National
Pilot Project
Enliven Community is a not-for-profit organisation that empowers Australians with disability to be genuine decision makers about their shared supports because we firmly believe that ‘Choice begins with voice’.
The National Community Cooperative Pilot Project was a two-year national project to further develop and test the Community Cooperative model (now called the Choice Collective model) and the role of the Facilitator. It was generously funded through philanthropy, and Enliven Housing SDA. Its aims were to:
- Enhance the quality of delivery through testing and feedback
- Test the model in various housing topologies
- Gain evidence of the service’s value through independent evaluation
- Share our learnings with the broader sector
The NDIS Review Recommendation referred to this role as ‘Shared Support Facilitators’, and this became the term used most in the broader Australian disability sector. Because of this, the findings and resources of this Pilot Project were published under this term ‘Shared Support Collective’ (what we call a Choice Collective) and ‘Shared Support Facilitators’ (what we call Choice Collective Facilitators) to support recognition and familiarity with the work.
Free Resources
These resources are designed to support groups of people who share disability supports to have genuine and actualised choice and control of their shared supports – and their Facilitators.
To support the uptake of this model in the sector, Enliven Community published the following resources:
The Shared Support Collective Guide
This Guidebook is for members of the Shared Support Collective who do or do not have a Facilitator. It will take you through what a Shared Support Collective is, choices your Collective has on how it works, so it best suits you and meeting topics for you to choose from.
Shared Support Facilitator Guidebook
A guide for facilitating the Shared Support Collective – for traditional Facilitators, or alternatives. This Guidebook accompanies the Member’s Guidebook, and can be supported with the Tools & Resource Kit.
Collective Dignity Guidebook
A guide for Shared Support Collectives and their shared Service Provider to navigate the Collective’s dignity of risk within laws, policies and the need for safety. This Guidebook can be used alone. It can also be complimented by the information and meetings in the Member and Facilitator’s Guidebooks, and supported with the Tools & Resource Kit.
Findings
Summer Foundation and La Trobe University independently evaluated the project. You can read their findings by hitting the Download PDF button
Partners
Enliven Community wished to acknowledge and thank each person and organisation who generously shared their time, thoughts, experiences and stories to support the project. We wish to thank the organisations who partnered with us to deliver the project:
Organisation representatives who contributed their time and expertise to guide the project through Governance Group involvement:
