News

Consumer Training and Support

We are pleased to announce that the tender for provision of Consumer Training and Support to disability employment services over the next two years has been awarded to the Wodonga Institute of TAFE in partnership with AWARE Industries in Victoria. The Wodonga Institute of TAFE has experience in developing educational and support material for people with disabilities.

With the assistance of the Wodonga Institute of TAFE we will be moving the Consumer Training and Support Programme in a new direction, focusing on developing training materials and information products for users of employment and advocacy services. The Wodonga Institute of TAFE will also be conducting research and evaluation into communication requirements for people with a disability as directed by the Department.

Wodonga TAFE will be conducting focus groups and interviews over the coming weeks to listen to your ideas and gain insight into the training and information needs of the disability employment and advocacy sector.

You can contact the Wodonga Institute of TAFE at 87 McKoy Street, West Wodonga VIC 3697, or by phone on 02 6055 6328.

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CRRS and Certification processes

The Quality Assurance (QA) process (external audit process) and the Complaints and Referrals process (CRRS) are linked as part of the Quality Strategy, but are also separate and independent processes.

This means that even though a service may be certified as complying with the Disability Services Standards, a complaint could still be lodged against the organisation and CRRS would investigate the complaint. Business services are expected to assist CRRS in their investigation of any complaints.

The investigation is specific to the complaint and not an overall quality assessment as carried out by the auditors. CRRS recommendations are made to ensure the complaint cannot reoccur and may cover other identified gaps in service provision that may have contributed to the complaint.

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BizAbility

Phase 2 analysis and design work to add the eCommerce transaction capability to BizAbility is progressing steadily. The Focus Group formed to champion business services will soon be participating in the trial of the online buying function.

Supporting BizAbility

BizAbility is for business services to promote and market their products and services. Organisations and their business services need to actively support BizAbility to make it a success. Some of the ways you can support BizAbility include:

1. Administration Access: All organisations and/or business services need access to the administration area of BizAbility to ensure that all details about your service and/or organisation are up-to-date. We cannot over-emphasise the importance of this, particularly in terms of having accurate information on BizAbility. If you have not already done so, please log on to the administration area of BizAbility, or, if you require an eCommerce User System Access form, contact the mailbox at bizAbility@facsia.gov.au.
2. Images: Thank you to those businesses who have contacted us and offered photos. If any other services would like to have their photos featured on the BizAbility site, please email the bizAbility@facsia.gov.au mailbox and we will contact you to discuss this further.
3. Promoting BizAbility: Are you promoting BizAbility to your business associates? Why not have a link to BizAbility on your own website and ask your local council if they would be prepared to have a link to BizAbility on their website?
4. Feedback: We would like to hear from you about BizAbility. Tell us what you think of the website and/or email any suggestions to the mailbox at bizAbility@facsia.gov.au.
5. Specials: Advertise your specially priced products and/or services on BizAbility at any time throughout the year. Contact bizAbility@facsia.gov.au for further information.

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Improved Payment Reconciliation Functions in FOFMS

The release of FOFMS in early April will deliver improved payment reconciliation functions for disability business services. The release will see the implementation of three new reports which will allow service providers to view:

1. Payments made against an Agreement. This report will be useful for larger organisations that have multiple agreement schedules, as it will be broken down by agreement schedule.
2. Payment made against an Agreement Schedule. This report will show you all the payments that have been made in respect of a specific agreement schedule.
3. Payments made against a Case. This report will show you all the payments that have been made in respect of a specific case or multiple cases.

All the reports can be constrained by dates, so you can select a specific period that you're interested in, ie one month or quarterly. The Agreement Schedule and Case report will also include the first name and surname of individual clients that payments have been made in respect of. All reports will have subtotals and totals, will be printable and can also be exported to Excel for further manipulation.

A further development that will also help you reconcile your payments is the introduction of a new screen called 'Consolidated Payment Request Line Items'. This view will be available under the existing Payment Request view. From this new screen view, you will be able to query FOFMS for payment details using the IMPACT Clearing Number (the reference number which is provided on your bank statement with each deposit from FaCSIA) as well as the IMPACT Invoice Number (the document number contained on your Recipient Created Tax Invoice).

A big thank you to everyone who gave up their valuable time to assist us with the development and testing of these new reports.

We will be developing task cards to help you with accessing and using the new reports, and will provide details of how to access these task cards in the next edition of e-news.

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Feedback

We want your feedback

Email disAbility e-news if you'd like more information on a particular issue or program or to let us know what you think of this e-newsletter.

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Contributions

Your contributions to disAbility e-news are welcome. Do you want to let others know about your successes? Or how you engage with local businesses to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities? Email your story idea to disAbility e-news.

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