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For independent support workers
You don't need to be good with technology. You just need to be shown once.It's the phone you already carry, and about three minutes at the end of a shift. If you've held back because you weren't sure it was allowed, or you didn't want to get it wrong with someone's private information, that was sensible. There is a safe way to do this, and it's simpler than most people expect. |
✓ One payment, no subscription ✓ Runs on the free version of Claude ✓ Set up in 30 minutes
“Right so this arvo she didn't want breakfast, said she wasn't hungry, um she did have a cup of tea. Bit of a wobble getting out of the car, didn't fall or anything.”
On exiting the vehicle the participant held the door for support more than is typical. No fall occurred and no injury was observed.
• How much assistance was needed with the transfer?
• Fluid intake beyond the cup of tea not recorded.
No typing. Your phone's own keyboard microphone does the talking.
Before anything else, here's the rule that matters most. Take it whether you ever buy anything from me or not.
Their name, address, age, diagnosis and NDIS number are sensitive health information. Pasting any of that into a public AI tool discloses someone's private details to a third party without their consent. It happens in this sector every day, by people who were simply never told.
What to do instead: initials only, in one field. Write “the participant” everywhere else. Then add the real name afterwards, in your own record. It costs about four seconds.
That rule is free. Use it today.
In the order that matters. Most people would sell you the time saving first. The time saving is third.
Not a list of buttons to press. You'll know what's safe, what isn't, and why, so you could explain your own process to anyone who asked.
Observations rather than judgements. The level of assistance actually required. And it tells you what you left out instead of inventing something to fill the gap.
Three minutes a shift, parked, while it's still true. Not eleven at night from memory, three days later.
When a plan is reviewed, someone has to demonstrate the support is still necessary. You're the only person who was in the house at 7am.
I spent twenty years in clinical trials, with oversight of data and operations. In that world every record has to hold up years later, because if the data can't be trusted the medicine doesn't get approved.
Then I moved into disability support, and now run a supported independent living provider. I found the same gaps I'd spent two decades finding. Except here, nobody was ever taught. There's no induction for a sole trader.
So I've written down what I spent twenty years looking for, in plain language, for the phone you already carry.
Lucy
Solo Notes
“This is the best. I have been saying for months I need this support. The benefit of speech to text is amazing, and organising the notes to add value is a game changer.”
“This would turn my notes into more factual and tell a better story of what support was provided and required. It would definitely give more time back in a busy world when we are all going from one shift to the next.”
The same system in all three. The only difference is how much help you want getting set up.
One payment, not a subscription. Not because it's a discount. It's a course, not a rental. Once you know how to do this, you shouldn't have to keep paying for it. And your records stay in your own storage, where nobody can raise the price on them or lock you out.
If you can send a voice message, you can do this. You talk into your phone the way you'd tell a workmate about your shift. Rambling is fine, that's how people talk. Every step in the manual tells you how to know it worked before you move on. And if you'd rather not do it alone, that's exactly what the $147 group session is for.
Using AI to help you write is fine. Putting a participant's private information into it is not. That distinction is the first thing this teaches, and it's most of what you're paying for.
No, and be wary of anything claiming it will. It turns your spoken account into clear professional language and tells you what you've missed. You check it, you correct it, and you remain the author of everything you submit. That isn't a limitation, it's the point.
Those apps are good at what they do. If you want notes, invoicing and a calendar in one interface, one of them may suit you better, be clear-eyed about it.
What they don't do is teach you what a note has to contain, or tell you whether the one you've just produced is any good. Different job. And $67 once is about a third of one year of a $15 monthly app, with nothing to pay again after that.
In your own cloud storage, in folders you set up and name. Not in anyone's database. If a software company folds, triples its price or gets bought, records held inside it become hard to get out. Yours are already yours.
No, and nothing can promise that. It helps you keep clearer records and find your own gaps before someone else does. Requirements change and depend on your circumstances, so verify current ones with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.
Budgets are getting tighter and the record matters more than it used to. Coordinators can't build a case out of records they can't use. Independent workers were never shown what a good record contains.
Nobody in that chain is the problem. The gap is. We're better off closing it together.
If you're a support coordinator or a provider and you'd like something for the independents you work with, email me, there's a free one-page checklist, and I run free group sessions for coordinators' workers.
Ten questions: would your notes support your participant's funding, and could you produce three months of them if a coordinator asked? You get a score and a list of what to fix first. Free, nothing to sign up for beyond an email.
Take the notes check →