For support coordinators
Behaviour support that reaches implementation.
Currently accepting Positive Behaviour Support referrals
You need a provider who accepts the referral, delivers real change for a family and keeps you informed without being asked. This page shows how we do all three.
NDIS registered provider of specialist positive behaviour support. Clinics at Salisbury and North Adelaide, with outreach into homes across metropolitan Adelaide.
Our practitioners
Experienced clinicians, not new graduates.
Quality of the behaviour support plan depends on the clinical experience of the practitioner writing the plan. Across the sector, behaviour support is frequently delivered by practitioners who entered the field without prior clinical practice. AkindaCo is staffed differently.
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Allied health qualified
Every AkindaCo behaviour support practitioner holds an allied health qualification.
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Practice we have seen for ourselves
Practitioners come to behaviour support with a minimum of two years' experience in a therapy role. The exception is practitioners who have completed an internship with AkindaCo, where we have watched their practice at first hand rather than taken it from a CV.
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Systemically trained
All of our practitioners are systemically trained and bring family therapy experience. Behaviour is communication from the participant, directed at the people and systems around them, and our practitioners are equipped to work at that level.
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Specific experience with children
Working with children and young people requires a distinct skill set. Our practitioners hold specific experience with this age group.
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A choice of practitioner
Male and female practitioners across a range of ages and backgrounds, so a participant can be matched with someone who suits them.
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A small team with shared oversight
Our practitioners work as a small team with shared clinical oversight, so a referral does not stall when one person is unavailable.
What makes the difference
Practical strategies and skill development, not a document.
The common experience of behaviour support is a plan that is written, lodged and then never used. Our work is built the other way round. We complete the formulation thoroughly because that is what allows the strategies to hold, rather than as a substitute for them.
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Strategies trialled before they are written
We test strategies directly with the child or young person before they go into the plan. What reaches you has been shown to work for that participant, rather than selected from a menu.
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Strategies built for the real setting
Written for the specific environments the participant is actually in. If a strategy cannot be sustained in that setting, it does not go into the plan.
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Skills taught, not simply behaviour reduced
Each behaviour of concern is matched with a skill the participant is taught, so they have a workable way of meeting the same need.
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The team is trained
We train the people who will deliver the plan: family, support workers, teachers and school services officers. Implementation is part of the service rather than an optional extra.
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Progress you can evidence
We measure frequency and episodic severity, so when you are reporting to the NDIA or attending a plan review, the change is supported by data rather than opinion.
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Whole-picture practice
We work within the Multi-Element Behaviour Support framework, so a plan addresses environment, skills, relationships and responses together rather than resting on a single strategy.
Our zone of genius
The referrals we are best placed to take.
We accept referrals across the full range of behaviour support. These are the areas where our team's particular experience makes the most difference.
- Children in the early years, where intervention has the greatest long-term effect
- Participants with complex communication needs, including Deaf participants and AAC users
- Participants whose family situation and surrounding systems are complex
- Children who are struggling with social interactions in their peer group
- Participants whose school or kindergarten placement is under strain
- Children who have experienced trauma or attachment disruption, and children with developmental delay
- Children and young people aged 2–18, and adult participants
If you are unsure whether a referral fits, we invite you to ring and ask.
Adult participants
Adult behaviour support, with the same focus on implementation.
Most of our work is with children and young people, and we accept adult referrals with the same capacity. What changes with adults is usually who delivers the plan. Instead of a family who is there every day, it is rostered staff working across shifts, often from more than one provider. That is exactly where plans stop being followed, and it is the part we are set up to solve.
- Adults living in supported independent living or other supported accommodation
- Adults living at home, often with ageing parents as their main carers
- Young adults aged 18 to 25 in transition: leaving school, leaving care, or moving out of home
- Adults with psychosocial disability, where mental health is the main driver
- Adults whose support needs sit across several systems at once
Our adult practitioners bring backgrounds across allied health, nursing, disability and psychotherapy, including adult psychiatric units and complex mental health. There is more detail, including restrictive practice reduction and how we work with accommodation providers, on our adult behaviour support page.
Implementation, solved
We train the support worker team ourselves
Implementation is where behaviour support most often fails. A plan can be clinically sound and still change nothing when the people providing day-to-day support have never been trained in it. AkindaCo can train the support worker team directly, because the support workers are ours. Our in-house support work team is made up of allied health therapists in training, working alongside our recovery support coaches and our in-house therapy team.
If your participant already has a support worker team they know and trust, that works too. We are equally happy to train an existing team in the plan, and we do it the same way.
- Our own support workers, not a subcontracted agency
- Support workers are allied health therapists in training
- Trained directly in your participant's plan by the practitioner who wrote it
- In-house recovery support coaches
- An in-house therapy team working alongside behaviour support
- Happy to train an existing support worker team instead
- Fewer providers for you to coordinate
Working with us
Communication you can rely on.
