Welcome back to The Voice newsletter!
With the year now well underway at Ability Options, I thought I would share some of what we have been up to and our plans as 2025 continues.
Our teams have been hard at work continuing to support participants through high-quality services across our community.
In January, we wrapped on the success of our second Jobs for Christmas campaign. From November last year, our employment teams successfully supported 328 people to find employment by Christmas Day. You can read about the campaign and our participants’ successes since online here.
As always, I have been visiting services across our Ability Options community catching up with staff, participants, and families on their experiences, successes, and hearing everyone’s feedback. It is honestly the best part of my job by a country mile. I never fail to learn something from participants, their families, and our lovely teams.
We also recently launched our Year in Review, reflecting on the 2023-24 Financial Year and the successes and challenges it brought for us and our participants. You can read that online here.
What’s coming up
In the year ahead, we remain resolute in our Mission to support people who need our assistance to meet their aspirations and inclusion in their communities.
We’re continuing to put people first and are committed to meeting with family members across our community to understand their needs and choices better. We are continuing to host Family Forums as an opportunity to hear feedback from families and participants.
We are also extending our services across both disability and employment support.
Ability Options is open to new participants in our locations from Wollongong to Grafton and our main regions: Hunter, Newcastle and Charlestown; Greater Sydney; the Central Coast, and all the way up the Mid and North Coasts of NSW for:
- Supported Independent Living (SIL),
- Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA),
- Short Term Accommodation (STA),
- Coordination of Supports (CoS),
- Groups,
- Therapy,
- Employment (including NDIS Employment and School Leaver Employment),
- Counselling, and
- Community Participation.
Services are also new to Ability Options in Forster, Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest. New homes are coming soon in the Newcastle area, including opportunities for groups of young adults who want to share with friends.
We are also planning to offer Medium Term Accommodation on the Central Coast soon, providing support to people who are transitioning out of hospital and are waiting for their SIL home to be ready.
If you’re interested in any of these services, please contact us on our website to enquire or give our friendly teams a call on 1300 422 454.
In 2026, Ability Options will turn 50 years old! This year marks a milestone for us to plan for the next 50 years of providing high quality and sustainable services and later this year we’ll be talking to participants and families about the sorts of developments they think future generations might want to see.
Lastly here’s some contacts for myself and members of our leadership team should you want to share feedback, comments, or concerns beyond your usual Ability Options contact.
Julia Squire, Chief Executive Officer.
Julia.Squire@abilityoptions.org.au
Luke Hughes, Chief Operating Officer – Community Services, Specialist Services, Support Coordination, Short Term Accommodation, Employment Services and WorkReady.
Luke.Hughes@abilityoptions.org.au
Michelle Hodge, Chief Quality, Practice and Assurance Officer – Quality, Participant Engagement, Complaints and Feedback, Peoples’ Rights Committee and Accommodation services (Supported Independent Living, Specialist Disability Accommodation).
Michelle.Hodge@abilityoptions.org.au
The first edition of The Voice participant and family newsletter for 2025 is now live on our website, and available to read online here. As usual, if you would like to share your feedback on our services or The Voice newsletter, you can share that here.
