Brendan Gosling

• Supporting a team of advocates in offices across all of Northern NSW, delivering support to defendants, victims and witnesses living with Cognitive Impairment in criminal matters
• Responsible for ensuring a quality service delivery across the region by providing advice, guidance and subject matter expertise
• Manage recruitment, induction and training of all new staff under my supervision
• Conduct supervision, performance review and, where needed, performance management
• Maintain a strong network of external stakeholders to ensure referral pathways are open and pressure points can be effectively managed
• Develop and implement continuous improvement and training across the entire statewide service, most notably refinements in practice around on-call procedure and rostering, Scope of Role practise guidance & Eligibility policy
• Provide training to Lawyers, Police, Magistrates and Court Staff in the identification and appropriate referral of People with Cognitive Impairment
• Represent The Intellectual Disability Rights Service on interview panels for Community Corrections, NSW Sheriffs' Department and multiple NGOs in the Disability and Advocacy Sector

• Maintain caseload of people with Cognitive Impairment, currently involved with the justice system
• Provide police and court support, including 24 hour on-call
• Support clients to have their voices heard
• Work with client to set goals and work towards reducing the systemic, economic, social and support based pre-conditions of their offending behaviours
• Work with external stakeholders (Dept. of Corrections, Community Corrections, NDIS support coordinators and providers, lawyers etc) to problem solve and provide integrated services and supports
• Build the capacity of the Courts and other Justice-adjacent stakeholders to understand the intersectionality of Disability, Socio-Economic disadvantage, Trauma and Crime
• Maintain case notes and up-to-date data for regulatory compliance

Within this role, I was also a member of working groups involved with improved database functionality and the generation of the organisation's Reconciliation Action Plan

I was offered a 6 month secondment to improve communication and collaboration between New England Mental Health and the local NGO and NDIS services in the region. This opportunity came as a result of my reputation in the area for a strong understanding of the issues faced by the mental health sector, particularly in their interactions with the government department. The role gave me broad scope to autonomously manage the project from the very beginning through to the completion of initial interagency meetings, during which time I:

• Developed strategy for increasing connection between NSW Community Mental Health and NGO Sector
• Conducted stakeholder engagement meetings throughout all sectors in LHD to seek feedback and improvements for initial strategy
• Created formal partnership agreements with external stakeholders, to develop collaborative leadership structure for ongoing interagency meetings
• Created schedule for interagency collaboration across entire New England LHD
• Set agendas, guest speakers, discussion topics and feedback gathering
• Chaired first meetings across region with support from NGO partners
• Sought feedback from attendees, noting high level of satisfaction with initial meetings, and optimism for future engagement as result of robust meeting format

• Managed a caseload of extremely complex participants with significant behaviours of concern, forensic histories, D&A issues and ongoing engagement problems
• Supported Mental Health participants of the NDIS to take full advantage of their plans
• Strengthened linkages between participants, NDIS providers and the mainstream mental health supports communities
• Encouraged and empowered participants to direct their own supports
• Conduct community engagement at expos, inter-agencies etc. to promote the service, attract new clients and open referral pathways through networking with other organisations and stakeholders

Accepted a 7-month contract with Flourish Australia, to assist with the important work of transitioning the Partners in Recovery Program to the NDIS. I was given wide scope to manage the practical elements of the highly time sensitive transition, where in I:

• Designed the process and methodology for the transition of clients to the NDIS or Psychosocial Support Service, ensuring compliance with the NDIS Act and NDIS Quality and Safeguards Framework
• Provided leadership, subject matter expertise and staff support to a team of Senior Support Facilitators who worked autonomously in remote locations across the New England
• Collated and prepared all monthly, quarterly and annual data and reports for consortium senior managers and reconciled final budgets for program closure
• Success in this role led to the opportunity to oversee Flourish New England’s self-assessment and audit preparation for certification against the newly developed NDIS Quality and Safeguards Framework criteria.
• Designed process for the delegation and timely completion of workflow for audit across all teams within the New England cluster.
• Collated and published final report for audit
• This opportunity represented acknowledgment of exemplary performance in the role for which I was originally employed and demonstrated capabilities in detail oriented process improvement, performance reporting and performance management that I displayed during this brief contract period.

• Responsible for caseload of 100 NDIS participants
• Conducted all intake and risk assessments, whilst working to quickly build trust and rapport, through clear communication and warm style of interaction.
• Interview and work with individuals, families and other stakeholders to determine support needs of clients, in line with statutory decision making processes and actuarial requirements
• Case note and enter all interactions with clients and build their NDIS plan from gathered information, prior to approval by delegate of the NDIS
• Maintain strong working relationships with external stakeholders to support clients to utilise their NDIS plan to maximum effect and to increase their connections to unfunded and community-based supports/opportunities
• Provide professional supervision to colleagues as Capacity Building Champion of the region
• Provide high level support to a caseload of clients with significantly complex support needs, working to bring the multiple stakeholders (Health, Community Mental Health, NDIS, Justice etc.) together to provide integrated and wholistic support