Not a lot of people are aware that online disability support is an option. It’s not useful for all folks in all contexts, but for some people it’s absolutely magic. Myself and some of my team have been offering this for the past 3 years and we’ve seen some fantastic results for adults and older teens.

I find that there’s often a very limited view of what Disability Support Workers do with their time, and it can be restricted to basic domestic domestic tasks like cooking, cleaning, and driving folks around. This is certainly a lot of the work we do, but our role is generous in scope, and a lot of important, valuable work can be done remotely. My team started offering this during covid, some of very vulnerable people were assessed as low support needs by other organisations and had their services removed. There’s a profound misunderstanding at times of the nature of mental illness and neurodivergence. Just because these people could technically make themselves a meal and feed themselves didn’t mean they had the capacity to organise, prepare, and eat during a massive worldwide crisis. We picked up a number of clients who were physically capable but at serious risk, self harming, having meltdowns, unable to keep themselves safe. Online support provided safety and connection and addressed essential needs for folks who were otherwise unable to meet them.

Beyond covid, virtual support can still solve a lot of common difficulties for people:

• Living remotely with limited local options
• Difficulties with trust due to trauma, paranoia, or anxiety making it harder or impossible to have people in your home
• Difficulties with your family or housemates making it impossible to have support workers in your home
• Low social battery meaning in person supports can be exhausting
• Sensory sensitivities, eg heightened sense of smell making it difficult to have people in your space
• Over empathic difficulties where you mirror people’s physical and emotional experiences in their presence – for some people, working remotely reduces this
• Chronic instability of plans or housing where you never know where you’re going to be at 3pm on a Thursday but a phone call will probably find you
• Having specific support needs such as an uncommon disability or trauma history that make it harder to find and onboard local folks who don’t know much about it

The most common types of support we have found helpful for people virtually are

• Administrative tasks
• Planning, goal setting, prioritising, delegating
• Organising and tracking projects
• Body doubling
• Prompting good working habits eg self care, breaks, realistic expectations
• Problem solving
• Communication: scripting, responding, booking, cancelling, rescheduling
• Researching eg job ads, friendly dentists, ideas for managing spasticity, support groups
• Onboarding and training other staff eg pre interviewing cleaners, training new support workers in predicting and managing meltdowns well, helping onboard a new OT, staying screening questions for a behavioral support practitioner
• Managing the roster, handling short notice cancellations, organising staff
• Emotional support and mentoring
• Homework and study support
• Reminders and support to utilise other allied health services eg to practice the mindfulness suggested by the psychologist or purchase the fidgets recommended by the OT
• Note taking and facilitating other appointments eg helping someone feel safe to attend a telehealth appt with a new dietician

I’ve seen a lot of folks able to use online supports to overcome some considerable access barriers. In some cases we start online then progress to in person support as relationship and trust is built, and the right team with the best onboarding and training process comes together. In other cases online support continues to be a really essential part of someone’s support long term.

I use online support myself to help manage my business, because my disabilities can severely impact my capacity to track tasks, respond to emails, and manage my calendar. It’s convenient for me to have someone online rather than in my space, they are linked to my online tools like email, and I often use their support in my online meetings. I find it helpful to be able to message questions or needs as they occur, and then pick them when we next meet.

For our clients I’ve seen people use online support to go from having no in home services at all due to a severe trauma history, to being able to manage a whole team of supports!  Folks living very remotely able to gain the right support for them and finish up some tricky administrative tasks. People living in profound clutter able to start building a supportive relationship without having to confront their home environment immediately. Folks with severe fatigue able to get on top of essential tasks without having to ‘host’ a person in their space. People with compromised immunity able to have regular assistance during periods of severe vulnerability such as the week of chemo treatments.

You can text, phone, video call, or online chat. You can allow them into your digital calendar, or use free task tracking tools such as Trello. You can forward them a confusing power bill or stressful Centrelink letter. You can screen share your assignment or set your phone up on the kitchen bench and talk it through while you wash some dishes.

If this sounds like a great idea for you, you have a bunch of options in how to set it up. If you have an existing fabulous support worker you can ask for one of their regular shifts to be remote and see how it works for you. You can onboard a new support worker specifically for this role. You can also reach out to an online virtual assistant such as the lovely folks at Realtime VA. You’re certainly welcome to contact me, although I do have a waitlist for new clients.

I hope this is useful food for thought and an encouraging different approach. NDIS is a minefield of constantly changing rules and wild confusion but there’s capacity for a lot of creativity still and when support work ‘as usual’ just isn’t working for you, you can try something quite different and see if it clicks. All the best!