We've had a couple of very exciting things happening this month.

Alison Short has been here visiting and working with us from HSA UK.  We hosted two courses with Alison in Melbourne before the Easter break - Developing Support Plans, and Outcome Focused Reviews.  As you may have seen from the Facebook page, the course participants represented a number of different states - Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia.  This diversity certainly made things interesting when discussing different approaches to individualized supports, with quite different work happening in different states.  It was heartening however to discover that the courses translate effectively across such different scenarios, leaving a relatively easy task in making minor adjustments to ensure the courses best fit our Australian context.  It was particularly interesting to see how well the Outcome Focused Reviews process could support Home and Community Care providers in developing plans in alignment with the Active Service Model - if anyone is interested in getting involved in further discussion about this, please email me - debw@helensandersonassociates.com.au

Thanks to Alison and all the participants of the course for a great few days.

The other exciting news we have this month is the publication of the first Australian version of Progress for Providers.  We have worked with Gordon Duff from NDS (National Disability Services) in New South Wales to produce this version, and we will be launching it at the beginning of May at the National Disability and Carers' Congress in Melbourne.  Alison, Amanda and I intend to give people a brief taste of the self assessment tool during our presentation at the conference.  Amanda Jones and Gordon will then launch it again at NDS Northern Territory Conference in Darwin in June.  NDS and HS A are currently investigating options for developing an online version of Progress for Providers - stay tuned for further developments!