The Truth About NDIS Support Coordination, with Emanuel “Eggy” Gini

Eggie Tom Hitchcock how are you? I’m good Tom how are you? See look at the difference in body language. You’re smiling. You’re happy if you’ve got it’s Monday And and Eggie makes all the difference. It does it does So we were talking about this before I love when I first met you was Mr. Purple and I was like oh, I love that I should really go by Eggie. Everyone knows me by eggie the only people that call me Emanuel is well is that work really so but yeah You know what, I’ve got to the point and take this the right way. I actually forget your name. So if I need to quickly check, I’m like, what is Egi’s name again? I’d say it’s a good thing. It means we’re, I mean, it’s always fun when you’ve got something different.

You know what I mean? People remember you by because how many people do we meet on a daily basis? Like we’re always out there checking in, you know, there’s so many people in this industry. I always apologise to them because I can’t remember everyone’s name. It’s so tough as my brain doesn’t work that way. This is the thing. So we’ll speak to a lot of people every day and I think I’ve found as I’ve got older, I’ve started to forget people’s names period. But the problem is with industry, we actually need to remember, who’s the person who does this in this geographical area that has immediate availability and you need to be like a mini cab driver. You do? And in psychropedia, you need to retain this information.

And I mean, look, there’s obviously heaps of different ways you can do it, but I look for me, it’s like, you know, you meet so many different people at all these different events. So I try to like get something a bit personal, like I, you know, was able to do with you and have many chats and we can get to know each other, have those genuine relationships. What was what was the tag you attached to me then? The tag. Yes. Mr Purple, I remember talking to you, obviously that first event that we went to and it was, you were talking about the mistakeology and we really connected about that and then Mr Purple and then it was just the next event and I was like, you know, and then we finally were able to have a one to one coffee and it ended up going for like nearly two hours or something like that.

We had to cut it short because it kept going. And it wasn’t just because the cafe gave us oversized coffees. it was the conversation was good. Definitely was, yeah. So anyway, it’s nice to get you on the show. It isn’t just about you and I having a yarn. What’s nice is this doesn’t go anywhere. This doesn’t go anywhere. This would be here as long as the internet exists, I guess. So people come back and listen to our conversation and who you really are, which is what I love about them to be honest with you. Obviously there’s a lot of people in the NDIS industry here in Australia that know you or know of you, but there’s also people that listen to this worldwide. We’ve got audiences all over the place that I only just probably learn what the NDIS is off of other episodes as well.

But for those that do know you, tell us a little bit about where you’re from pre-NDIS, pre-career. So I think one’s down a bit about you that they don’t already know. So I mean, my snapshot of my story is I come from a logistics background. So I used to work in logistics, organizing, freighting and so on. That was a small portion of my life. I then went in, did a degree in social work, social science. I’ve always been based on, you know, just how my family and my dynamics has always been something about getting into community services for whatever that looked like. So my journey went from at one point in my life, I had a car accident, which is like nine or 10 years ago now. And at that point, I went through a period of time.

It was about a year of intense just absolute change, like complete overhaul of everything that I knew. So then I took that experience and went into community services, studied, loved it, then ended up finding my way into the disability sector where I was aiming and hoping to help us just as much as possible. That was a simple and pure and still to this day. I just want to help. I just want to do as much good as I possibly can in whatever shape or form that takes, whether it be making someone’s day by saying hello or just recognizing them or even actually which we’re lucky to do, make some real change for individuals’ lives as support coordinators, for example. So whatever that may be. To put it simply, that’s me in a nutshell.

I just went from logistics and high organizational spaces and then had my own particular experiences and then tried to funnel that into something good. That’s commendable. I like it. Your friends outside of industry, outside of your career, they’re able to describe you in three words. One is loud. No, I mean passionate. energetic and dribbin’s probably they wouldn’t describe me as driven it’d probably be more annoying to them but no it just that you know that person who’s always just got energy for stuff like hey let’s do this yeah let’s do it now I’ll be the one to annoy them right let’s do it then if that makes any sense yeah. Yep yep so you’re playing in the backside of some people there’s a bit of hustle about you, which is good. So let’s go into that hustle as there’s 10 year old, 10 year old eggy, 10 year old eggy, got a lot of hustle, got a lot of passion and drive. What did that 10 year old want to be?

That 10 year old wanted to be a soccer player, believe it or not. Football, football. You know what, you’re so right. I’m going to get roasted. It is football. Yeah. I wanted to be a football player ever since I could walk. If anyone you asked me and in my family, I had a football at my feet. I was actually quite good, but that’s very vain and can’t back it up right now, but I was decent enough. That was going to be my career path, well, aim, pre-car accident. So yeah, he wanted to be a footballer, but I’m a very different person to I was then in good and bad ways, but mostly good. I wasn’t as… I didn’t have the same discipline as I did now. So all of those particular experiences you go through in life really shape and change and mould you. But 10 year old eggy, footballer, four Manchester United of course.

Manchester United. Yeah we don’t, had to get it in there. Hey listen I’ve got, you know I’ve got no comeback every weekend. I’m getting depressed. I’ve already written a season off like I did last year’s and it was a bonus so my poor son who I’ve indoctrinated into my team is probably up there with child abuse or something. Anyway, so we fast forward and logistics, you’re doing what you’re doing and you’ve got a flavor to your personality which means you’d like to help, given the opportunity to help, that’s where your cape comes on and you’re happy to do what you’re doing. So you’re probably working a bit flow state now. So you’re in the NDIS. Okay, let’s go into what it is you do in the NDIS for those that don’t know.

So for those that are familiar with NDIS, we’re support coordinators, which essentially where the in between between the person or the participant or the person with the disability or the decision maker and we’re the in between for them to the NDIS or for them and their services. So we’re, you know, on a little bit of that social work side kind of comes in to some extent and we’re just trying to really help that person access their NDIS plan as best as possible, navigate their life. A lot of people, I guess, tend to I think it’s just the organizing services. It’s obviously from our perspective, a whole lot more than that.

When you’re working with different people, different families, different situations, you have this idea of problem solving with them. Let’s think this is why, I guess, from our conversations, we’ve been able to resonate quite a lot. We’re really going in there to try and help them sometimes figure out what they want, sometimes figure out what they need, sometimes figure out both, and then really trying to help them map out how to get there. And in some cases, having to be the people that sometimes say, you may not be able to get that based on the current rules and regulations and all those sort of things. So we’re really like a little bit of a guide. I like to explain it to people in three different ways.

One is like admin role duties where we’re trying to take that burden away from families so they can just be families in some cases. linking them to services, making sure that sort of stuff runs smoothly. I like to say, we’re almost like the mortgage brokers of the NDIS world where they come to us and they go, hey, I need this. And we go, fine, let me go and find you a service. So we go and find what fits in what works best for that person. And then the last one is just a guide. So we’re there to support families in improving their ability and understanding the NDIS, in understanding what they can and can’t do. And hopefully at some point give the responsibility or the information back to them so that they can make their own choices because we’re not supposed to be or we were never designed to be around forever.

We were designed to be there to help that person understand the NDIS enough to navigate her on their own, which in some cases you can get to there, but not always. So it’s designed to have a shelf life. In your opinion then what makes a good or a great support coordinator? You know, honestly, it’s quite simple. I mean, someone who’s willing to be honest, be available and communicative, and just be genuinely open to understanding that person’s position and where they’re trying to get to. I think a lot of people would assume that we need to know everything about every diagnosis or everything about every situation. In my experience, it’s not that. In my experience, it’s someone who’s willing to

sit down, truly understand what that person same, not just them, but their support team around them and be able to kind of put it all together. So you may have a participant that wants something that they may, it may not be possible. And then your job is to understand why and what they want and see what options there are available for them. That may be 50, 20, 30, 100% of the way they’re depending on what they’re asking. So just the openness, the communication, the genuine nature about trying to help, that is what makes a good support coordinator. I mean if you ask any participant out there that’s had a negative experience it’s because oh I haven’t been able to get in contact, I haven’t been able to and you know you need to be really available. Alright so it’s very human-centric which is going to have its pros and cons. With that in mind what what are your biggest pet peeves?

