BrainLink was established in Victoria in 2006.
BrainLink is a not-for-profit charitable organisation committed to connecting people impacted by brain injuries to the care, support, and networks they need. A brain injury may be caused by trauma, infection, tumours, substance abuse, stroke, and degenerative neurological diseases (such as MS, Motor Neurone disease, and Parkinson's disease).
BrainLink provides support and education to people who care for someone with a brain injury as well as being a registered Level 2 NDIS Support Coordination provider to people with a brain injury or degenerative neurological condition. We also run an information line and website that provides information about supporting someone with a brain injury.
Your Support Coordinator will help you to navigate and understand your NDIS plan and funding options. They will break down your plan into language that helps you understand what the funding is for. We call this an Individual Support Plan or ISP. Your Support Coordinator will provide you with a copy of this plan so that you can better understand your NDIS plan. If you need assistance to better understand your NDIS plan or require information in another language, please let your support coordinator know.
Your Support Coordinator will also link you in with the supports that you need to bring your NDIS plan to life. We will assist you in coordinating your support however, we aim to make you as independent as possible and have as much choice and control over your NDIS plan.
Having a BrainLink Support Coordinator means having a coordinator who specialises in working with people with a brain injury or a neurological disorder, and who knows about building community. We build relationships and work in partnership with you and other service providers. We seek to earn your trust and respect.
BrainLink acknowledges that people with a disability are often supported by family or friends. The BrainLink point of difference is that our team can also assist the family. We can provide a wraparound service for both the person with the brain injury and those who support and care for them. BrainLink holds funding for carers of people with brain injury in each region of metropolitan Melbourne and some regional areas of Victoria. We run a variety of activities to support carers.
The BrainLink Support Coordination team works together as a team, sharing our skills and knowledge. Our team has a diverse range of skills and expertise across the NDIS which include hospital discharge, housing including Supported Disability Accommodation (SDA) to Short Term Accommodation (STA), rehabilitation, and interface with health and employment to name a few. While you will be assigned a single support coordinator to work with you, you will have the expertise of the entire team supporting you.
This will depend on how many hours have been allocated to you in your NDIS plan, and how much support you require. If you do not have informal support from friends and family, the support coordinator is your first point of contact if you need assistance implementing your NDIS plan. It is important to know that each time you contact your support coordinator, the time is billable, so use your contact time wisely to reduce the risk of running out of funding. A support coordinator’s contact with a participant will be much more during the start and end of the plan. Once supports are in place, there will usually just be brief check-ins to discuss how the plan is going and make any minor changes.
A service agreement is considered best practice for all providers when using your NDIS funding, including support coordination. The service agreement tells you about some rules that apply, how BrainLink will work with you, and how much the service will cost. Your support coordinator will then bill against your plan for all time spent including face-to-face contact, phone calls, texts, and emails, and research into services you might need.
It is common to have a risk assessment when starting a service with a company or individual providing support coordination or any other service delivered in your home. We carry out our risk assessment by asking you questions about your home environment. You may find this daunting as it asks you to re-live your past risks and experiences. We want to ensure that all risks to yourself or others are accounted for and action plans to manage any risk, however unlikely it might be, are put in place.
The NDIS requires your Support Coordinator to develop an Emergency Support Plan. The plan includes information about where you would go and who would look after you if you could not live in your current home. If you depend on family or friends to provide some of your care, the plan also will ask you to think about who will provide that care if that person becomes unwell or can no longer provide that support. If you live alone we will also talk to you about supporting you to be listed with your local council as a vulnerable person in case of a natural disaster or local emergency.
If you have ever had a seizure, the NDIS also expects that your support coordinator will develop a Seizure Management Plan for you in partnership with your medical team. Your GP or specialist is required to keep this updated annually to ensure everyone knows what to do should you have another seizure.
Yes. One of the functions of a support coordinator is to search for service providers in your area. BrainLink has current knowledge and a database of all kinds of supports. BrainLink will always aim to provide you with a choice of providers and allow you to take your pick or change when preferred. Your support coordinator can provide information about different services however, who you choose is up to you.
Support coordinators can also suggest services not funded by the NDIS. Your support coordinator can help research and link you to appropriate services such as housing, education, and community meetup groups. It is also possible to seek assistance to coordinate GP, specialist, and medical appointments through a support coordinator however, due to privacy, we may be limited in the information we can provide medical teams.
Yes. Our support coordinators will endeavour to respond to your emails and phone calls as promptly as possible. We respect and value your time.
The coordination role requires a lot of organisational skills. Keeping track of all funded supports and ensuring you do not run out of funding before the plan ends is an important part of their role. You may also have a plan manager who will send you monthly budget updates so you can keep track of your funding.
Knowing the key aspects of the NDIS price guide is key to working as a support coordinator. It is a lengthy and complicated document that is frequently updated so if they don’t know it by heart, they will find out and get back to you by calling a plan manager or the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).Your support coordinator will work in partnership and collaboration with other service providers to establish who will look after what aspects of your care.
Your support coordinator will be in communication with you and your NDIS providers throughout your plan to ensure that your supports are working for you.
The NDIS states how often they want the support coordinator to provide a progress report. Reports can be every 3, 6, or 12 months. Towards the end of the plan, about three months before the plan ends, the support coordinator usually needs to submit a more detailed plan review that reports back to the NDIS how everything is going. If you are unhappy with your plan, or if your needs change, and you want to apply for an unscheduled review, the support coordinator can also guide you through the process. Collecting reports from therapists and providers and preparing a review document is part of the procedure. The support coordinator can attend the review meeting however, the NDIS states that they are not meant to advocate on behalf of the participant.
Yes. BrainLink has a disaster and emergency management plan in place which is called the Crisis Management Plan. The plan tells our staff and board what to do if there is an emergency or crisis where we are not able to access the BrainLink office. The plan ensures that we can continue to deliver services to our NDIS participants with minimal disruption.
Part of the Support Coordination role is to work with you and help you set up a service agreement for each support you receive. BrainLink support coordinators check in regularly with the people we support. If there are any concerns, we will work with you to identify the reason for the issue and seek to address it with the provider. If the issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, we will work with you to locate another provider that will meet your requirements.
Like any other provider in the NDIS, BrainLink is required to set up a Service Agreement with every person we work with. Our service agreement outlines how we work with people, our responsibilities, and the specifics of support we provide, tailored to each individual. Within the service agreement, we also list who to call if a participant wants to register a complaint and the contact details of external oversight bodies.
Our role is to support participants quickly to get their funded plan up and running. With over 20 years of experience supporting people with brain injury to build lives within the community, we have a vast array of experience to draw upon and can offer helpful suggestions. We work as a partner alongside people with disability and their families and we see ourselves as a trusted advisor. Our staff are professionals who feel privileged to work with you to find the right provider that meets your needs and take care of any issues that hold up acting on a plan.
The NDIS is all about placing you at the centre of everything and this aligns with our organisations mission of connecting people impacted by brain injuries to the care support and networks they need. Our vision is that people with brain injuries, their families, and carers, live fulfilling lives.
While we work alongside you to help you achieve the goals in your plan, we will also support you to: