Message from the Chair & Managing Director

We are proud to be one of the largest providers of community-based disability supports in Victoria, a growing provider of person centred disability and family supports across the eastern seaboard of Australia, and a national provider of essential healthcare products, mobility aids and equipment.

We are one of the only providers accredited under the NDIS Practice Standards for the delivery of both products and services, collectively serving over 120,000 NDIS participants nationally.

This year, with a clear focus on extending our positive impact for Australians living with a disability, we joined with Zest Care to expand our service offering to improve the quality of life for our customers and create a larger, more sustainable in-home and community service. Together, we provided quality, safe, self-directed supports to over 1,000 customers and increased the delivery of community based disability and family supports throughout New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria by over 16%.

Our specialist complex care team continued to work closely with our customers and their representatives to provide tailored physical and behavioural supports for people with a disability and to increase their independence. Positive outcomes achieved through the service included reductions in service levels required, engagement in activities and increased functional capacity.

We strengthened our specialist provider partnership network to extend the delivery of independent service options for people with a disability living in innovative housing and community settings, enabling us to deliver a better co-design program of flexible supports for more supported independent living participants accessing specialist disability accommodation in growth regions of Victoria.

In response to an increase in both complex care and supported independent living referrals we reviewed our New South Wales and Victorian service structures to increase capacity through the introduction of new quality initiatives, expansion of customer led competency-based clinical training for our support workers and increased on-the-job support.

Our psychology and counselling program provided on-to-one counselling sessions to over 380 individual customers and 26 Support Groups and Health & Wellbeing workshops to help people with a disability and their supporters to work through a variety of daily challenges presented by disability. Our largest annual fundraiser the Independence Australia Daddo Charity Golf Day returned, bringing golfing enthusiasts together for a sell-out event. Thanks to the generosity of our community partners and supporters, the event raised much needed funds to support unfunded components of this vital service.

The Transport Accident Commission sponsored SpinChat program continued to raise awareness, promote injury prevention and educate secondary school students about spinal cord injury, reaching more than 1,500 students across Victoria.

As a “for purpose” social enterprise, we believe that it is possible to run a commercial enterprise that supports the community. We do this by using surplus funds generated from the sale of healthcare products and mobility aids to support our programs for people with a disability or other personal need.

With almost 40 years of industry experience, we are a trusted partner of choice for hundreds of thousands of customers Australia-wide, delivering a wide range of products from our national network of distribution centres with deliveries increasing by over 5%.

Despite continuing supply chain challenges, we experienced yet another year of growth necessitating the relocation of our Western Australia warehouse to a new, larger facility to meet current and future business needs. We were also delighted to welcome delegates back to our flagship Education Day events, connecting healthcare professionals in metropolitan and regional hubs across the country with industry experts and suppliers to upskill their product and clinical knowledge.

As part of our longstanding commitment to the quality and safeguarding of the services and products we provide, we successfully completed our renewal audit for our ongoing ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Standards and NDIS Practice Standards certification. We established a Services Community of Practice to improve service outcomes for the people we support and were pleased to achieve provisional Australian Community Industry Standard certification for Zest Care family services.

In partnership with Victoria University and our Job Network providers, we created new career pathways to support the continued development of a sustainable, capable, diverse and inclusive workforce.

Our digital innovation and marketing teams joined together to create a dedicated Customer Experience resource that leverages both digital and non-digital channels to connect with our community – our customers, people and partners, and enhance their experience with Independence Australia.

After careful consideration and collaborative discussions, we were pleased to announce the merger of Independence Australia and Statewide Autistic Services (SASI), effective 1 July 2023. As two organisations dedicated to helping people with disabilities, the decision to merge was driven by our shared vision, common goals, and desire to maximise our collective impact. Combining our resources, expertise and networks we will create a stronger platform to support people living with a disability.

At a time of significant change, we reflected on the evolution of Independence Australia – who we are, what we do and the communities we support, and defined a clear vision for our future through the development of our new five year strategic plan to expand our impact in a positive and sustainable way.

The Board and Executive Management Team would like to express their appreciation to our partners including the National Disability Insurance Agency, Commonwealth Department of Health, Federal Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Victorian Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice, iCare New South Wales, Transport Accident Commission Victoria, Western Australian Department of Communities, Queensland Health, Ballarat Health Services and other community-based partner organisations.

We also extend our gratitude to the trusts, foundations, corporations and countless individuals for generously supporting our work over the past year.

Our success is testament to the efforts of our entire team who are committed to ensuring that we continue to support people with a disability or other personal need enabling them to regain and retain their independence within an inclusive community.