About support coordinators in general? Maybe about your sort of like your day-to-day I suppose. At the moment, I think it’s a tricky question and a great question. I think because the NDIIS is changing so fast, as support coordinators, we are having to navigate information that may or may not be correct, if that makes sense. The tricky part about this conversation is is there is a reason why it’s like that. So I preface this by saying, and specifically talking about the NDIS in general in this context, but any business it applies to, if you grew within the space of time that the NDIS is available in Australia from zero to, to in nine years, you go from zero participants to 740,000 with all the staff, there are going to be operational challenges.

There’s going to be learning challenges in, and I know from our experience and trying to sustain staff, make it, all of those things, they’re complex. So oftentimes when we’re working as support coordinators, not everyone has a solid understanding of the NDIS, which is completely fine, but we’re in that transitional phase at the moment as an industry, where we’ve had lots of change, there’s lots of information, and us as support coordinators, even ourselves, trying to keep up with all of the information because everything changes quite often. So that is the most, I guess, challenging part of if you ask any support, Godhead is navigating all of those bits and pieces of information and still trying to say relevant and, you know, accurate. Because what you said to yesterday may not no longer be the case. And then you’re working with a participant and they go, Oh, but this person said this and we’re like, Yes, that used to be true. But now it’s not. And they go, Why? That doesn’t make any sense. And sometimes you agree with them. But that’s the rules, if that makes sense. So that side.

So that probably is a nice segue part into where I was thinking of from the next question. If you could wave that magic wand, look at it, and then I said, my ADHD pen, purple hair, purple hair, I’m just jealous. If you could wave that magic wand and, you know, because you’re in a privileged position, you sit between participants, the families, the providers in challenging times and rewarding times an equal measure for sure. And he got this whole myriad of conversation and experience. If you could wave a magic wand in the macro sense to say, right, this is a bang. This is what I know is if I could change one thing for the better of everybody involved, what would that be?

So it’s a complicated question really. It’s a bit of the like, for me, there’s a whole myriad of things that you would need to do. But I think all of the it’s just to be honest at the I think time is what is needed, but time is the thing that we can’t, we don’t have to be completely honest. Now, I think right now, information is what is lacking. So, and the information, what I mean by information is the understanding of what is required to provide services in some cases isn’t available for the NDS to understand and vice versa in our end. in our end. So in our end, we’re not quite understanding what is happening on their level. So if I could change anything, and let’s just say fast forward five or 10 years is that that piece of information sharing has gotten to a level where we are on the same page. I think that is what’s realistically missing at the moment within the industry because everyone is on a different page. Now, whether you can or can’t do that, you know, because things change, there’s different opinions. For me, that is what’s causing the a a lot of the extended time frames, the confusion, you know, is that piece of clarifying and having some simple guidelines and rules, okay, this is what we do, this is what we can do off we go, which I think is we’re moving towards.

It’s a great answer, but it’s a difficult one truly because like I said, when you’re rolling out anything And we’ve experienced it is when you’re trying to communicate rules and so on as you’re expanding a business or organization, it takes time for that to flow down. So those systems will strengthen over time. But information and clarity of information would be one thing that if we could solve, would solve a lot of problems. Doing that would be difficult though. sounds like there’s a lot of frustration around some uncertainties and the unknowns and the known unknowns if you like. I think you’re quite right there’s always change and there’s all and organisations like the size of the NDS government organisations the change is is a constant okay but I think it’s the volume of change right now because they’re quite significant and there’s lots of them and there’s lots of speculation and it impacts people’s lives significantly.

And that falls back onto people like yourself, a front line having these difficult conversations, as you said you sometimes need to do and you just can’t direct one way or the other. It’d be nice probably for us to settle down a little bit but it’s a capturing turn because the endoist itself It needs time to calibrate. It needs time to get through government, get into process, to get into layman’s terms, you know, but the support that’s needed, it’s constant, it’s here that, that can’t wait. No, and I think sustainability is always going to be the word that should be used when it comes to NDIS in all aspects of the word. So it’s not just about one side or the other side, it’s a holistic, sustainable environment that needs to be created.