The part coordinators tell us goes wrong most often is not the clinical work. It is being left without information. This is what we commit to.
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A lead practitioner
We work as a small team, and your participant has a lead practitioner who holds the whole picture and is your point of contact throughout.
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A weekly overview
Your lead practitioner sends you one digest each week covering the work done with the participant, rather than a stream of separate emails.
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A funding implementation plan
At the start of service delivery you receive a plan setting out exactly how the funding will be spent across the whole plan period, with the work booked in against it.
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We attend the meetings
Planning meetings, school meetings, case conferences and plan reviews. We attend and contribute rather than sending a document in our place.
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Evidence for your own reporting
When you are writing a report to the NDIA or preparing for a plan reassessment, ask and we will give you a current written summary of progress and outcomes that you can use directly.
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We tell you early
If timing changes, if risk changes, or if a family's engagement changes, you hear it from us at the time rather than at the review.
Family feedback
Here's what families are saying about us.
"Highly recommend AkindaCo and the AkindaCo team. They go above and beyond for their clients and their families. The support, understanding and compassion that go into everything they do doesn't get unnoticed. I will always recommend AkindaCo to others who may be struggling to find the right support."
"The best thing is having a practitioner support the family and support the client's needs, willing to understand and take the time to access other sources, kindy and school, to find ways to help all those involved, to make sure that the participant's community or circle is getting the right support to help support the child in their environments."
Feedback on our Positive Behaviour Support service, rated 10 out of 10. Shared with the family's permission.
Registration and compliance
The requirements you need met, met.
- AkindaCo is registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to deliver behaviour support
- Behaviour support plans written to the Commission's requirements
- Restrictive practices identified, reported and planned for reduction and elimination
- Members of Behaviour Support Practitioners Australia, working to their guidance and recommendations
- Practice grounded in the published Multi-Element Behaviour Support evidence base
- Support work registered under the NDIS core supports categories
Funding
What to allow for when you are building the plan.
At the beginning of service delivery we provide a funding implementation plan, so you can see exactly how the NDIS funding will be spent across the entire plan period. The work is then booked in against it, which is how we make sure the deadlines are met.
Where we work
Two clinics, and outreach across metropolitan Adelaide.
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Salisbury clinic
26 Commercial Road, Salisbury, opposite St Augustine's School.
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North Adelaide clinic
Suite 21, 183 Tynte Street, North Adelaide.
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We come to you
We provide outreach into homes across metropolitan Adelaide, and we work in schools, kindergartens, supported accommodation, day options and the community, as well as online. Behaviour support has to happen where the behaviour happens.
Making a referral
Three steps, and the first one takes two minutes.
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Send us the basics
Use the NDIS contact form on the AkindaCo site. Choose Positive Behaviour Support, and answer someone else when it asks who the support is for. It also asks for a preferred practitioner gender and whether you want North Adelaide, Salisbury, outreach or telehealth, so it helps to have the participant's preferences to hand. An address is required, so you will need their suburb. You do not need the full history at this stage.
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We send you our full referral form
Our detailed referral form comes to you through Halaxy, so the clinical detail is captured properly and securely rather than in an email thread.
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We give you a call
We talk the referral through with you: timing, funding, the right practitioner match, and anything you need us to know about the participant before we begin.
If you would prefer to talk it through first, ring (08) 7081 5886 or email hello@akindaco.com.
Coordinator questions
The things you'll want to know before you refer.
Will you take a participant with restrictive practices already in place?
Yes. Identifying, reporting and planning for the reduction and elimination of restrictive practices is part of the work. If practices are in use and undeclared, we will tell you and we will help put it right.
Do you provide support workers as well as behaviour support?
Yes. AkindaCo has its own in-house support work team, made up of allied health therapists in training, along with our recovery support coaches. Our behaviour support practitioners train them directly in the participant's own plan, so the strategies in the plan are the strategies being used on shift. We are equally happy to work with an existing support worker team, and we train them in the participant's plan in exactly the same way.
Do you take adult participants?
Yes, with the same capacity as our child referrals. We work with adults in supported accommodation, adults living at home with family, young adults in transition, and adults with psychosocial disability. Our adult practitioners bring backgrounds across allied health, nursing, disability and psychotherapy, including adult psychiatric units and complex mental health.
Can you pick up a participant another provider has already written a plan for?
Yes. We review the existing plan and assessment, use what is sound, and advise you plainly on what requires rebuilding. Starting again from scratch by default wastes the participant's funding.
What if the participant's plan is close to expiring?
Please tell us when you make contact. It changes how we sequence the work and what we prioritise, and it is far easier to manage if we know at referral rather than partway through.
How quickly can you start?
We are currently accepting referrals. Timing depends on the participant's location, the nature of the referral and which practitioner is the right match. Ring us and we will give you a clearer answer for your participant.
Do you work with privately funded participants?
Yes. Most of our behaviour support participants are NDIS funded, and privately funded participants are welcome.