Good Directions

30/04/2025

https://au.indeed.com/job/chief-operating-officer-disability-service-nswsthausvicqldtaswaact-1baea09243022acc
Pls forward on to anyone you know who is an exceptional leader.... Peter

Good Directions

18/10/2021

Good Directions is pleased to launch the Good Directions Foundation aimed at empowering and strengthening communities.

04/05/2018

NDIS/Personal Planning visit - Cairns

Good Directions is the only client-owned/shared managed registered service provider in Australia - for SIL/SDA and almost everything else.

The core budget of all our clients are Agency Managed. The service we offer gives you all the control of self/planned managed (or more) and access to the service provider rates.

This is a new model with some amazing outcomes of parents taking initiatives that is not possible any other way.

Peter Knight (Executive Director) will visit Cairns from Tues to Thurs next week. If you would like to attend a presentation on Wednesday (time to be decided) please send me your email address. I would also like the opportunity to shout you a coffee, work through some pre-planning for your NDIS meeting and chat through the potential that Good Directions offers in your exact situation.

Contact details:
peter@gooddirections.com.au
1800 123405

14/03/2018

Excited to have our (second) Third Party Verification finalised for National Disability Service Standards. 100% met.

09/02/2018

Good Directions has started a new Facebook group called "NDIS find-an-enterprise".
It's designed to promote enterprises that might suit even people with the most severe disabilities.

03/01/2018

The biggest disability service in Australia/world is comprised of families.
The Hireups & Better Carings are not disability services but contract hire companies masquerading as disability service providers.
To be a Disability Service Provider you need to assist with personal planning and development, you need to understand & promote accommodation options, you need to take responsibility for outcomes, work closely & assist with NDIS Reviews, navigate the difficult areas of the Portal - and perhaps they could charge a bit less than 25% admin fee for a near zero cost tinder equivalent. My view is they are a flash in the pan. The first couple of times before coroners/commissions of enquiry and the like will be too much of a challenge.
A service model that supports families - esp with high needs (SIL, SDA, blended families and contentious CALD cultural challenges), and adds professionalism to the actual largest disability service provider - without leaving them unsupported in a complex and fluid environment, struggling not to reinvent wheels and being pressured into non-peer reviewed therapies: that’s a future worth getting excited about.

14/11/2017

Good Directions has just been notified that its first SDA eligible dwelling has been enrolled in the Scheme.
This means that those clients can now draw down legacy SDA funds - all the way back to the beginning of their First Plan.
Good Directions has unparalleled service offerings around SDA for NSW & QLD clients with SIL. The service model we promote - as with everything - is 'client-owned' housing.

14/06/2017

Very proud and grateful to have such a supportive Advisory Board. Taken at Strategic Planning morning 2016. Prof Patricia O'Brien, Fred (& Tania) Carollo, Sarah Nadjek (not in photo), Steve Holihan, Janesse Taylor-Saar, Dr Ray Murray (visiting).

03/06/2016

The NDIS Special Disability Accommodation proposal has huge potential.
Good Directions model opens the opportunity for clients with shared living & SDA in their NDIS support package to own their own home using this initiative.

Good Directions is registered as an SDA Provider. This will enable clients to configure the arrangement according to whatever suits their circumstances.
One approach wd be for the PWD to both design and own it, in proportion to how much they contributed to the purchase price. This might be inheritance, donations, even a mortgage if we can find the right broker. The SDA payments wd go to the PWD except for builders maintenance and scheme admin costs. It cd be individual or shared depending on funding.
Good Directions model allocates the bulk of the SP overheads recovery back to the person meaning that clients have a significant amount of funding they can spend outside the clusters. They could choose to add this to the SDA payment and afford a better suburb/house.

27/04/2016

These are the clusters that Good Directions is registered to provide NDIS services for.
Accommodation/Tenancy, Assist Access/Maintain Employ, Assist-Integrate School/Ed, Assist-Life Stage Transition. Assist-Personal Activities, Assist-Travel/Transport, Daily Tasks/Shared Living, Development-Life Skills, Household Tasks, Participate Community, Coordination of Supports, Plan Management, Training-Travel Independence, SDA Accommodation

16/01/2016

There are many legitimate options but the basic structure I believe works best is one that keeps all your record keeping in a defined entity and allows you the freedom to employ people and engage in commercial contracts - without fear of having the rest of your life/assets subject to opportunistic litigation.
Having an ABN and separate entity allows you to receive income from multiple sources and, because it is all spent on the person's supports, it can remain a not-for-profit, which I find makes it much easier to get insurance. If you register the ABN (which is free) for GST you can claim back 10% of all your purchases - including contracted staff.
At risk of portraying a one-size-suits-all approach I will give two examples that suit the circumstances of the people involved.
One is an incorporated association comprising three sets of parents of teenagers with autism. The boys have ADHC funding. It has an ABN, own bank account, a mainstream bookkeeper, buys its own insurance, employs it own staff and signs it own lease. The parents own and run the service.
Due to the scale of the funding and longterm needs of the boys we set up a parent-owned charity (to make copymts tax deductible) and use the association for all sorts of related transactions.
Another example is a person who has ABI from a stroke and is FACS funded. She uses the ABN and company that she ran her business out of before the stroke (we changed one clause in the constitution to make it a NFP).
She employs carers in her home and pays all her other support costs. She uses Xero and has a mainstream accountant provide support. Both these have Good Directions as a SP but only in the role as a mentor, consultant, mediator, advisor etc.
When the NDIS comes they expect to practically self-manage but use Good Directions in the same way. The NDIS funds will be recorded as just one of the streams of income they receive.
So rather than self-manage in a way that isolates them and involves them partly reinventing the wheel, they are planning to effectively self manage but with Good Directions as their designated service provider.