The Needs-Based Restorative Framework guides the work of Allambi Care’s staff and volunteers including Intensive Therapeutic (Residential) Care staff, foster carers, family support staff, caseworkers and clinicians. The framework is based on our commitment to respond to the multiple needs of people rather than requiring them to adjust to a pre-determined service model. It applies whether they are living in the community with families or peers or are being supported in out of home care. There are three core components of the framework. The central focus is on the normal and shared developmental needs of all people and the defining features of healthy growth as defined in the Circle of Courage.
This month we're exploring MASTERY for young people generally, with a focus on the importance of mastery for those living with disability next month.
Think about the people you spend your time with. There is probably someone who knows an extraordinary amount about football, someone who can identify almost any song within a few seconds, or someone who somehow remembers every birthday and important date. We all have areas of knowledge and ability that have developed over time; they become part of who we are.
For people receiving NDIS supports, those areas of knowledge and ability can sometimes be harder to see. This is not necessarily because they are absent; rather, the nature of support can mean that much of the attention surrounding a person is focused on what they need assistance with.
Support Workers need to understand routines, communication, risks, appointments, personal care, equipment, and the many other aspects of someone's daily support.
All of this information is important, but if it becomes the main way we understand someone, we can unintentionally develop a picture of a person based primarily on what they need help to do.
Mastery encourages us to look beyond that.
Within the Needs-Based Restorative Framework, Mastery is one of the four Universal Needs. At its heart is our need to develop competence and experience ourselves as capable.
For people receiving disability support, Mastery does not have to mean becoming independent in every aspect of daily life or ticking another practical skill off a list. It can also be about having something to know, something to contribute, something to create or something that other people recognise us as being good at.
Everyone knows something
Consider a participant who knows almost everything there is to know about national flags. They can tell you the exact colour and configuration of a country’s flag and probably correct you when you get one wrong.
These interests may not appear anywhere in a formal support plan, and they may not immediately seem relevant to the person's support needs. Yet they tell us something important about the person: what captures their attention, what they enjoy, what they remember and where they have developed knowledge and competence.
As Support Workers, we can become so accustomed to identifying what someone needs help with that we forget to ask, identify, or foster what they already know.
We might know that a person needs assistance to prepare a meal but not know that they can tell us exactly which music should be playing while dinner is being prepared. We might know that someone needs support to travel independently but not realise that they can tell us the history of almost every train station along the route; therefore, Mastery asks us to become curious about these things.
The person does not always have to be the learner
Support relationships naturally place the Support Worker in the position of having knowledge. We understand how the service system works, organise appointments and may have skills or experience that the person relies upon; that is part of our role.
However, it is worth considering how often the relationship allows the participant to occupy the other position: the person who knows something that someone else does not. In the intent of person-centred planning, this creates meaningful opportunity.
If a participant is passionate about music, ask what they think about a particular artist rather than simply choosing the playlist. If they know more about a sport than we do, genuinely ask them to explain it, or if they have mastered a computer game, let them teach us how to play it.
These may seem like ordinary interactions, but they can change the dynamic of a relationship.
For a moment, the participant is not simply the person receiving assistance, because they are the person with the knowledge. They are answering questions, explaining the process, correcting mistakes, and demonstrating what they know, while the Support Worker becomes the learner.
That can be a vastly different experience for someone who spends much of their day in relationships where other people are providing assistance.
Support needs do not define capability
One of the challenges within disability support is that a person's need for assistance in one area can sometimes influence how we perceive their abilities in completely unrelated areas.
Someone may require significant assistance with personal care and have an exceptional knowledge of history, or perhaps someone may need support to communicate and have an impressive understanding of technology.
The need for support tells us something about what assistance a person requires. It does not tell us everything about what that person can understand, contribute, or become good at.
This distinction can be easy to lose sight of in everyday practice. Once we become familiar with someone's support needs, we can begin anticipating what they will need help with before allowing them to show us what they can do.
