SIL & Respite Explained: What Every Support Worker Needs to Know | Pure Living Accommodation

0:00Hi everyone. It's Sarah. No support workers. Today I've got Stevie Lee. Welcome aboard Stevie Lee to a podcast on Sarah No Support Workers. Hey thanks for having me. Well, you, let's just dive into this because your timing is perfect for this podcast because you are the director and founder of Pure Living Accommodation and Care. Yes, Yep. So as we as we're recording right now in May, there's some really big changes coming to the NDIS and in the SEAL space. How you feeling it?

0:30I'm feeling pretty good. I think we've been prepared from this from the start, so I actually feel pretty confident. I didn't listen to too much noise, to be honest. Yeah. Sometimes the noise really deflects some of the good work that we do and it just feels like a hold up. I would agree. I think a lot of people are freaking out and I think this change was always going to come. It's just something that's been talked of and you know, like support coordination for an example. I think that, you know, it's really scaring a lot of people and it's creating a lot of noise. There's lots of things in the media, there's lots of things filtering that aren't necessarily true. We're still waiting for these changes to pass and we just keep doing the work that we're doing and I have no doubt we will be more than fine.

1:18So you've been in the sector for a while. This is not like an overnight thing for you. What made you work in the disability sector to begin with? Yeah, OK, so I actually started off long ago doing support work. I went and got my certificate 3IN disability support work and my first role was with House with no steps, which is now a rumor. I was doing some transition to work training with those guys as well while studying community services and case management. And then I did a bit of aged care work and then I moved straight into crisis work and got a degree in social welfare. So all my roles from there were identified roles. And so I've worked at Carrie's Place for over six years with people experiencing domestic violence and homelessness. And I then went into child protection. I worked for Wandiyali with Indigenous families and that was literally preservation, restoration and keeping families together, which I'm super passionate about. And then I moved into the cultural hub with DCJ, again, keeping families together in the prenatal space. And then I went to disability advocacy, but it was a little bit too boring for me.

2:31Whilst it's a very important role, it's just very paperwork heavy in terms of, you know, it is different. You're sitting at a computer and there's not a lot of face to face happening. So for me, I was so bored I I could hear the clock tick in the background. So I love the crisis kind of driven casework. I guess I've always been drawn. To it. So I'm going to put it out there. Are you a millennial like myself and been through multiple seasons of this sector? Absolutely.

3:02Well, I'm 36 next week, so. I must be collecting millennials at the moment. Like I feel like this podcast, I've collected a few millennial. I call us millennial elders because we have been through before the NDIS to what it looks like now. So we are aware and prepared for what comes next. And I think it's always, it's always good to try and find different ways to make things work. In all my roles there's been very little resources and we always find a way to make things work. Do you like the thrill of it in the sense like being with people?

3:39I do being in the sleep of it, yeah. So I hate on the ground. I like, I hate computer work, I hate being tied to the desk. My passion is working with the awesome people that we support and it's connecting with families, it's getting out in the community. I absolutely love it. And it's hustle like it's always hustle, so. If you're a hustler, how did you end up with a business? Because they're very different when you're on, you know, when you're with working with somebody and then working on your business externally behind the computer. Yeah, Look, I.

4:13I ended up in a support worker role just doing casual work and I was asked to actually come to this company that had or sorry, another company that had one participant and they were providing the seal. Then I fell into the role of growing the company. So I was then the marketing and then I found a lot for marketing and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that way as I'm a people's person, right? So marketing twin moved into like OPS manager, but then I was still doing the support work. Then I was the recruitment.

4:43And look, I wasn't working for a fantastic stand alone one person company. And I can say that that company is no longer registered. So I was halfway through a mortgage with COVID, a house was being built and I couldn't make the jump, but I needed to make the jump. And my amazing husband in the background just started putting things together and said, you're doing it anyway, just do it, Just make the jump. So we got registered. I think we're registered three months into US starting.

5:17And he went away for deployment. He's in the raft. And he came back to a business which I never thought I was ever going to use. I thought, yeah, yeah, whatever. So I fell into this. I, I've never done anything as wild as this and it's had its moments, but I absolutely love it. I love the fact that it was kind of like accident, but in your I feel like you're somebody that's a builder by nature, whether it is building people up or building businesses, it's something that comes naturally to you. Yeah, I think the whole running of the place. But then I've never, you know, when you work for big organizations, you have all the departments. I don't have all the departments. I've had to learn it all.

6:00I learnt it all in the last role I was in when I was, I was like, what is all of this? I had to learn it. I had to look everything up. It was kind of good because I had connections and I had, I knew some things. I was absolutely petrified about the billing and that kind of stuff because I never did the billing. But with some awesome humans around me. I've definitely been able to work at our NCRM systems also help. I had to get a business coach and because I didn't know, I didn't know a thing about it.

6:27I was just a duo. What was your best investment? In terms of business coach, yeah, he's amazing. And I can tell you right now I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. So. How long has he been your? Coach for I think I've had him for over a year now, probably a year and a bit. So when I kicked off the house to begin with, I lived in that property for eight months. Yep, with some participants we won first then to and I had no dreams or ambitions of being any bigger and I needed to get home to my children.

7:03I was like how can I keep this going? I just want the one. And Paul said to me, you know, you need to, you need to go home, you need to start being a wife and a mum and all of those things. And eventually we came up with a plan on how I was going to get out of there. I packed all my stuff up and I was able to put a plan in place so I could pay staff and start my day fresh. And you build something, work on it and build more. Because you said you need 3 houses, right? If you don't have three houses and somebody passes away like we have, something happens, funding gets caught, then what is your plan?

7:39Because you are straight back to the floor again, Yeah. It would be like, I know for my own business, I do find it really hard to hire and I think it's because no one loves my business like I love it and I could see that. Did you find that really difficult to hire support workers because no ones gonna love it like you? I had some amazing supports, I still do, but I guess it was more the financial side of I have to pay everyone started off on a pay point 1.3 because I was I can't even pay myself.

8:10So how am I going to pay you guys? But I had some really lovely passionate people come across and say, hey, I want to work with you. So I kind of had one come at a time so when I could afford to pay them yeah. So just it just happened and it's it's worked out. However, building is harder, getting amazing staff that think like you do, that can apply, that can follow policies and procedures. I find a lot of that is around training, supporting, investing, setting the standard from the start and building on that pillar. So it's not, you know, why haven't you done this or why haven't you done that?

8:55It's around. OK, help me to understand guide guide, drop in, have oversight and then have a chat, you know, So can I support you? Is there anything I can help you with? So like I will do check insurance at houses at 9:30 PM at night. They don't know I'm coming. And that's my chance to set the standard and come from a place of understanding. Oh. I'm for it. I do because it no matter what time of the day you turn out, it should be across that we're we are serving people to the best of our ability. Yeah.

9:26And I think if workers don't have oversight, then they can go astray or they can feel undervalued or they can feel like you don't care. And I think it's important to have that. You know, Paul teaches a lot about as well around, you know, common sense isn't generally common sense. And sometimes we need to teach that because what that looks like for someone is completely different for the other person. So, you know, if you come with a good attitude, a good attitude, I can work with passive aggressive. If I pick that up, you could be the best worker ever, like in terms of like what you come with and the support that you provide.

10:00But if you can't work with a team and you can't take feedback, then this is not going to work. So I can attitude, love, love a great attitude. I can work with that and train. 100%, There's been people that I've had around for being in the sector for 20 years and I've had people that have come in for a couple of months and I bet the person with a couple of months because of attitude and their willingness to contribute and be a part of it. That's right, you just want people to love it as much as you do. And not the people we support, like no, but you know what I mean?

10:29Like really enjoy working with them. Because we, I know. Amazing people, fact, the fact and actually me, I'd be like, Oh my God, I cannot believe I get paid to work with this person. They're so awesome and the things that they do in the experience and the banter and the fun, like there is fun with it. Support work is awesome and I I do miss. I do miss, like I do drop in and I do go to the programs and I do go to the houses and we do have days where we connect and I, I do love it. And I, I do have this MP, I'm like, oh, to be a support worker again instead of at the desk having to do all this, you know, all these bills and stuff.

11:06It's yeah, it used to break my heart when I'd set up a support or an activity. And they get to do something really fun and you're like, God, I would love to go do that. I'd love to have that first experience with you. But like there's also that fulfilment as well because you get to support people and line them up so they can have these experiences that they've never had before or the succeeding goals. Yeah, no, it's, it's definitely exciting and it's, yeah, it's not just turning up to sit on our phones and provide nothing. So we don't, we definitely have a policy around phones and what we expect from staff in terms of interaction, engagement and what we're actually there for.

11:45And some people, if they don't, they don't do those things, then that there is a conversation there and this isn't, this isn't for you. So what do you believe most people get wrong when it comes to SEAL? Support in terms of like a business wise or? You tell me. I'm all for it. I'm all ears. I'm learning a lot. So in terms of like what people get wrong, I think some people think it's easy. It's like a babysitter job. You walk in and you walk out. And why do I have to do shift notes? Why do I have to answer all these questions? It's because it matters and it matters to everybody that supports this person.

12:19And that's a matter of getting funding over the line and not getting funding. That's a matter of, you know, being able to say we adhere to a meal time management plan or to let you know behavior support practitioners build something so they know exactly what's going on. So that is why it's important I think as well. What makes us still support not so great? No oversight. No oversight. You will have everyone doing their own thing, what they want, when they want, and it doesn't create strong foundations for the people we support. Do you assist people into that's your provider? Like how many do you have?

12:55A lot? So we actually had, I think we had five or six and I think we've scaled back to four now we have a respite house as well and a hub. And the reason for the scaled back was I got the business, coach Paul, he mentioned me and well, let's just say we went from 1:00 to 5:00 in like it was 8 to 12 weeks. Okay. And I think I almost had to experience that to just see where, where everything kind of fell apart. So what happened was, well, we did have some participants pass away, which is really awful, but we had people that were not the right fit.

13:32So we've we've people to support that we're not the right fit. So you know, some really high, high end behaviours which the staff were not equipped to deal with. And I don't think even if we had three to 1 supports, it would have been manageable. So we now know what our niche is and what we cannot support. Also around systems. We know CRM is perfect, right? But we did have gaps. The structure just was not there to support the growth. So we did, we took a step back and went, hey, we need to evaluate, I need to work with Paul.

14:03It worked with multiple people. So even within his little profitable provider, there's just so many awesome people and we all share ideas and we leverage our each other and we scale faster, whether that's scaling forwards or scaling back. Profit is great in terms of, you know, you need it for training, you need to be able to pay your staff, you need it to be able to work as compensation. And I do a lot of things with our participants that, you know, I, I don't know, I just love making them all feel lovely.

14:31And for me that's showing like putting into things like craft within the houses and taking them out. So I do do a lot of that and you need profit to be able able to do that. So profits always good. But sometimes having more, so more houses, it's not, it's not, it's not profit. Sometimes it means less, more stress, less profit. So yeah. So you talked about your experience moving forward. Now, how do you transition somebody from home, their own family home, into one of your houses?

15:04So we see that quite a bit and I think we've got an ageing community and, you know, we see a lot of parents that, you know, are moving into aged care themselves and they're not able to look after their loved ones anymore. And we were seeing this more and more. So what that looks like is generally as a foot coordinator will contact us or the family or someone will reach out and just starts with a conversation. I invite them out to view a property, say well, I see if they're a good fit.

15:35So do a bit of an intake process and see if we potentially have a home that would be a suitable match. Then it's a walkthrough. I don't provide any like I don't do any pressure. It's more like just come and have a look so you can see what a seal home we. Kind of know what it feels like when you walk through the door. Yeah, there's a lot of anxiety that families feel having to put their loved one into a home and not not a group home. I don't call it a group in like a home, like an actual home where they belong. And it's important that they are not rushed through that process and there is no expectations.

16:14So when people contact me, it's very much a, Did you want to walk through one of our homes and get a feel for what a still home looks like? Even when we don't have a potential fit, we have people call where they've got children that are transitioning into the NDIS and they're from out of home care. And it's like just just come and have a look. So just giving them that idea because I think they need to be able to see it, feel it and understand that it's not, it's not a, it's not clinical.

