Allied Health Assistant for NDIS Participants | Gold Coast & Logan

Allied Health Assistant for NDIS Participants | Gold Coast & Logan

What If Getting the Homework Done Didn't Feel Like Homework?

A straight up explanation of what an Allied Health Assistant actually does... and why the way we're doing it at Slim Gym might be a little different to what you've seen before.

There's a gap between the clinic and real life. Most people in this industry know it's there. Not many are talking about what to do about it.

A physio sees a participant and gives them a program. A speechie works on communication in a controlled environment. An OT sets goals around independence and social skills. A psych builds strategies for anxiety, confidence, emotional regulation. And then the session ends, the participant goes home, and somewhere between that appointment and the next one, the homework doesn't get done.

I know this because I've been that person. I've sat in front of a physio, nodded, said yes, absolutely, I'll do that at home, and then... I didn't. And when I came back, and we hadn't moved as far as we could have, that's money and time spent on catching back up to where we left off.

I'm not judging anyone for that. I'm just saying it's real, and it's happening, and the NDIS funding environment right now makes it even more of a problem than it used to be.

The Funding Reality Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud

NDIS allied health funding has been cut. That's not an opinion, that's what's happening. Participants who used to see their AHP once or twice a week are now seeing them once a month. By the time you factor in notes, reports, planning and admin, the actual face time in each plan is shrinking fast.

That means the AHP has less time with each participant, and the homework is even more important than it used to be. But the same things that made it hard to do the homework before are still there. And in some cases, there are fewer supports around to help make it happen.

This is where an Allied Health Assistant comes in. And this is where I think what we're doing at FrieNDIS inside Slim Gym is doing something a bit different and worth explaining properly.

So What Actually Is an AHA?

An Allied Health Assistant (Therapy Assistant) works under the guidance and delegation of an Allied Health Professional. The AHP sets the direction, identifies the goals, does the clinical work that requires their level of qualification, and the AHA helps carry some of that across into day to day life. We implement. We reinforce. We keep the plates warm so the food is still hot when the chef gets back to the kitchen.

I want to be really clear about this: I'm not the physio. I'm not the speechie, the OT, the psych, the exercise physiologist. I'm not trying to be, and I'm not pretending to be. Those people are doing the big work. The clinical stuff. The nuanced, qualified, professional stuff. What I can do is help make sure that work has a better chance of sticking between sessions.

I hold an AHA qualification alongside other credentials, I'm fully insured and covered for what I do, and I understand the model of receiving direction from an AHP and working within it. For anyone worried about the insurance side of the AHA arrangement, I get it, I've heard that concern... but it's not a barrier here. If you want to talk specifics, reach out, I'm happy to go through it.

Keeping the Ball in the Air

Here's the thing about the homework gap. It's not just about someone being lazy or forgetful. Sometimes it's about context. Sometimes it's about anxiety. Sometimes it's about the fact that doing knee flexion exercises alone in your lounge room feels completely different to doing them with a group of mates in the middle of a game where everyone is cheering you on, and nobody thinks anything of it.

Skills learned in a clinical setting don't automatically transfer to the real world. That's not a flaw in the clinical model... It's just a reality of how learning and neurological reinforcement work. Someone can nail a task perfectly 1:1 in a quiet room and then completely freeze up when there's noise, other people, or unexpected things happening around them. The real world is full of those things.

That's exactly what we train in.

Our sessions happen outdoors, in parks, in community spaces. There's sunlight. There's serotonin. There's dopamine. There's actual human beings around, some of them strangers, some of them mates. Things don't always go to plan and we work around it. The environment is intentionally not a clinic ... because that's where life actually happens.

And when a participant does something in that environment, when they run and jump and squat and take turns and communicate and laugh and lose and win in that environment, their brain is filing that experience differently to how it files the clinic version. They're not doing therapy. They're playing a game. They're just also, quietly, getting the homework done.

Veggies in the lasagna. They're eating them. They just don't know it.

How the Multi-Modality Thing Actually Works

Here's where it gets genuinely useful for anyone in a participant's support network.

Say I get a message from a physio: "Jase, this guy needs some knee flexion, some two feet at the same time jumps, and if you can get him running a bit that'd be great."* Easy. I design a game where that's what everyone's doing. Not just him everyone. We're all jumping over things for points, we're all running to a cone and back, we're all squatting to pick something up. He's not singled out. He's not doing his special physio exercises while everyone else watches. He's just playing the game.

Same session, the speechie might have said: *"I need him to initiate conversations and answer questions in front of peers."* So we run our Two Questions game, and everyone in the group asks the circle two questions. Favourite pizza. If you had a superpower, what would it be? He initiates. He answers. He does it in front of people he trusts in a setting where it feels normal. Tick.

At the same time the OT's goals around turn taking, sharing, understanding that sometimes you win and sometimes the other guy is better than you today, those are happening naturally in every game we run. We don't manufacture it; it just happens. Because that's what group games are.

One session. Multiple goals across multiple disciplines. Everyone included. Nobody set apart.

That's not me being amazing. That's what happens when you put people in real situations together. The goals almost can't help but overlap.

Why Groups Are Hard — and Why They're Worth It

I want to be honest about something: groups are harder to build and run than 1:1. Way more moving parts. Schedules, locations, availabilities, parents, Support workers, transport, abilities, energy levels, support requirements, personalities. There are more things that can go sideways and more things to hold in your head at once.

