The Support People (formerly Next Step Disability Services) - Disability services & support organisa

NDIS support providers and support coordinators in Ballarat and Bendigo. We match you with high-quality disability support workers to help you live the life you want. Our support coordinators help you to identify and find the support you need.

At The Support People, we believe that those with a disability deserve to have choice and control over how they live their lives to the best of their ability. This is achieved by more personalised level of care, understanding, respect and empathy, to not only survive independently but to thrive. Glenn and Nadia Smyth, founders of The Support People, had been working for over a decade within a family business, Kallara Care, which provides supported residential care for people with mental illness and psychosocial disability.
They observed that not enough care was being taken by support workers (often freelance or coming from agencies) to help these vulnerable residents.
The process of facilitating care for people with very challenging needs was often very transactional and lacking in empathy, which caused them even more unnecessary stress.
They identified the missing element in the existing model – giving people with a disability choice and control on how they live their life. This moment of clarity spurned them in action to create a business based on a better model of quality care for adults with a mental illness or intellectual disability. Originally established in 2018 as Next Step Disability Services, the organisation focussed on providing community access, life skills development and personal care.
More recently, The Support People has expanded to provide NDIS support coordination, home & garden maintenance and ‘round the clock’ support for persons choosing to live in their own homes. We are enthusiastic about the future possibilities for people to live as independently as possible in a supported independent living arrangement, and to position ourselves to meet this demand; and believe our wealth of prior experience in supported residential service accommodation has us well placed to make this a reality.