June 2014
The Compass Institute
Newsletter
Compass is Proudly
Sponsored by.....
Dear Families
Well the year is going by so
quickly. I hope everyone
continues to have a great
start to the year. Another big
month with events and
connections.
Date Claimers
9th June 2014
Queens Birthday Public
Holiday
13th June 2014
Nambour Show Holiday
27th June 2014
Term 2 Compass Concludes
9th July 2014
Start of term 3
Compass Commences
11th August 2014
Caboolture Show holiday
11th– 15th August 2014
Independence Week
19th September 2014
Term 3 Compass Concludes
Firstly the Champagne
Diamond Gala was a huge
success with over 200
attendees. A massive
congratulations has to go to
Bronwyn Latcham, one of
our
tireless
Board
members, who took away
the $14000 diamond.
The Cricks Xtrail launch
was the first official
unveiling of the new
Com pass pr om otional
vehicle. It sat proudly on
the outer hill of Crusher
park and was admired by
many passers-by. The day
went well with some special
guests stopping by for a
chat. A special thank you
must go to Dan and Matt
from the Cricks Nambour
Group for the generous
donation of the Ute to the
Compass Team. Their
support and dedication to
the promotion of Compass
on the Sunshine Coast has
been invaluable. If you’re in
the market for a quality new
or used vehicle, go see the
guys at Cricks-Nambour
Connection Rd Nambour.
Last month you may recall
that we had the Siena
Catholic College students
out to the Farm. Well we
were also fortunate enough
to be the beneficiaries of
the Siena Benefit Ball.
The staff and students
fundraised and then
presented a cheque
totalling $6,357. This was
an outstanding amount for
the students to have raised,
and I think integrating them
into the Compass family
prior to the event was a
game changer. Talks have
already begun to have the
next group of students out
the
farm
so
the
partnership’s growing.
Well done to the four trainees who represented
themselves, their families
and Compass extremely
well. We were all very
proud.
The Timber Crates for
Cricks Nambour have been
going well, with Rob and
Carla pumping out 60
hampers for May, with
another 100 forecast for
June. Along with these
orders, The Sunshine
Coast Daily has also put in
an order for 150 crates for
their Business Christmas
Hampers.
Compass also attended its
first Post School Expo in
Brisbane. Again Compass
was the busiest site and we
received some excellent
feedback in regards to the
service and the possibilities
of expansion.
During May, Compass was
also
invited
to
the
Currimundi Special School
and Woody Point Special
Schools
Information
Evenings. These nights are
an excellent opportunity to
showcase the Compass
Institute and promote our
services to the staff and
families. We are always well
received and hopefully pick
up some new trainees for
2015.
Lastly the Compass Institute
was gifted a stall at the
Sunshine Coast Business
Expo. It was again an
excellent opportunity to
showcase Compass to the
Corporate sector, with
opportunities for new clients,
expanding existing partners
and promoting the goods
and services that Compass
provides. I wish you all the
very best for June and look
forward to touching base
with you soon.
ards
g
e
r
d
Kin
DJ
Exploring the Art of Life
Newsletter
Cooking up a Storm
Shane and Alex from our Caboolture Team have been doing
an outstanding job during cooking and are taking their
cooking expertise to the next level. Christie had them making
Pork and Apple Prosciutto Skewers this week.
A very complex task as they not only had to marinade the
pork, they used their confident knife skills to cut up the apples
in bite size pieces and used the correct measurements on the
recipe to make up the delicious marinade.
Shane and Alex also had the task of wrapping the very fine
prosciutto around the apples, which sometimes seemed a
little challenging, but both young men continued on with the
task at hand being very optimistic. For their final challenge,
the apples and pork needed to be placed carefully onto the
skewers, which they did very carefully! In the end our Kebabs
looked great and tasted delicious!
Each week Shane and Alex continue to grow within their
competencies within the kitchen, including the use of hot
objects. It is great to see them both grow and become
confident within their cooking skills.
Big Smiles and even bigger dance moves were shown
on the dance floor at the local Endeavour Foundations
Battle of the Bands held in Tewantin.
Six bands performed to a packed audience hall in
celebration of having a go despite the limitations of
having a disability.
Each band received a prize from the $750 worth of prizes
received from local businesses around the area.
Best Band in the Area went to Nambour TAFE band
“The Outsiders” who performed a range of original songs.
