Disability Services aims to provide high quality supported accommodation to people with severe to profound disabilities. There is a focus within our team to look beyond standard practice to provide innovative support that targets person centred needs.

Somerville manages twelve (12) supported accommodation homes located in Darwin, Howard Springs and Katherine.

We support people who have physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, autism, and developmental disabilities or acquired brain injury.

Each home has a Coordinator and a team of seven staff. The Coordinator is responsible for the day to day operation of the home. The Program Managers have individual management responsibility for the programmatic aspects of the supported accommodation homes. Their responsibilities include:

• program development, and implementation of these programs for the individual people that we support
• overall management of staff
• Monitoring of quality across all aspects of direct service delivery.

The Administrator/Manager has responsibility for all of those areas associated with the non programmatic aspects of support including:

• liaison with Northern Territory Government regarding service agreements
• monitoring budgets
• Management and oversight of the administrative functions.

All homes are staffed 24 hours a day to ensure that each person receives quality support. The roster has two staff on each shift, except for night shifts. Night shifts are active, meaning that staff are available to respond to any need that may arise. This level of support allows for the implementation of various programs of specific benefit to each person. Inherent in operating procedures are:

• Northern Territory Disability Service Standards (1999)
• Disability Services Act (1986)
• Social Role Valorization
• Person-Centred Active Support.

Together, these provide us with a framework to provide the best possible support to all people while ensuring that the people we support have opportunities for engagement, choice and experiencing the good things in life.

Somerville Disability Services conduct biennial Individual Support Action Plans (ISAP) meetings. ISAPs are underpinned by a detailed investigation of all aspects of a person’s support needs. In attendance at the ISAP meetings are those people who are significant to the wellbeing and ongoing support of the person. ISAPs assist in identifying those critical health and social well being domains that need to be addressed in order for a person to achieve their potential. The process is supported by Program Managers on a three monthly cycle.

Competent staff are essential to the smooth operation of our service. It is important that staff are provided with a sound ethical working framework and regular training and professional development opportunities. To this end, we conduct weekly training sessions for staff on subjects that will assist them to understand the complexities of providing support to people with disabilities.

Some of the training we provide include:

• Administration of Medication
• Child Safety
• Communicable Diseases
• Epilepsy
• Fire Safety
• Guardianship
• Nutrition
• Person Centred Active Support
• Professional Assault Response Training (PART)
• Social Role Valorization
• Water Safety

Disability Services Managers are qualified trainers and have conducted a number of the sessions listed above. Some training is conducted by trainers external to Somerville and the assistance and advice provided to our staff by other agencies is greatly appreciated.

To further assist staff to be able to complete their duties we ensure that policies and procedures are developed in response to the requirements of our service provision and are reviewed annually.