16:45It shouldn't feel clinical. How do you make it feel like home? Because so I feel like there's that line at times because we are in somebody'd home, but as support workers it is our working environment. How do you balance the two to ensure that somebody has that feeling as this is my home? So it's definitely personalizing and, and asking them, you know, how much stuff do you have? What are your hobbies? What do you like to do? It's matching them with participants.

17:14I shouldn't even say participants, just awesome people, basically. I hate that word, but it's, it's matching them with the right fit, making sure it aligns and, you know, put that bookcase out there, put those books on that shelf, put stuff up on the walls if you like, But also like around Christmas and Easter and things like that. I do go overboard and I do spend Christmas with the participants and I love it. So it's more than just, you know, this is it and we're babysitting you.

17:44It's getting involved. It's getting the workers involved and making that a part of, you know, we're everything for them. Sometimes that's all we ask. So yeah, that's really important to me. Do you find the I'm setting up with somebody their room like? Yeah, so sometimes they come with their Star Wars figures and they'll have all their little Knick knacks. It's super exciting. But we also, when people come in, have a little gift basket and a welcome pack and they'll generally know the people that they're living with and the workers because they do meet the team before they come in and we will organize a few meet and greets.

18:19It's not rush. Yes, sure. We're not just filling vacancies because we have a sport. So what are some green flags in your experience? Green flags OK, so if you have you walking, if you walk in and you get a really good feeling, right, So it's like the house is maintained. It's not dingy. You go in and it's clean, like yeah, it's a home, but it shouldn't be super cluttered to the point where there's dust builds up. Like if there's support workers in there and they're working alongside and supporting the people in within the home, then this is a no brainer.

18:57So it's really important that anyone can walk into that home and that home is always at an acceptable level. Routines, so they can have their routine charts. They know exactly who the workers are. So someone's coming to view the house. They can see, they can see the board, they can see faces. So we use photos of their workers. They know it's predictable menus on fridges. Not that we not that we decide it's what the, what the people decide, but they want to have a deal.

19:26They sit down, they do it together. So that's playing that further because I, sorry, I've, I've had conversations in the past with people about how important it is to have choice over your menu and how you get to that. How do you support people in the house to choose their menu? So mostly available, sit down together and obviously they want people who have the capacity to be able to do so. And it's about working together to go, OK, what is it that everyone would like? We need to come up with 7 dinners. We need to come up with, you know, 7 lunches and someone might not like fish, but I want a steak instead. So it's just about changing the meat up and just working out what they want.

20:08They also go and get the food together. So either have the capacity, it's writing the list out, it's working out what's within the budget. And then going out and purchasing that food, we also use what are they called portion plates. So that was super. I know I've noticed and a lot of people come to me and ask me about this. A lot of families like put on lots of weight. What am I, what I do? They're just eating chips and Nuggets, chips and Nuggets. So look, we encourage preferred foods and we do our very best to make that happen.

20:40And what we do with that is portion, portion is everything that we teach. So you've got like the veggies, you've got the meat, then you've got the the carbs. That's super important. Obviously, if people are hungry without any restricted practices, you can't just implement that. But most of the time you can get them on board. If you have a workout workers that come in and think they're doing a favor by, you know, they're making them really, really full and filling up their bellies. But then we've got someone that weighs, you know, 180 kilos, for example, then it's like, well, this isn't where does the duty of care kind of like here, we really do need to be supporting healthier choices, educating in that space. So it is walking around the block together as a group and it is using those portion plates.

21:22It's, it's important a lot of people have diabetes that we support as well. So again, that comes into play. Yeah. It's just also around education. And it does, it does work most of the time. Well. That's our jobs really, to support workers, to guide, inform, choice. Yeah, and look, I know that we've had, you know, and you see it everywhere. People think that filling plates with cheesy pasta and potato bake and like feeling it right up is, is doing is doing good because they've got full bellies, you know, as as the medical issues continue to arise and people need more support or can't do those personal cares themselves, you know, we're really taking that away from them. And we're not doing an amazing since we're not starving anyone by any means, but it's really about trying to get that education and balance.

