About My Aid

Held, not handled

My Aid started with two friends who kept having the same conversation, and eventually decided to do something about it. We wanted to build the kind of support we would want for our own families. Small enough to know you by name, and set up so the people around you actually talk to each other.

How this started

Between the two of us we had spent years working in and around disability support in Melbourne. We kept running into the same things, over and over.

Shifts filled by whoever happened to be free rather than whoever actually suited the person. Therapy reports written carefully, filed neatly, and never translated into anything a support worker could use on a Tuesday morning. Families acting as the messenger between four providers who had never spoken to one another. Participants re-telling the hardest parts of their story to a new face every few months.

Almost none of that happens because people do not care. Most of the workers we have met in this sector care a great deal. It happens because organisations grow past the point where anyone can hold the whole picture, and after that the roster starts making the decisions.

So we built something small on purpose, and we would like to keep it that way. Small enough that the people supporting you know your name and your preferences without checking a file. Set up so the practitioner who writes a plan sits close enough to the people delivering it to make sure it actually gets used.

We would rather be the provider a support coordinator rings because they know exactly what they are going to get, than the one with the most participants on the books.

What that means in practice

We will tell you if we are not the right fit, we will tell you if there is a wait, and we will tell you when another provider would serve you better. None of those conversations cost us anything worth keeping.

Our people

Every person who works with you holds a current NDIS Worker Screening Check and has completed the NDIS Worker Orientation Module. Our occupational therapists are registered with AHPRA. Our behaviour support practitioners hold a current NDIS Commission suitability determination and work within their assessed capability level, with supervision arrangements in place where required.

The name and the mark

Look at where the hand is

It is underneath. That was the first thing we settled on, and it is the whole idea in one shape.

A hand reaching down from above is charity. It is someone doing something for you, on their terms, at a time that suits them. A hand underneath is something else entirely. It holds you up while you get on with whatever you were already doing, and it does not take over.

The three figures are the part we care most about. Two with their arms up and one in the middle, and the one in the middle is not being carried. They are standing. Depending on the day that middle figure is a participant with family either side, or a person with their support team around them, or someone at the centre of a plan that finally makes sense to them.

The heart sits above all of it because the gap between adequate support and good support is almost never technical. It comes down to whether the person who turns up actually cares how the day goes.

The name works the same way. It is not Our Aid. The supports belong to you, and so does the say over how they are delivered.

The My Aid mark: a cupped hand holding three figures, with a heart above them

What we believe

Five things we will not budge on

You are the expert on your own lifeWe bring professional knowledge. You bring the knowledge of what it is actually like to be you. Neither one works without the other.
Dignity is not a bonus featureHow support is delivered matters as much as whether it is delivered. Being rushed, spoken over, or talked about in the third person while you are in the room is not acceptable, and you should tell us if it happens.
Say the hard thing earlyIf we cannot help, if there is a waitlist, or if we think another provider would suit you better, you will hear it in the first conversation rather than the fourth.
Fewer restrictions, alwaysWherever restrictive practices exist, our job is to work towards there being fewer of them. That is a legal obligation, and it is also the point of the work.
Everyone is welcome hereEvery culture, faith, language, gender identity and sexual orientation. If you need an interpreter, including Auslan, tell us and we will arrange one at no cost to you.

We would like to hear your story

Whether you are just starting out or you have been at this for years and something is not working, a first conversation costs nothing.

Get in touch Work with us