At Headway ABI Australia, the commitment to enhancing the quality of life for our participants is personified in the dedicated efforts of Uliana, our NDIS Services Manager. Starting with Headway ABI Australia in 2018, Uliana has worked in a range of roles, including Team Leader, Intake and Engagement Officer, and Housing Coordinator, before her current role. We were lucky enough to sit down with Uliana to ask her a few questions.
Q: Can you tell us about your role with Headway ABI?
Uliana: “My role has a broad scope and changes from day to day. But I’m responsible for all Headway support services ensuring the smooth operation of all our SIL homes and the support for Headway community clients. I have to be on top of things so all of our services are operational and smooth for Headway clients.”
“I am closely involved in the intake of new participants ensuring we adhere to Headway’s strict onboarding process. This includes going through the potential participants’ reports, risks, care needs, and compatibility with our existing SIL participants and their NDIS funding.
“I also have quite an active role in the hiring process as well as ongoing training of our staff. It means I often get to see what level of experience the care market offers, and then I support the constant training and growth of those we bring on board.”
“A big part of my role is communication between the staff members who work hands-on with our participants. I spend much of my day listening and getting feedback on how staff work on the ground level. I need to make sure that feedback is documented and that I relay that to management and board members.” Says Uliana.
“We are always looking for opportunities to improve the quality of the support we are providing.” Uliana continues. “I always ask about specific care scenarios.”
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your approach to managing your services for your clients and some of the things you need to consider for each participant?
Uliana: “To start, managing the services for people with an ABI comes with challenges. Depending on the type of brain injury, the deficits that the ABI can result in varies from person to person. Every individual with an ABI has a unique set of needs, challenges, and strengths. Our goal is to have high-grade systems in place to accommodate everyone.”
“Some participants require high physical support and rely on the staff for every day-to-day activity. This unfortunately means they are more vulnerable health wise…”
“Other participants can display challenging behaviours which can put themselves and others at risk so Headway staff must be highly qualified” Uliana continues. “They need a lot of experience and be willing to go through ongoing upskilling. This means they’re completely prepared to face a range of complex scenarios and be skilled enough to identify and act on any emergency without hesitation.”
“Another very important part of service management is reporting.” Says Uliana.
“The Disability Sector is one of the most regulated sectors so we have to be up to date with all reporting requirements and risk management strategies. This ensures everyone involved is safe and cared for.”
Q: What are a few of the things Headway keeps track of when it comes to reporting?
Uliana: “To start, it’s essential any incidents are accurately reported and maintained. Incident reporting ensures family members and support professionals have an accurate account of what occurred. It then puts our team members in the best possible position to learn from the incident and improve our risk mitigation processes.”
“We also take a lot of effort to report feedback which goes beyond feedback from just our staff members. If our community visitors, allied health specialists, family members, or participants have thoughts on our operations, that must be accurately recorded and properly actioned.” Say’s Uliana.
“It’s really important the participants are heard, so I try to make sure I can use my experience to think of solutions to any hurdles so we can hit the ground running during our meetings.”
Q: Can you talk about how you help Headway participants reach their goals?
Uliana: “We work tirelessly to find the ways to improve Headway clients lives by talking to our clients, learning about their goals, interests, and aspirations first. It all starts with an empathetic and candid conversation.”
“We then work closely with their allied health practitioners, decision makers, Support Coordinators, and other stakeholders to action that feedback. A professional, collaborative, and holistic approach can really bring amazing results for our clients.” Says Uliana.
“As the Service Manager my job is to bring the stakeholders together, have a good working productive relationship with all involved. I then provide everything necessary to put the actions in place and clearly communicate it to the staff actually making this happen.”
Uliana is one of our most experienced staff members. Starting in disability care in 2011, she’s had a range of roles, including Centacare, the Victorian and Queensland Governments, housing management, and running Adult and Children respite houses with some very complex care needs and challenging behaviours.
We asked Uliana, what she thinks needs improving when it comes to ABI care in Australia?
Uliana: “Taking the time to understand each individual’s specific ABI is what I think really needs improving.”
“I’ve had the privilege of working with many different clients throughout my career. Unfortunately, you can see some confronting things in my line of work.” Says Uliana. “I have seen clients coming from old institutions who have cauliflower ears from restraining. Some clients even had a protective flinch reflex towards their face at a very slight movement. So what’s missing the most is taking the time to understand someone with a disability, their story, their difficulties and what makes them happy.”
“The brain is unfathomably complex.” Uliana continues. “Everyone has their own story and reason behind their ABI, which makes their individual symptoms manifest differently.”
“You may have a participant who exhibits seemingly completely normal behaviour. They may talk normally and be able to move freely, but they have a different perception of reality (for example, they think they are 45 when they’re 65). Others may be very calm and relaxed one moment and then have a moment where they lose their inhibitions and become physically aggressive.”
“So the right training for the staff is so important.” Uliana continues. “With training and taking the time to understand each individual’s ABI, we can be aware of the cues to look out for before an episode occurs.”
Q: What do you think makes a great Services Manager?
Uliana: “I think you really have to be mentally and physically prepared to go above and beyond for both your clients and staff.”
“If I can speak from my own experience, I have worked ‘on the floor’ in complex challenging places. This required me to manage some nerve wracking situations which included medical episodes, violence, and complex mental issues.”
“I am fully aware how demanding physically and mentally our job is so I put in an enormous amount of effort to provide a safe workplace for our staff. It starts from the moment I receive an enquiry from a potential client and me assessing the risks and whether our staff can safely manage those risks.
“A good Services Manager will also consider what resources we need to have available to our staff. This means we can provide a high level of support to our clients while ensuring our staff’s working environment is safe, positive, and supportive.”
Q: “Why do you love what you do?”
Uliana: “I love being around people. Seeing a smile on our client’s faces and being a part of their recovery process. Getting to watch our participants live fulfilling lives is so rewarding.”
“I love to make people laugh as well.” Says Uliana. “Every day, we connect with people that have a challenging story and have potentially dealt with trauma so it’s important to laugh and see the humour in things when we can.”
“The most rewarding part of my job is seeing the progress. We have seen a client come from a hospital and even needed security around them to keep hospital staff safe from physical aggression. When he came to Headway, he was catatonic from all the medication he was on to control his aggression.”
“When I think about our progress with him, I get goosebumps.” Uliana continues. “He’s walking, talking, and starting exercises. He remembers us and knows our names. Just recently he told me that he is so lucky to be in the house around people caring about him. If you think back to where he was to where he is now, it’s so hard to believe how far he’s come.”
“Seeing the progress of our participants is the reason I come to work each day and that’s the main reason I love what I do.”