PSYCHOSOCIAL RECOVERY COACHING
More Than Coordination – Working Alongside the Participant
Psychosocial Recovery Coaching is designed for NDIS participants living with psychosocial disability who want support to build greater stability, independence and control in their lives.
Your Recovery Coach works alongside you to understand what matters to you, what is working, what is getting in the way and what support you may need to move towards your recovery goals.
This can involve spending time with you directly, developing practical recovery strategies and plans, building your skills and confidence, and helping bring the right services and supports around you.
Your recovery is individual to you. Your Recovery Coach's role is to understand where you are now and work alongside you towards where you want to be.
What is a Psychosocial Recovery Coach?
A Psychosocial Recovery Coach is an NDIS-funded worker who supports you in your recovery journey if you live with psychosocial disability.
Recovery Coaching combines recovery-focused coaching, capacity building and support coordination.
Your Recovery Coach can spend time working directly with you to understand your everyday life, strengths, challenges and goals. Together, you can identify what may help you feel safer, more confident and more in control of your life and supports.
Your Recovery Coach can also help you understand your NDIS plan, connect with providers, coordinate services and build a support network around what is important to you.
The NDIA describes Recovery Coaches as helping participants take greater control of their lives and better manage the complex challenges of day-to-day living.
Working Alongside You – Not Just Coordinating Services
Recovery Coaching can be more hands-on than traditional Support Coordination.
Rather than only arranging services around you, your Recovery Coach can spend meaningful time working with you to understand what is happening in your everyday life.
Together, you might explore:
- what helps you feel safe and supported
- what happens when things become difficult
- your strengths and existing coping strategies
- routines that support your wellbeing
- what you would like to change
- barriers affecting your recovery
- what meaningful recovery looks like for you
- which supports you actually want or need.
From there, you and your Recovery Coach can develop practical strategies and plans and work out what other supports may help you achieve your goals.
Recovery Planning, Safety and Wellbeing
Recovery doesn't always follow a straight line. There may be times when you're doing well and other periods when maintaining routines, relationships or engagement with supports becomes more difficult.
Your Recovery Coach can work with you to develop practical recovery, wellbeing and safety strategies based on what you know about yourself and what has helped you previously.
This may include identifying:
- your goals and priorities
- what helps you maintain wellbeing
- early signs that things may be becoming more difficult
- strategies that work for you
- people and services you trust
- what you would like others to understand about supporting you
- what you would like to happen when you need additional support.
The aim is to help you better understand your own recovery, build resilience and have greater control over how you are supported.
Building the Right Supports Around You
Sometimes it is difficult to know what support you need until someone has taken the time to understand what is actually happening in your life.
Your Recovery Coach can work alongside you first, rather than simply starting with a list of providers.
Once you have a clearer understanding of your goals, needs and priorities, your Recovery Coach can help you find and bring together the right supports.
Depending on what you want, this might include Support Workers, psychologists or other allied health professionals, mental health services, community organisations, housing services, NDIS providers and informal supports.
Your Recovery Coach can then help these supports understand how they fit together and work towards the goals that are important to you.
The starting point is you — then we build the supports around what you need.
Bridging the Gap Between Support Coordination and Direct Support
A Psychosocial Recovery Coach can help bridge the gap between coordinating your services and working directly alongside you.
A Support Coordinator will often focus on helping you understand your NDIS plan, connect with providers and coordinate your services.
A Support Worker will generally spend more regular time supporting you with everyday activities, capacity building and community participation.
A Recovery Coach can work directly alongside you to develop recovery skills, strategies, resilience and capacity while also helping coordinate the wider network of services around you.
What Does Recovery Mean?
Recovery doesn't necessarily mean that mental health challenges disappear.
Recovery is personal and can mean different things to different people.
For you, it might mean having greater independence, reconnecting with people or activities that matter to you, developing stronger routines, feeling more confident making decisions, returning to education or employment, improving relationships, living somewhere that feels right for you, or simply having greater control over your everyday life.
You decide what recovery means to you.
Your Recovery Coach works alongside you to identify your strengths, goals and priorities and develop practical steps towards the life you want to build.
Connecting Your NDIS, Mental Health and Other Supports
You may receive support from several different systems.
Alongside your NDIS supports, you might work with a GP, psychologist, psychiatrist, community mental health team, hospital, housing service, Support Workers or other community organisations.
When many services are involved, it can be difficult to understand everyone's role or make sure they're working towards the same goals.
Your Recovery Coach can help you understand your options, communicate with services, connect the different parts of your support network and keep your goals and preferences at the centre of those conversations.
Building Your Independence, Choice and Control
Good Recovery Coaching shouldn't make you dependent on your Recovery Coach.
Over time, your Recovery Coach can help you build the skills, knowledge and confidence to have greater control over your own life and supports.
This might involve becoming more confident:
- understanding your NDIS plan
- choosing and communicating with providers
- making decisions about your supports
- recognising what helps your recovery
- advocating for yourself
- managing challenges when they arise
- connecting with your community
- pursuing relationships, education, employment or other personal goals.
How quickly this happens — and what independence looks like — is individual to you.
Your Recovery Coach works at your pace.
Psychosocial Recovery Coaching at Complex Connect
Mental health and psychosocial disability don't exist separately from the rest of your life.
Housing, relationships, physical health, disability supports, finances, community connection and other services can all affect your recovery.
Complex Connect has experience working across NDIS, disability, mental health, advocacy and complex service systems.
We take the time to understand your whole situation, rather than looking at individual services or challenges in isolation.
Then we work alongside you to identify practical ways forward and help build a support network that reflects your needs, your choices and your goals.