I knew this before I worked in disability. I've always worked in group fitness and I've always believed group settings can do things individual sessions can't... but they take more thought to build well.

The reason I do it anyway is because of something I believe pretty strongly: these guys need friends. Real ones. Not paid ones.

One of my human goals ... separate to all the clinical and therapeutic outcomes... is to help people with disabilities meet mates who aren't there because someone is paying them to be there. That's it. That's the real thing underneath all of it.

That's why FrieNDIS exists. That's why we run DiscoAbility. That's why I keep the group price at $25 a session flat ... because if it's cheap enough, they can come more often, and if they come more often, they build the relationships that actually change their lives long term. At that price point, coming three times costs less than one individual session with an AHP... and I say that not to be snarky about anyone's rates, but just to put the value in perspective. The social contact, the routine, the sense of belonging, the confidence from showing up and being wanted in a group ...that stuff is therapeutic in its own right. Any psych, OT, or allied health professional would tell you the same.

The Group Does Something I Can't Do Alone

Here's something I've noticed working with the same people in different settings. In a 1:1 session, I get one version of them. In the group, I get another version entirely.

Once they've built rapport with the group... once they feel like they belong there... something shifts. The outside noise gets quieter. The person walking past with their dog stops mattering. The anxiety about what someone might be thinking drops because they're too busy thinking about the game, the points, the win, the group. They're immersed. They're present. And they're more themselves than I've seen them be anywhere else.

And then they come back. Not because of the squats...nobody has ever told me they came back for the squats. They come back because they're making friends. Because it's fun. Because something happened in that session that made them feel like they belonged somewhere. That they matter.

That's when the homework actually gets done. That's when you come back to see your AHP and you're starting at level 3 instead of back catching up from level 1 again, because the work was happening somewhere else in between. That's what I mean by keeping the ball in the air.

I'm not doing the clinical work. I'm making sure the clinical work has somewhere to land in real life.

My Why — The Short Version

I've been asked about this. Why this work. Why this specific thing.

Two parts. Why I started was because of a young fella who a psych had referred to get a trainer in the gym for anger issues. He got me. He has ASD, and I knew nothing besides the movie Rain Man. I learned a lot. There were times when I thought I couldn't help, that I couldn't make sense of certain things, but there was a point where I made a decision ...if not me, then who ... and found some avenues to further educate myself to help him specifically.

He ended up coming with me to another gym, and I learned that at 16 he had never had a friend, no one besides family to invite to a birthday, and had never been invited to a birthday besides family. Not cool, and not on my watch. He was a good kid. He did not deserve to feel like he wasn't worth having friends. So with his permission, I started the FrieNDIS group program.

And another part of it is that I'm neurodiverse myself (would not have known if I hadn't got involved with this young fella, I reckon), and a lot of my life was spent masking and figuring things out the hard way because certain things weren't available when I needed them. There were people and services along the way that nudged me in a better direction at the right moment, but what if they were not there? I think about that a lot.

The way I've come to understand it: if you've ever been hungry, you can't eat while someone next to you is starving. I might not have walked every inch of the mile in his shoes, but there are some very similar steps. There are steps I would rather no one else ever need to walk. I can't walk past someone who needed what I needed, knowing what I know.

Working with these guys has probably been the best thing I've done for my own life, too. That wasn't the plan. That's just what happened.

What This Looks Like in Practice — And How to Work With Me

If you're an AHP and your client's funding has been reduced, or you're looking for somewhere their goals can stay active between sessions, I'd love to hear from you. You don't need a complex delegation plan. A message saying *"this is what I need him working on"* is genuinely enough to get started. I'll build it in. You get a tick and flick update, not a novel. We keep it practical.

If you're a support coordinator or plan manager, this model is worth knowing about. Group sessions with multiple goal crossovers at a low flat rate, with the social and community outcomes built in. It's a genuinely different option to what most people are used to seeing.

If you're a parent or a participant ...the group is called FrieNDIS for a reason. It's for people who want to get fitter, do some AHP homework, get outside, and maybe find their people. All disabilities welcome. Physical, intellectual, spectrum, you name it. Everyone adapts, the rules flex, and everyone gets their wins.

This isn't instead of your AHP. It's not competing with your clinical team. It's just keeping the plates warm so the food is still hot when it matters.

If any of this makes sense for someone you support ...come say g'day. We'll work it out from there.

One more thing worth mentioning. Not everyone is ready for a public gym, and that is completely fine. The Slim Gym trailer brings a full proper gym setup ...cables, squat racks, Olympic weights and adaptive attachments ...directly to you. Designed with PWD in mind from the ground up, it opens up real training in a familiar environment without the membership, without the crowd, and without the pressure.

For the AHA side of things this is a genuine game changer. If an AHP has specific strength, mobility or rehabilitation goals for a participant, I can deliver that work 1:1 through the trailer, proper equipment, adapted to the individual, at home or wherever they feel safest.

For groups, it means we can run proper gym based sessions outdoors or in a participant's local area without anyone needing to walk into a building full of strangers. Same goals, same homework getting done, just in a space where people can actually relax enough to do it.

If the barrier to training has always been the environment rather than the desire, this is worth knowing about. Read more about the trailer here

Jase is an allied health assistant and personal trainer on the northern Gold Coast and Logan, and the founder of Slim Gym and FrieNDIS. He's also a fellow neurodiverse human trying to figure it out like everyone else.*