Endeavour Support and Operations Manager Julie Elford
said she received an overwhelming response to the
concert. “The event touched many peoples hearts” she
said
Parents where overwhelmed at how far their children had
come over the 3 months.
Advocacy
Continuous Improvement Plan
Remember that you are able to bring along an advocate or support person to any meeting that you have
with Compass.
At Compass we are committed to
ongoing service improvement.
If you have a suggestion about how we
can improve our service, please write
your suggestion on one of our
An advocate is someone who is there to support you
or represent you and your interests in circumstances
where you feel that this additional support is re- Service Improvement Suggestion
quired.
Forms
Please ask us if you need more information or assistance with organising for an advocate.
Page 2
available from the office, our centres or
our website: www.compassinc.org.au
and we will consider every idea.
COMPASS
CALENDAR
Need to check dates for the
holidays or a special event?
Our Annual Planner Calendar
is available 24/7 at
www.compassinc.org.au
Exploring the Art of Life
Newsletter
Caloundra
Here is Caloundra CPV with our first
customer
at Wabi Sabi Caloundra “Maureen
Boyd”.
She is buying a gift and being served
by Meghan ,Rebecca and Sarah.
We have a pottery workshop and a
small retail space so please come in
and say hello.
We have a lovely variety of gifts
including Pottery ,Bird Houses, Tie
dye, Lovely essential oils and some
of Harvest kitchens yummy Jams ,
Chutneys and sauces.
Palmwoods and the Farm get busy with the show bags
Dear Families
As with us all, events outside
‘work’ or medical conditions can
affect our working day. To best
help our young people, could
families remember to make note
in the Communication Book of
anything that could affect
behaviour or capacity. This way
we can be prepared and if
required, adjust the trainee’s
programme accordingly.
Thank you very much to all
of the parents and trainees
who took the time to
complete the 2014 Compass
Service User Satisfaction
Survey.
The results were very
positive with 97% of families
being either satisfied or very
satisfied. Of these the vast
majority were very satisfied.
And 100% of trainees
responded with satisfied or
very satisfied.
The participation rate was
very high with 51% of all
families/carers responding
and 46% of all trainees
responding. Thank you for
your wonderful feedback and
comments.
Caloundra Education Unit 2
made bath salts for Wabi Sabi.
Caloundra Enterprise worked
on making birdfeeders.
They also got new timber for
their wood crafts.
Caloundra PRE-Vocation has
a new pottery wheel and our
new shop opened in time for
Mother’s Day.
Caloundra Training Unit
is working at Coles.
We have also worked
on the newsletter and
also our jobs that we do
in the afternoon.
Caloundra are getting busy with their new ventures
Exploring the Art of Life
Dear Parents and Friends
I thought it might be a good idea to take a few
minutes to explain something important about
the way in which Disability Services Qld have
entered into service agreements with
Post-School service providers like Compass
over the past decade. This information will be
very useful to you as the NDIS unfolds over the
next few years. It will also help explain the
relationship with the Your Life Your Choice
(YLYC) programme that has been initiated in
Queensland over the past year.
In 2003 when Compass commenced service to
people with disabilities, each person was
assigned individualised funds (or not). Compass
was asked to use a calculating tool developed
by the department (Grant Budget Proposal) to
calculate the number of hours (and the staff to
trainee ratios) it would be able to provide to
each person. The calculator had pre-set award
rates for support and management staff as well
as set percentages for operational expenses
and on-costs. We would enter in the ratios and
it would calculate the hours to match the
funding available. When Compass reported to
DSQ each quarter it would do so based on the
dollar amounts spent for each individual’s
service.
In 2009 / 2010 the Department moved over to
‘Outputs’. An ‘Output’ was calculated and
assigned for each person. This output did not
include ratios of staff to trainees – it was
calculated only on the number of hours that
Compass was required to provide to each
person in a given year. From that time Compass
and other Post-school service providers have
had to report to the department quarterly not
on dollars spent but on ‘Outputs’. You will
notice that each year we have then reported
back to you on the outputs achieved also. Since
the implementation of this requirement not
one Compass trainee has received less than
their allocated outputs. In fact as many as one
third has received and/or continue to receive
much more than the outputs required under
our agreement with the department.