And that’s a long-term vision. It’s not a short-term vision. And making rapid changes doesn’t always lead to that. So I think I’m a little bit of an optimist, but I think we are heading towards that. It’s just going to take time in terms of transition. We’re all going to have to, all of us, including the NDIS, including providers and including participants, come make changes in how we view the NDIS and how it’s going to be used and that sort of thing. Because I think again that idea of differing information everywhere is apparent. But you need time. Like for example, you can’t just roll something out without having information, but it takes time to get that information to then roll it out appropriately.

Or where I see a lot of the impact tapping with rapid changes is those people in more more complex or high intensity needs. They’re the ones who tend to be unfortunately the ones that are, that have obviously a higher level of risk. But then that’s the greatest level of impact. So when, for example, funding periods come in, love it, great idea. It solves one amazing major thing that was going on in the industry. But I guess the roll out and could have taken a different approach. That’s my opinion though. But that’s just me. I’d also don’t work in India as to know what other major things were going on to say why we did that. But yeah, I agree with you. You made a great point. Time. Time is the key.

But sometimes those families don’t have time, unfortunately. What’s your thoughts? So there’s a lot of people in Australia, for example, that are outside of the NDS, and they see NDS a lot in the media. It’s on the news a lot. It’s on the tip of people’s tongues. Things when they reach the media, it tends to be there for the wrong reasons, okay? So they highlight a shoddy operator, generally speaking, which when you watch it, it is never good watching, okay? What’s your experience of this and thoughts on that? Do you think it’s a true reflection? Not, look, holistically, and this is just a holistic view is no. I think obviously there’s a place to highlight, you know, situations that are not going well.

I mean, that’s the point. But I think holistically, and again, I am an optimist, but I see a lot of good and a lot of good stories and positive things in the NDOS. So of course with anything, you’re going to have people who do amazing work, people who are still learning, and then people who are there for the wrong intentions. The tricky part is determining who actually is not doing the right thing, right? Because ultimately speaking, not everything that makes the media is always 100% accurate, because also the people reporting, how much do they actually understand? What is actually happening for those businesses? Have you worked in the business? Do you understand what is right or wrong? A lot of those factors come in.

So for me though, overall and realistically, there is actually a lot of good that happens. There’s amazing people in this industry that just genuinely wanna make real change. Like irrespective of anything, they provide amazing services, they really wanna help. And I’ve been lucky enough to be privy to some of those relationships along my time. And you get real participants getting real outcomes who, you know, one family that I’ve just, just I’ve been working with they they were going through such a bad time that you know we just met this person was living with his family at home in a three four bedroom house and and he had a wheelchair spinal injury that’s what I think he’s now living on his own independently so there are those good news stories but they tend to not always make do you know what I’m saying so there needs to be a healthy balance I think out there but we all I think just historically I don’t know about what you think, Tom, but those more, I guess, negative stories tend to be the ones that are more highlighted. Like, for example, it’s the people don’t always give you give the praise, but they, you know, when something goes wrong, it’s the louder sort of space. So I’d love to see more of those good news stories and people sharing what is actually going on in the industry and those providers that are spending all that time putting in so much effort and Even people like yourself who go out there and you know willing to work with people and people who want to I saw a lot of people work with you who want to be better. They’re investing time and and all this energy and and Resources into being better like but they don’t tend to prompt you always to say look at me. Look at me. They’re just doing it So it’s interesting and it is I think I’ve observed the same thing I think it’s just in life in general is that sometimes those that do the best work do so is silence and and it’s just, you just want to put the spotlight on them.

Hey, come on, let’s put them on a pedestal. That is a spark of ease in this podcast exists, to be honest with you. If I thought you was a cowboy, you probably wouldn’t be on here. I think I started off an optimist, I think I’ve downgraded to a realist over time. I think I went with my hairline, hand in hand.

But I really, I really, this is fine, because I think you can just see things as they are, because we can’t cross over some of the, sure the operators. And the problem is, if you’re not a great operator in the NDS, you’re taking advantage of the most vulnerable and in football terms, that’s a six pointer. Okay. That’s just not very nice. And it just doesn’t sit well with me. I just feel like I want to go and shake those people. And I see them fairly often, too often. Okay. But they are disproportionate. So there’s proportionate wise, there’s a load of really good operators and some bad operators. Whereas with news, there’s a load of bad operators and very few good operators that just got it them all the way round.

