Opportunities for innovating shared support solutions in thin markets
There is tremendous opportunity to innovate effective, tenant-centred models of shared support for tenants living in co-located Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA). This opportunity is amplified in regional settings where additional barriers such as limited workforce availability, lack of training and limited choice of providers all compound the known challenges of achieving effective shared support in metropolitan settings.
This project considers the potential role of a co-operative solution to the following problem statement:
A lack of effective, tenant centred models of support delivery to people with disability living in co-located SDA in regional and remote settings.
Co-operatives often emerge in response to the failure of a market to adequately serve the interests of its customers, workers or producers. On the surface it seems there might be a role for a co-operative solution in the innovation of how shared support could be done better in co-located regional SDA.
Why is this project needed?
The sustainability of the NDIS depends on innovation in the realm of service delivery, yet there is little known about how innovation in the sector will be realised. This project will take a staged co-design approach to designing an innovative way for tenants to increase their agency in relation to the support they receive. It will consider the principles and value of co-operatives as a framework, though the project is not committed to seeding a new co-operative.
Co-design with NDIS participants
This project will bring together NDIS participants and close others, who span a range of experience, which includes living in co-located settings, living and receiving support in regional locations and living in SDA or being eligible for SDA.
The project has been planned across 3 stages, each stage effectively acting as a gateway to the subsequent stages. The stages are:
Undertake a co-design process to establish the relevance and viability, and potential scope of a co-operative in the context of best managing shared support in a regionally based co-located SDA setting.
a. If stage 1 determines a co-operative solution might be viable, a second stage would be undertaken to co-design how a co-op might be set up and operate.
b. Develop a business model and test feasibility.
Following the successful completion of stage 2, stage 3 would pilot the co-op model that was developed in stage 2.
Project outputs
The output of stage 1 is a report recommending an innovative approach to shared support in regional settings, and whether (or not) a co-operative solution might play a role in the proposed solution.
The co-design process for stage 1 will involve 12 participants and take part over a series of 4 workshops commencing in February 2024.