We answer questions directed towards them, make decisions because it seems easier, or assume that because someone requires significant support in one area, they will need the same level of support everywhere else.
Mastery encourages us to separate the statement, "This person needs support with this", from the much broader assumption, "This person cannot do this."
Those are quite different things.
What does the person want to be good at?
There is also a difference between deciding what would be useful for someone to learn and discovering what they genuinely want to become better at.
Cooking, shopping, budgeting, cleaning, and using public transport can all be valuable skills, but Mastery does not have to be limited to the things that other people consider useful.
A person may want to become better at photography, learn more about computers, improve their drawing, understand a particular sport, or become highly skilled at a favourite game.
The importance of the goal does not necessarily come from how useful it appears to somebody else; it can come from the fact that it matters to the person.
This allows Support Workers to ask a different question: "What would you like to become really good at?" That question can reveal an entirely different side of a person.
Give their expertise somewhere to go
Once we discover what someone knows or enjoys, the next step is to create opportunities for that knowledge to have a purpose.
A participant who loves cooking might choose the recipe for dinner and explain to the team why they selected it. Someone with an interest in music might create the playlist for an activity.
The activity itself is almost secondary. What matters is that the person has moved beyond simply being included and has been allowed to contribute something that comes from their own knowledge and ability.
There is a subtle but significant difference between being supported to participate and being recognised as someone who has something valuable to contribute.
That contribution can help build a person's sense of identity. They become more than the person who receives support. They become the person who knows about something, the person people ask, the person who can explain, create, demonstrate, or teach.
Leave room to be surprised
Support Workers develop considerable knowledge about the people they support and, while that knowledge is valuable, it can also create assumptions.
We know what someone normally enjoys, what they tend to avoid, how they usually respond and what support has worked in the past. Over time, those patterns can become so familiar that we sometimes stop looking for something new: Basically, people are not finished products.
Someone who has never shown much interest in an activity may suddenly discover a talent for it. Someone who has always relied upon another person to explain something may develop a new way of communicating their understanding.
This is why curiosity matters. Rather than assuming that we already know someone's capabilities, we can continue looking for the things that make them concentrate, the subjects they return to repeatedly, the activities that excite them and the moments when they seem particularly proud of themselves.
Sometimes those observations reveal a completely different picture of the person.
Mastery is not independence at all costs
It is important that we do not turn Mastery into another argument for reducing support. Some people will require significant assistance throughout their lives, and requiring that assistance does not make their achievements less meaningful.
The purpose of Mastery is not to create a world in which everyone must eventually do everything for themselves. It is about ensuring that people have opportunities to develop competence, experience achievement and contribute in ways that are meaningful to them, regardless of the level of support they require.
The person we support is not simply a collection of needs, goals, risks, and support strategies. They are a person with knowledge, interests, preferences, talents, experiences, and the capacity to develop expertise in things that matter to them.
When we look only at support needs, we see the things that require assistance. When we also look for Mastery, we begin to see the person behind those needs.
Being supported and being capable are not opposites.
Sometimes the most powerful moment is when the relationship changes direction completely. The person who is so often being told, shown, assisted, and supported becomes the person looking at their Support Worker and showing them.
Call to Arms: Your challenge as a Support Worker!
On your next shift, deliberately look for something you may not have noticed before. Ask yourself:
- What does this person know that I don’t?
- What do they already display Mastery in?
- What do they want to become better at?
- When do I see them most confident, engaged, or proud?
- Am I giving them opportunities to teach, lead, choose, create, or contribute?
- Where might I be stepping in too quickly instead of leaving room?
Then take it one step further: Create one opportunity for the person you support to be the expert, ask them to teach you something, and let them make the decision. Give their interest a purpose; Find somewhere their knowledge can be shared, demonstrated, or developed.
Mastery does not always begin with a new skill, sometimes it begins with us noticing what was already there and creating enough space for the person to say: “Let me show you.,”
That is Mastery.