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“How our WA team embraced the changes in senior leadership this year and have worked to maintain services and provide reassurance to consumers and their families in response to COVID-19 has been inspiring.”
Nicole Jolly
Western Australia State Manager

Western Austraila

Strong and resilient teams are what make our services robust to manage challenges, continue to support our consumers and have driven creativity and growth this year.

We have spent the last twelve months investing in our communities by providing evidence-based and recovery-focused support. We have found that in response to COVID-19, the resilience and power of the relationships we have in the community are invaluable and lead the way for the future of Neami in Western Australia.

Working in partnership across the spectrum of need, be that with clinical services in our Step-Up Step-Down services or by increasing our collaboration with the community mental health sector, lead to tangible outcomes for consumers. Knowing what we do well and seeking  to partner with others has meant we are flexible enough to respond to any situation. As we saw during COVID-19, being able to scale and adjust to meet the needs of consumers was critical in maintaining a continuity of support.

With our ongoing and deep experience in delivering ICLS support across the metro and southern regions, we are well poised to expand our delivery of NDIS services as the rollout continues in Western Australia. For people requiring support coordination or psychosocial support, choice and control are key elements to any person-centred approach.

With a robust service model and a consumer experience-driven mindset, we have seen the year as a chance to test smaller programs that give insight into new opportunities. Projects such as the NDIS access for psychosocial disability in homeless refuges allowed us to provide services that can rapidly deliver real impact in the community within short time frames. We welcomed our first consumer participant in a co-design workshop for our regional Step-Up Step-Down service modelling, we also profiled and recruited our first “Family and Friend Peer Support Workers

While COVID delayed the WACOSS conference, our silver sponsorship will carry over to the new year. Our engagement with the broader social services sector grew this year as well. We saw our Suicide Prevention Coordinators well placed to facilitate community grants in response to COVID-19. Over 30   grants went to a range of local programs to build community resilience and ensure we remained connected while remaining safe. Our Postvention project with Bowra & O’dea received wonderful feedback and generated much interest and attention by government as well as within and outside our immediate sector.

As we move into the coming year, we are excited to be delivering two new Step-Up Step-Down services in Geraldton and Kalgoorlie. Being able to provide much needed  services in partnership with remote communities is a privilege. We are excited for the challenge of introducing ourselves, our model of support and desire to engage the full community to work in collaboration.

How our teams responded to the uncertainty of COVID, the dedication to recovery principles and the reassurance and uninterrupted support provided to consumers is the critical asset we take into the next year. While we draw from the Collaborative Recovery Model, we know that it is the work we do to tailor support to each person, face-to-face, or using technology, that makes our service robust to respond effectively to any future challenge.

“How our teams responded to the uncertainty of COVID, the dedication to recovery principles and the reassurance and uninterrupted support provided to consumers is the critical asset we take into the next year.”