a four-unit building with three support providers between them, where the shared kitchen is a constant complaint and each provider thinks someone else is at fault. No one is at fault, because it was never assigned.

A building agreement doesn't take sides, it just removes the ambiguity that caused the trouble in the first place.

Next steps

Write an agreement for your most complicated building, and hand a single-page copy to each provider working in it.

Connect Your Vacancy With the Right Person. Support Network works alongside the providers a resident chooses, without that meaning a building becomes unmanageable to run.