We would like to thank everyone who participated in the Ability Options Participant and Parent/Carer Satisfaction Surveys, completed in November 2023. We have taken time to review the results, consult with teams and work through what we believe are the priorities.
Feedback from our communities is essential for us, as it allows us to shape and enhance our services to make them safer, more inclusive, and better for the people that choose them. Your feedback in this survey has been invaluable to us.
We are happy to report that overall satisfaction with our services remains high. Participants reported an 80 per cent satisfaction rate, while parents and carers reported a 79% satisfaction rate. This reflects the hard work and dedication of all our teams.
We would like to acknowledge our frontline support staff and leaders whose unwavering commitment and passion drive our mission forward. The dedication of our teams does not go unnoticed, and we are grateful for their exceptional contributions.
Survey Feedback
What we are doing well
The results provided assurance that the support we deliver to our participants meets their needs and expectations in a majority of areas, which we are incredibly pleased with.
Both surveys told us that participants feel respected, we respect cultural backgrounds and are culturally responsive.
More than 90% of people who engage in Ability Options’ services feel safe and free from discrimination. This result is higher than the industry standard and something we remain committed to building on.
The Parent/Carer Survey told us that the care our staff provided was exceptional. Parents and carers said we listen, involve people in decision making, and our staff are doing a good job. They told us our staff are polite, friendly, and are supportive of family relationships.
Ability Options is committed to best-practice service delivery and recognises there are areas where we can continue to grow and evolve.
What we can improve
Whilst feedback was mainly positive, the results also highlighted some key areas for improvement:
The Parent/Carer Survey told us that we need to improve our communication regarding change, innovation, direction, and the future of the organisation.
The Participant Survey told us that we need to do better in terms of goal setting and improve our process for it. Specifically, we need to better advocate for participants, communicate more effectively with participants around changes, and improve how we facilitate and document participant goal setting.
Results from the Participant Survey also told us that we need to improve the way we manage feedback. We need to improve our process for managing feedback and complaints, help participants identify who to raise concerns with, and increase awareness around our complaint-making process.
Key focuses for our next steps
Moving forward, our top priorities are improving communication, planning, goal setting, and feedback management. We will do this through the following actions:
Communication
Our Senior Leadership team is already making progress on developing a comprehensive communication strategy to address feedback we received. In addition, in late April, our Board and Executive team attended a strategic planning day. We intend to clearly communicate the results from this day to families and continue regular updates on our strategic goals and response to this survey.
We will explore the implementation of a communication committee and facilitate regular information forums that will use a co-design approach to ensure that all stakeholders are involved.
Planning and goal setting
Our Quality, Practice & Assurance team is designing an improved planning process. This process is intended to create further opportunities for people to become valued and contributing members of their chosen community and achieve their goals and aspirations. It will link health and wellbeing goals alongside life goals to provide a holistic approach.
We will provide additional training in customer-centric approaches to improve advocacy, collaboration, and participant engagement in line with our Active Support and Frontline Leadership framework, which is currently being embedded in partnership with La Trobe university.
Feedback
Ability Options is committed to continuous improvement, where we act on all feedback received.
We will continue to highlight positive feedback and share stories of success to showcase the outcomes achieved by people using our services and the commitment of our frontline teams, and we will act on feedback where Participant, Parents and Carers are not satisfied with supports received.
We will encourage open feedback through initiatives such as the ‘Speak Up’ project, which provides additional training and support to the people accessing our services regarding self-advocacy.
We will facilitate organisation wide forums to provide avenues for valuable feedback from our parents and carers.
Get in touch
If you have questions on the feedback from the Participant and Parent/Carer Surveys, please do not hesitate to contact feedback@abilityoptions.org.au or Chief Quality, Practice & Assurance Officer, Michelle Hodge on 1300 422 454.
We aim to be as responsive to questions from our communities as possible. We will continue to provide our communities with updates on progress in coming months.