Under the NDIS, post school service providers
will be required to shift back to reporting on
the dollars spent for each individual. We do not
know, with certainty, what all the reporting
requirements will be at this stage, but
providers will have to assess the number of
hours of support they can offer within the
funds available. We know that a person will
receive a package of funding with which to
purchase their supports whether that is with a
specialist service provider or an organisation
outside the disability sector. How control is
exercised over that expenditure is also yet to
unfold. There is an expectation that providers
will invoice their service recipients by the hour
and the hourly rate will alter, depending on the
level and quality of support required/provided.
The NDIS is a market based system of support
and service providers will be accounting for
both hours and dollars because they are
inextricably linked. Providers like Compass will
be reporting on the hours they provide support
for. The key to all this is it’s not just about the
hours spent there… it’s about the quality of
the staff with whom they spend those hours
and the quality of the facilities and resources
to which they have access during those hours.
Spending the hours in a park, shopping centre
or the movies with a glorified driver is very
different to spending the same time at a
specially prepared facility with trained support
staff involved in developmental programmes or
supported employment. The costs of providing
the latter in a viable and sustainable framework
are of course much greater.
Because reporting on dollars / hours is
something that requires a complete adjustment
in calculating, accounting and reporting, the
federal government is rolling out the
implementation over several years, allowing
service providers to shift across to that regime.
The Queensland Government in their wisdom
decided not to have any rollout time and
implemented the YLYC programme in Qld as a
simple knee-jerk reaction to choosing not to
participate in the NDIS trials. The services that
were able to roll this programme out initially
were those that had the majority of their
service across recreation / respite style
programmes as they were not governed by
outcomes and had the facility to implement it
quickly.
Compass was advised not to act rashly in
realigning our systems because there was (and
remains) so much uncertainty about the future
requirements for service providers. As we’ve all
observed, State and Federal governments,
while stating they are committed to the
principle of an NDIS, are really complicit in
developing policy on the run and leaving a
vacuum for service providers and service users.
The issue for Compass is made more difficult by
our choice of small group settings to facilitate
the development programmes. Accounting for
the hours of each trainee and at what ratio to
staff will be a very time-consuming task to say
the least. On any given day trainees from each
unit may be absent and/or extra support may
be provided to individuals on a 1:1 or 1:2 basis
for various amounts of time dependent on the
capacity of the person in each activity area as
well as on their emotional state. Currently we
use an ‘average day’ scenario as employed by
the NMDS – a national data collection agency to calculate service cost scenarios.
The Queensland Government makes no secret
that Queensland is in dire financial
circumstances and continually promotes the
fact that we need to sell assets, cut services,
increase taxes etc. The
present government blames the previous
government naturally, but the reality is that
enormous wealth has been frittered away
through appalling mismanagement by both
sides… and the people who suffer are the
taxpayers and service users. The politicians
continue to take their enormous pay rises even
while talking about lowering the minimum wage
for the average worker. These are the same
people who are responsible for the YLYC
implementation. They are not intent on
improving services to people with disabilities.
They are intent on cutting costs to the
government and this means a combination of
cutting actual services to users by dissolving
various funding streams and shifting as much
risk and responsibility as possible to the service
providers.
You may have noticed that in ‘preparing for the
NDIS environment’ the previous categories of
funding have disappeared (PSS, ALSP, FSP and so
on). It’s all one big amorphous pool now. I know
of several families who have required extra
respite due to changes in family circumstances.
Instead of being able to access support under
those other categories as in the past, they’re
being told ‘there is no funding for that now… it’s
all part of one funding pool. But of course you
should tap into what you get under the old PSS
category if you need extra respite now’. This is
a clear erosion of your PSS funding and your
right to funding for respite needs etc. Many
families have reported over the years that their
need for respite has diminished generally due to
the increased capacity of the young person as a
result of the developmental programmes
provided by Compass.
I encourage you to be wary of accepting
directions to spread your funding across other
areas of need unless the department agrees to
provide extra funds for those services. In the
meantime, if you have urgent circumstances, I
also encourage you to speak with me personally
or another Compass staff member for the
simple reason that we are focused on
supporting you and your son or daughter. We
can and will be flexible to assist you through any
emergencies.
If you believe it’s in your best interests to go
through the YLYC programme, Compass is taking
steps to register to provide service through this
programme. It is a risk in an uncertain environment. However, we have previously accounted
on a dollars basis for service and have been
researching and developing appropriate systems
to do so once more for those who feel this is
preferable. The key is to know that you can talk
with me freely without judgement and if we can
assist you, we will.
Thank you.
David