New England North West NSW – Behaviour Support and Counselling NDIS Provider

Ability Therapy Specialists is a listed NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) Provider. We are based in Armidale NSW and provide service to the New England North West.

We offer behaviour support specialist services that you can explore further on this website. Go to our Behaviour Support page, or do a search and pages will come up for your interest.

Simply put, behaviours support is a person centred positive practice that works with participant’s needs and seeks to understand underlying reasons for behaviours that may often go overlooked. Most behaviour tends to exist in relationship and environment.

Hence, people and organisations may benefit most by having an external independent practitioner to co-design assessment and treatment planning that fits with the participant’s needs and the capacities of those involved in support and implementation.

We also offer counselling under the NDIS therapy provisions. Counselling in this context tends to be goal oriented with outcomes that can mapped or measured in some way that is useful to the participant and relevant to the Scheme overall. For example, therapy strategies may be relevant where they may assist building social skills, interpersonal communication, moving toward life goals, overcoming barriers, working with conflicts.

Counselling with a qualified and experienced therapist in disabilities allows the focus on Ability and places the Dis in a creative and useful capacity building context. For example, we may work in therapeutic ways withing existing and unique sensory system needs. We may for example engage aspects of creative arts therapies like visual or music therapy, walking therapy, or gardening therapy.

We can also assist with accommodation support in certain ways that fall within our expertise and NDIS allocation. For example, we may find ourselves assisting to set up an appropriate support system at a home or villa setting, evaluating a domestic or other setting for behavioural disability related issues, and/or in situations where accommodation might be under threat from behaviours of concern.

These NDIS funded services are pending NDIS package approvals.

Therefore, we urge participants of the scheme to:

1. seek advice of a NDIS approved planner or a Local Area Coordinator, and

2. document yourself in a diary or log book the observed needs of the participant over say a 3-4 week period to assist in NDIS planning, and

3. consider enlisting a behaviour support practitioner locally in your area who may offer a brief “assessment summary” that may help to document behaviour support needs (in the case these may not be covered under an existing NDIS plan).

We have combined over 60 years of real life experience in disability support services. We see many ways that behaviour support can assist families and participants to move forward with Ability and to address “the Dis” with confidence.