Your Life Your Choice:

Quality Health Check

Michelle Crozier Associate Professor Heidi MuenchbergerGriffith Health Institute, Griffith University

• Your Life Your Choice – Queensland Government initiative

• Industry Partnership• Research Program Logic• Research Aim• Staged Action Research• Interviews – YLYC Participants• Focus Groups & Interviews – Host Providers• Initial Findings• Survey development

Presentation Outline

• Your Life Your Choice (YLYC) self-directed support was launched by the Premier and Minister for Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services in September 2012

• YLYC enables people with disability and their families to have more choice and control over their disability supports and services

• YLYC introduces self-direction to Queensland• YLYC helps people with disability and their families get

ready for more choice and control under the NDIS

Your Life Your Choice

Industry Partnership

“Self-Directed support is an approach which enables people with a disability and/or their family to have choice and control over their disability supports and services to achieve positive outcomes in their lives. By using funding and other resources to plan, purchase and select supports and services that suit individualised needs, people with a disability and/or their families become active participants in the design and delivery of their disability support.”

Your Life Your Choice

• This policy direction is consistent with other jurisdictions across Australia

• Self-direction is not new

• YLYC is not new funding, it is a new option to change the way services are delivered through increasing choice and control.

• Changes to the Disability Services Act (2006)

• Ruling from the Australian Tax Office and Department of Social Security that where this funding is paid directly to a person or family it is not included as income.

• The funding is paid quarterly in advance.

• Currently there are 109 approved host providers and over 1050 participants self directing under Your Life Your Choice.

• Vision to embed people in community through purchasing services in more typical ways.

Your Life Your Choice

Your Life Your Choice

• Develop a snap shot understanding of Your Life Your Choice on participants who have moved from a traditional model’s of service delivery (or are new to services) to Your Life Your Choice through two quarters of payments.

• It also involves developing an understanding of the experiences of Host Providers.

Research Aim

Staged Action Research

• Eligible Recruitment Pool (n=261) • Random Sample (n=63)• Invitation to participate• Respondents (n=14; 22%)• Interviewed (n=12; 19%)• Mixture of participants

YLYC Research Participants

YLYC Research ParticipantsRELATIONSHIP REGION METHOD

Guardian Brisbane Host Provider

Father South East Host Provider

Adult Foster Parent Brisbane Host Provider

Mother North Coast Host Provider

Adult Foster Parent Brisbane Direct Payment

Mother Brisbane HP going to DP

Person Brisbane Host Provider

Person Brisbane Host Provider

Mother North QLD Host Provider

Person Brisbane HP going to DP

Mother Brisbane Host ProviderMother Central QLD Host Provider

• Eligible Recruitment Pool (n=99) • Respondents Focus Group (n=15; n=12 orgs)• Interviewed (n=4; n = 3 orgs) • Operating across regions (n=11)• Organisations: Mamre, Staffing Options, Bespoke,

Alara, Muscular Dystrophy QLD, Uniting Care, Autism QLD, HealthCare group, Xavier Children Support Network, Carers QLD, Endeavour Foundation, Horizon, Compass, Centacare & Flexi QLD.

Research Host Providers

• The journey toward Your Life Your Choice

• Experiences of Your Life Your Choice

• Operating Your Life Your Choice

Key Research Themes

• Background Information

• Your Life Your Choice Experiences

• Host Provider Experiences

• Departmental Experiences

Research Survey: Participants

• Region/s

• Participants

• Host Provider Arrangements

• NDIS readiness

Research Survey: Host Providers

•Distribute Host Provider Survey•Distribute Participant Survey•Analyse Survey Results• Prepare Final Report

What is next?

• Crozier, M., Muenchberger, H., Colley, J., & Ehrlich, C. (2013). 'The disability self-direction movement: Considering the benefits and challenges for an Australian response'. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 48 (4), 455-471

• Crozier, M., & Muenchberger, H. (2013). ‘It’s your problem, not mine’: does competence have anything to do with desire and aspiration to self-direct? Australian Health Review, 37(5), 621-623.

• Dorsett, P. Chenoweth, L. Crozier, M. & Reese, K. (2014) Users experiences of self-direction: responding to the missing evidence for the new important policy paradigm within a national disability insurance scheme.

• Department of Health and Ageing. (2012). Evaluation of the consumer-directed care initiative - Appendices. KPMG.

• Government of Western Australia. Model of Care Overview and guidelines: Ensuring people get the right care, at the right time, by the right team and in the right place. WA Health Networks Retrieved from http://www.healthnetworks.health.wa.gov.au/publications/docs/070626_WA_Health_Model_of_Care-overview_and_guidelines.pdf.

• New South Wales Government. (2011). Living Life My Way: putting people with a disability at the centre of decision making.

• Queensland Government. (2012). Your Life Your Choice: self-directed support framework. Brisbane.• Victorian Government. Self-directed planning information sheet. Melbourne: Retrieved from

http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/596573/1_cis_self_directed_planning_info_sheet_pdf_290609.pdf.

References