Well, it’s like anything. I think those more negative stories tend to have a little bit, like they’re louder, they’re more dramatic. And I think sometimes the good providers, they’re just small things. just those little things that they’re doing really well every day and they’re not really necessarily yelling out there. But it’s true. That’s where I go back to that idea. I think when you’re talking specifically about some of the changes that have been made and a lot of the changes, they’re good changes. They’re changes that are needed for the industry to protect those people that are unfortunately may have had a bad experience. It’s just that balance of getting it right. You know what I mean? Like so both sides are saying I technically correct.

So there are bad things that are happening that need to be highlighted and in some cases, you know, people need to know. But also a hell of a lot of good things that are going out there. I just think what’s important for me, especially when it comes to media and you know, those sort of things is that we’re reporting on the on, on, you know, factual, you know, real stuff. And then I’d love to see some of those good news stories put out there because there’s so much good going on that we often we often forget about like it’s not out there. Unfortunately, there’s some amazing programs and maybe there’s something for you and I to work on Mr. Eggy. We can go and laugh out some good news stories and we could push it out to media or push it out to the world so people can hear about them.

Yeah, I like those people that are doing some real good in this industry because I guess, like they said, it’s a difficult space to work in. There’s a lot to learn. People need to be obsessed and really passionate about working in this space because it’s always changing. There’s always something going on. And you need to be a certain type of person. But those people are doing real good, and I’d love to share their stories as much as possible. So definitely something I’m happy to do with you. Before we wrap up then, a couple of little bits then. What’s in the pipeline for you, Mr. Eggie? Where have you got any announcements, projects? I’m going to just keep an eye out. So in terms of projects, there’s one big one that, excitedly, you’re a part of.

So we have ability connected myself, have co-founded a networking group, we’ll call it, where we bring together people who have genuine passion to make the industry better. So the idea of the group is to support, you know, any organization, any person in any organization from a number of ways, whether it be someone like yourself coming out to really help them, you know, and they can lean on your skill set to help them navigate the next steps or whatever the case may be. Or, you know, maybe there’s, we’ve done talks on, you know, specific industry updates and changes where we’ve all come together as a collective community to talk about some of the barriers we’ve got and then, you know, kind of talk through collectively some strategies. So I guess it’s just a group of people who genuinely want to help.

So we were running those each month, which again, super excited to have you all part off. So thank you for that. And I’m sure we’ve got some ideas cooking for some future ones, whichever one can keep keep their eye out for. But that’s pretty much I mean, everything else for us. We’ve been doing support coordination finley in nine years now. We have 20 full-time staff, we’re here and ready to help. We’ve been volunteering our time with different charitable bodies to just help as many people as we can. So we’re going to continue doing all of that

and continue to help the community as best as we can pretty much. So anybody listening to this, they like what you’re saying and they want to reach out predominantly on the support coordination side of things, what would be the best route for them to make contact? So we do have a contact us function if it is specifically in relation to support coordination, we have a contact us function on our page that gets sent to me and all of the leaders in our organization, it’s really easy. A couple questions, you stand up through and say, hey, I need to chat, one of us will call you. If anyone’s open to getting involved in this network, just reach out to me directly, www.manuaudibilityconnect.com.au and we can have a chat.

Change of email to eggy. I know man, I swear you’re getting me thinking. Every time I talk to I learn something. So it’s literally, I should probably do it. Everyone knows that. You know what? I laugh every single single time I smile. It’s funny you said that when you, when we did the intro, you said, see, eggy, see how you change. Because people email me when now and all they message me and they go, hey eggy. I’m like, ah, that’s cool. That’s it, it works. One does easy to remember and it’s easy to set up an alias so I’m going to test this email all day long to see if it bounces. Oh, I love it. All right, mate, well listen, thanks a lot for your time. Been lovely chatting and I’ll speak to you in person soon. Likewise. Thank you for having me.

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