Annie in wonderland

**A Quick Note Before You Dive In:**   This post is meant in good humor, and we've drawn inspiration from Simon Whistler's hilarious *"Casual Criminalist"* series, particularly his *"Rules for Criminals."* One of his top rules is **“Don’t write down your crimes!”** Well, in the world of support work, we’re flipping that advice on its head. Here, **writing things down is your best friend** (seriously, document everything)!   While this guide isn’t meant to be too serious, it's based on real events and hard-earned lessons from the field. So, have a laugh, learn a little, and remember – it’s all in good fun (but with a touch of truth!).   **Rules for Support Workers**   • *If it's not documented, it didn’t happen*   • *Low support needs don’t mean **no** support needs*   • *Low support needs clients can be your best resource*   • *Low support needs clients can also be your worst enemy – they might be the first to report ...

  So this is a post that I am not even sure will make it to publication but hey sorry there is not a nice way to say it, so I am going to come out and say it and this isn’t an attack as there are some amazing workers out there that do understand the assignment.  Some of you support workers need to go back to school.   A lot of support is basic common sense, don’t overcomplicate it, so some of the really basic things that you should know by the time you graduate high school are and I can’t believe that I am saying this, and some of you young ones need to get off your phone and learn about the reality of the world.   It’s not the LGBTIQ community that is the biggest minority in the world it’s actually people with disabilities and we don’t see the community celebrating our existence, we actually see them complaining about the cost blowout to the NDIS but do you know how many pages the final Royal commission report is? ( that is a whole other blog post.   But let me...

  What is a good support agency and how do pick one we see that this is more complex than just going with one, as you need to consider a lot of things that we see can be a massive factor in choosing the right support agency for you?   You need to look at a lot of factors, some things that seem obvious like do you like their ethics, do they have space for you, do they treat you as a human and not a cash cow, and what happens if they need to cancel and you have plans as some support services promise person-centred care but deliver very poor levels of support and backup to the clients and their families leading to family conflict and wondering if having a support agency is even worth it and worth the drama of trying to get good support.   As I have been wondering this myself. As I am starting to see that this is something that we need to talk about as it’s an ongoing issue there is no formal standard for the deliveries of support in an agency setting and it can be hard t...

  What is Active support and how does it help people with a disability,   so active support is where the person's abilities are at the core of the support so it’s a level of support where the person with a disability and not their care team is involved in their support and make the major decisions around what they do day to day.  We see that this is the flip side to something that I talked about called Passive support that can cause harm in a person with a disability and we see that harm in support is a topic that isn’t often talked about and often people with a disability are gaslighted into believing that what the provider is giving them is what they wanted. It might be what they need but given the nature of support work a support worker needs to know the person well to provide good support and when it’s app apart to provider active support vs passive support as both are needed but passive support carries the risk of deskilling a person leading to maladaptive coping b...