22:11So besides like the plate is a form of communication, what other you talked about the board having photos of the stuff, What other communication aids do you implement into people's homes? So we've also got their own routine boards. So we have the routine boards ourself and they can put visuals up of what their week or day looks like and the times and how they'd like to be supported. But we also do one-on-one weekly meetings with the with the participant, with them, with our special person that we love. And that could mean if they don't have the capacity, we do invite the coordinator.

22:48We do invite families and stakeholders to be a part of that is if they are wanting to be a part of that. Sometimes we just have amazing coordinators that just continuously, you know, they're in contact all the time. So we've got that working relationship, but it's very important for the people we support to have a voice and how we go about that. It's one-on-one. Sometimes it's with me, sometimes it's with the coordinator and we go over what's working well, what's working well this week, what hasn't gone so well?

23:17What are the things you know? Have you had a fight with somebody? Are you angry at your housemates? Is there something that the support worker did that made you feel a certain way? Are you not happy with the menu? And same with the good things. What were the good things? Did you, did you go out on community access? Did you do anything that was awesome within the house? It could be anything. And we just kind of unpack and they love it. But then we also talk about anything that's happening for the next week and goal wise, NDIS goals are they're just like 1234. And then at the planning meeting, you know, you get the whole, are they still relevant?

23:56And it's like, well, what are they? So we really break those goals down and we say every week, every week to a fortnight, we go, OK, what's one to two things that you really want to do in the next one to two weeks? And it could be, I want to go to the gym, I want to walk around the corner, I want to cook two nights a week. That gets filtered down to support staff and we monitor that. So we link it the next week. And before you know it, they've achieved so many things.

24:26So for anyone listening to this. Can you talk about the benefits because some people I know with agency staff, the turnover rate and the turn rate is so high that we miss all this opportunity to talk about how people can be really successful. Can you give us talk a little bit maybe indeed like a bit more depth or where a participant won because they were able to have that? Yeah, consistent communication. So we have, we have a very special lady and I'm sure she would not mind sharing her. So she's actually been on a podcast sharing her story herself.

25:00Yeah. So I've known this person prior to starting up and this person slept 23 hours of 24 hours fully incontinent. It was not good. Basically would not shower, slept, did not care and there was nothing going on. There was absolutely nothing. This person was completely tapped out. This person came to us and I thought I need to turn this around. How can I turn this around and thought about it. And I started using an evidence based model. We used it as MST can therapy, particularly with families who we're about to lose their children. But that was just what it was used from where I learned to it. And I thought I can apply this to support work. I can apply this to how we support our people. And what that looked like was for this person, it was breaking everything down.

25:52OK, can we just, can the goal be that we're going to be awake between these hours and these hours? It could be we're just going to stay awake 3 hours longer, right? That worked. So we had 1221 to two goals. It started off with we're going to rinse our plate. I'm going to show you guys this is this is all our participants in that property that I lived in and we're going to learn how to rinse these plates and put them in the dishwasher. And we had that happening.

26:15I can't believe how far this person has come because it started with being in the shower and having to the worker having to do absolutely everything right. And this person has become she's fully continent and the shower support. We it went from, OK, I know you hate showers, but if we can just get one in, I will support you. So I would do the washing and all of those things. And then it got to a point, you know, three weeks down the track when we had the showers and routine and, and the guidance, it was that I'm going to step away and then I'm going to guide you also. I'm sorry, up, you know, and then we got to a point of this person was showering themselves.

26:54This is the person that slept 23 hours for a few showers and was incontinent. Then it turned into OK, we need to get you walking. So this person, we then started going for walks around the block every single day. It was amazing, the mental health, the self esteem. Then we started going, OK, now we're going to cook 2 meals a week. We've already got the dishes down packed. Now we're having showers. Now we're cooking. This is friggin awesome. And then it turned into cooking for everybody, everything else.

27:20Then it turned into trying to mother hand the house and doing lots of activities. And this person actually has a friggin job right now, so they're awake all the time. What was the like? This is not something that happened overnight. Is this a year of progress to? Like, thank you. It was probably a good eight months. Yeah. And yeah, like it's really, really exciting. And I think back, you know, if we do see a little bit of a decline, it's it's working with all the stakeholders going, you know, what are we going to do? What's the next kind of plan?

27:53Because if you don't have that support, then the wheels fall off. And it's that those communications of what's working well and really, really diving into the small wins because they were all very small things. And I've got staff that find it very hard to believe that this person was that person. And I'm like these this is. Friggin amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you broke down each activity for her and totally built that. Were you able to. So I know you were talking about the method that you use to follow and track how it went.

28:27Is that something that you get to bring up to the next planning meeting? Yes. So obviously capacity has increased and that's what we want for the people we support. It's not about going, oh, we're just going to have the four walls and. You guys just stare at the walls. I'm going to sit on my phone. Hey, let's do something together. Let's cook together, let's clean up together. You know, if you need support, I'll help you. And if you've got capacity, we will do with you. Not for you.

28:53Obviously it ranges. You know, if you've got older people or people that you know have physical limitations, it can look very different. But that doesn't mean that there's no goal for them or their family. So you've got the seal part, you've also got the respite part if anyone was to you like how do you get into using respite with you guys? Respites we have, we now have a dedicated property for respite. If on the odd occasion this person is a known person to ask and they get along with the group of people within a home and there's a space, absolutely we foster that. We leverage off that because I think it's important to know that like these people also go to activities with people within the home.

29:35So it's like a little holiday. But we do, we support a an amazing 17 year old for respite and it's really good. So she'll also join in on the activities. So we just try and do what we can and support where we can. Yeah, so. Where are you guys situated? Like where are you from? So we are near the Hunter Valley. We we service mostly Maitland, Cessnock, Curry, Curry, Head and Greed. We had a property in Head and greed are we've got a few properties in Annenburg, which is just behind Rutherford.

30:07And then we've also got our skills skills hub, community access hub in Gillison Heights, where I'm sitting now. And we've got the respite attached next door as well. Yeah. Can you give me more about the skills hub? So the skills hub, the skills hub is new, so we are doing a little bit in that space and we're gathering more data around what people want to see and what they would like to be a part of. I have just popped out a post tonight around that because we are getting referrals and inquiries, what's on what days. And we do have people here daily and that's really exciting because it is really taking off.

30:44And we had a gentleman, oh, we had two gentlemen in here and three ladies yesterday and there was a bit of cooking happening. So meal prep. So it's around, they're still taking meals home, but they're able to plan them out, prep them and then they have food in the fridge for later like that they can take home with them. And then they did a bit of crafts and Mother's Day crafts. That's, you know, like some people when they hear that they're like, oh, that is that is wild that you can do that. You can make a meal there and take it home. Yeah, millennial US known that that was an expectation that if you like, like you said about full bellies and health and well-being of the people that we support, that you don't need to eat at all and you can take it home and have it later. And there's like, there's a guarantee that someone's got dinner later for some people.

31:32That's right. And look, we do have some, we do have some, some clients that they, they don't have support independent living funding and they probably should and they don't have the skills to cook and they don't quite know what they're doing. They've never been shown. So, you know, one of the quests was can you please assist this gentleman to create meals that he can take home? And I think that's really important. So it's not just we've got a program, we're gonna cook muffins. It's not just that.

31:59And it's also, you know, resume skill, but like it's actually real stuff. We do, we make candles for pure start. We simulate what that looks like. So it's getting them job ready. Did you always did you have a background in job ready stuff or is this something that you like, a passion project that you? Look, I, I think I just have that background that just cares so much and just wants to give and support and, and kind of like, you know, come on guys, come in here like a mother hen kind of nature. But with that, I did do, what did I do with a rumour now a rumour.

32:36I did do the transition to work program, the training and I loved it. You'd have loved it. They're not easy skills to have like these, at least from the opportunity to having really good mentors in our life that we're able to. Do. And learn and adapt. But it's a different way of thinking. I don't know, Like I, I sometimes think there's not enough mentorship in our space. It's really difficult. It just exploded really quickly. That's the I knew and parents I worked with parents next for young mums who had children that were families under 7 years old and it was helping them try and gain some skills and write resumes and things like that. I'm just really passionate about it. I just love everyone.

33:19So what does the future got installed? Is there any big game plan next or is it just nurturing what you've got? It's really wild because I, you know, I'm sitting here going, you know, do we grow? Do we stay where we are and just kind of look at what we've got. My husband, he, he was the one behind pure start, which is a charity and we've just kicked that off and look, that's really exciting, but he also works in the raft. So it's like it. That's all good and well, but then more it's just like there's there's all that comes with that. But that's really exciting because I was even thinking about that tonight.

33:54And we don't just support people with disabilities. So it can be anyone. And I was thinking tonight a skills hub around, you know, marginalized, vulnerable people that haven't quite had the opportunity or don't have the same opportunities to develop skills, gain an understanding around, you know, what it's like to go and get a job. You know, what are the questions? Practice those, get their resumes in order. And I just said to my husband tonight, I should set up, you know, a certain time, whether it be once a month or twice a month, we're actually dedicate time to support people, whether disabilities or no, no disability, people coming out of out of home care, enjoying that transitioning because, you know, it is a scary, it is a scary space for people that, you know, they, they want to work, they want the same skills.

34:40And people with disabilities, I've seen it first hand. We've got people in houses that need stimulation, don't have the same opportunities. So it's like, hey, they don't have to sit in the home, let's get them into the hub. Let's get the skills happening. Let's create something that hopefully is self sustainable and can provide them employment. So some exciting news. We today got a tender. We did a little tender and we've got a tender with Curry.

35:08Curry Community Services washing their fleet of cars now. Missions, thank you. There is A and people like, oh, it's just washing cars. No, this is a whole skill breakdown to wash cars. It's really not. That easy so many people that would love to wash cars that we support all that are out there in the community, you know in and we'll we'll build those skills. We'll get it to a point where we will be paying people to come to work and have a job. Like that's friggin exciting.

35:36Same with candles. There's an art to making candles and going to markets and using iPads and using F plus systems and it's exciting. I, I, my my hope is that this really takes off so we can help more people. That's amazing. Did you? I bet you didn't expect this is where you'd be maybe 10-5 years ago. Absolutely not, no. Would you do it all again? If you asked me, if you asked me, would I live in a home again for eight months, I'd probably say absolutely not. I didn't have a time frame on that. I didn't know when I was when I was going to be able to move out of that.

36:10I honestly didn't. And I lost touch with my family and my children and I'm Ubering food home and integrating back home was really, really hard. So I probably wouldn't do that again. But in terms of where we are now, absolutely. If you have, it's just about having the right people in the right roles and the systems, all the systems align and everything's smooth sailing. This can be whatever it wants to be, but without those foundations. And we're in no rush to just hurry things along because that's just stress and reactive responses. So we're we're excited about moving at a pace that we know is manageable.

36:47So if anybody wanted to contact you to be a support worker or if they're looking to maybe look at transitioning to one of the homes that you provide or your skills, where is the best place to find and you and your business? So we have a website, purelivingaccommodationandcare.com dot AU, and there's an intake form on there. You can even just do a little inquiry and I'll give you a call. There's also our Facebook. Our Facebook showcases all the amazing things we do and the people we support and what they bring to the table.

37:18It's awesome. I yeah, it just makes me all fluffy. And we've got our pure start page as well for anyone wanting to kind of get involved in that program. And yeah, I guess LinkedIn as well if if you're a coordinator or a stakeholder potentially, I guess for the, I personally want to focus on children transitioning in out of home care youth. So it's a big step. Really passionate about people who identify as well because I feel like everybody deserves, deserves, you know, a good fresh start in a supportive environment where they have a place to make mistakes and feel like they belong. And yeah.

38:00Sounds like you've like got a big and bright future. We're going to have to do like a life update in like no, no serious because I'd love to hear about how the charity goes, how the tender to car washing and what where you're at in Seal Land. Yeah, and I didn't do this all alone guys. There's Michael Clarke, there's Christopher Lappa, there's poor Brian, there's Tanya Gomez, there's all of these amazing people and all the people in profitable provider as well. Like I haven't I have not walked this alone. So I think it's important to remember, you know, these are all the people that shape how we do things and the quality as well we.

38:35Didn't have to do it alone, but I think sometimes we forget that as business you should when, when in doubt, reach out. That's exactly right. Eight months I did alone, and all I needed was a network. Thank you so much for this podcast. Very welcome. Bye, guys.