Working with an Allied Health Assistant User Guide
Our “Working with an Allied Health Assistant User Guide” steps you through the process of how to start working with a Fora Allied Health Assistant to reach your therapy goals. Have any questions? Check our collection of Frequently Asked Questions, or get in touch with our team.
Let us know what your needs are
How to get started:
In order to supply you with a therapy assistant that meets your needs, we need to figure out what those needs are! During the onboarding process we either
- Speak with you directly over the phone and ask you a series of questions about your needs.
- Provide you with an email questionnaire
Some common questions during the sign up process:
The account creator will be the one who:
- receives notifications about matches with allied health assistants
- reviews profiles when assistants apply to work with the client
- books a meet and greet with the selected candidate
Previously known as Ally Assist, Fora is a service for NDIS participants who are seeking additional support alongside their Allied Health Professional (AHP) through an allied health assistant (AHA). We aim to find a suitable allied health assistant based on location, availability and experience level.
To start your Fora journey, you will need to sign up and create an account, agree to our Terms of Use and fill out a New User Form which will ask you questions about the person seeking allied health assistance.
Please make sure you provide as much relevant information as possible as this will assist us in finding a suitable therapy assistant for you. If have you have any questions, please email info@foratherapy.com or give us a call on 1800 921 422.
We will aim to get back to you as soon as possible! Please give us a call on 1800 921 422 if you have not heard back from us.
An allied health professional is a qualified professional that has completed their training and is a certified practitioner with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) or their relevant professional peak body. They often have specialist knowledge within their domain.
Most often, our allied health assistants are not qualified therapists. They are either:
- studying or working towards becoming a qualified therapist (AHP).
- an allied health graduate that has completed their training but are not yet registered with AHPRA or their relevant peak body.
- a graduate of a cert IV in allied health assistance (AHA).
An allied health assistant does not replace the role of a qualified therapist in the diagnosis, assessment, treatment or management of an individual.
To ensure you are achieving your best outcomes and complying with NDIS guidelines, all allied health assistants must be linked with your allied health professional.
With your permission, we will contact your allied health professional, to ask a few questions:
- Do they think it is appropriate for you to work with an allied health assistant (eg. are there suitable goals, are the interventions suitable for an allied health assistant to carry out).
- What is the best way to have a Team Meeting (in-person vs telehealth).
- How often would they like the allied health assistant to check in with them (we recommend every 4 to 6 weeks to ensure the therapy plan is up-to-date).
With your permission, Fora contacts your AHP directly to check that they are happy to provide guidance to your allied health assistant (and in what capacity).
To do this, we require their full name, email and the name of their organisation. This will need to be provided to us when you fill out an application form. We understand that your AHP can change from time to time so we ask that you keep us up-to-date when there are changes made.
If you work with more than one AHP but your allied health assistant won’t be working with these other AHPs, you do not have to provide us with their details. We only need to contact the AHP that your allied health assistant will be working with.
An allied health assistant’s role is to help you build your capacity and increase your independence. They do this by:
- Helping you to implement your therapy plan and strategies created by your allied health professional (AHP).
- Seeing you in-between your appointments with allied health professionals.
- Helping you practice and reinforce what you’ve learned with your allied health professionals.
Important note: An allied health assistant does not replace your allied health professional. They must work together and will require regular check-ins every 4 to 6 weeks to ensure strategies are up-to-date to best support you.
In order to be linked with a Fora allied health assistant:
- You need to have an ongoing relationship with an Allied Health Professional (AHP).
- Your AHP must be willing to provide a handover to the selected therapy assistant and provide support and guidance every 4 to 6 weeks to ensure the therapy plan is up-to-date.
- If the person seeking assistance isn’t able to create and manage their account (to organise bookings, cancellations etc.), a family member, primary carer, support coordinator or AHP can do so on their behalf.
To ensure that we can find an allied health assistant that is suitable for you, we will ask you to provide your therapy goals, your Allied Health Professionals’s details, your location, your availability and any other preferences for therapy assistance. We also ask if there are any challenging behaviours that an allied health assistant needs to be aware of in order to best support you during sessions.
The Fora account creator will be required to agree to our Terms of Use before we can finalise the application and start the search for a suitable allied health assistant.
Yes, Fora is a registered NDIS provider.
Foras allied health assistants will have one or more of the following education backgrounds:
- Undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in accredited allied-health degrees (Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Speech Pathology).
- Allied Health Assistants (completed a Certificate IV in Allied Health Assistance).
- Graduate therapists (Allied-health university students who have recently completed their degree).
- Interim therapists (those who have received allied health qualifications overseas and awaiting certification in Australia).
- Return-to-work therapists (Australian AHP’s looking to re-enter the workforce after some time away from clinical practice).
We recruit our allied health assistants based on their experience which may have been from university placement, volunteer work or other jobs that are related to the field. You will be able to view the allied health assistants experience and background once they have applied to work with you.
An Fora team member will review the application once submitted. If the application is missing information or we need to clarify the information provided, we will contact you.
Once we finalise the application, a de-identified profile will be created and will be ready to be viewed by allied health assistants in your area on the Fora team. If the allied health assistant feels they are suitable and have matching availability, they will apply to work with you and you will receive an email/text notification from us. You will be able to have a complimentary one hour meet and greet with the allied health assistant if you feel like they may be suitable.
The wait time is generally 4 to 6 weeks depending on location, availability provided and suitability. We may be able to match you with a suitable allied health assistant faster if there is more availability provided. However, we cannot guarantee a match.
Allied health assistants apply to work with you
I’ve provided my details, what now?
Once we have an understanding of your needs, we send a de-identified invitation to the suitable therapy assistants in your area via the Fora website. The therapy assistants then accept the role if they are available to meet with you.
Some common questions during the matching process:
To ensure that we protect your privacy, when an allied health assistant is shown your profile the information is de-identified.
Here is an example of what a potential allied health assistant might see:
“9 year old female in Brighton, living with Autism Spectrum Disorder, looking for assistance twice a week with Speech Therapy.”
As you can see, therapy assistants do not see any names, addresses or contact details of you or your AHP. They are only able to view the following:
- your age, suburb and diagnoses and/or symptoms
- your therapy goals and therapy team (what types of AHPs you work with)
- your requested therapy session times
It is only after you choose an allied health assistant that they are provided with your name, contact details and home address so that they can meet with you.
There are 3 ways we notify you about your allied health assistant matches:
- The Fora account creator receives an email notification when a allied health assistant applies to work with you.
- The Fora account creator receives a text notification about your matches when these matches are about to expire.
- The Fora account creator finds the matches on their Fora dashboard when there is an application.
It is important to check and respond to these messages as soon as possible. When allied health assistants apply, they provide their availability for a meet and greet for the next 6 days.
If you do not book a meet and greet within 6 days, the offer will expire, and we may not be able to match you with this allied health assistants. If your match has expired, but you’d still like to work with that allied health assistants, let us know! We can reach out to the therapy assistant to find out if they are still available. However, there is a chance they may no longer be available as they may have pursued work with other clients.
Yes. We screen applicants based on their previous experience, performance during a phone interview and reference checks.
All our allied health assistants undergo the following checks:
- Proof of identity check
- Working with Children’s Check
- National Police Check
- Disability Workers Exclusion List check
- NDIS Clearance
- Phone interview
- Professional Reference checks
- Fully vaccinated from COVID-19
Upon being verified and prior to beginning employment, allied health assistants also complete:
- OH&S Safety Module
- NDIS Quality, Safety and You Module
- Infection Control Training
All allied health assistants Working with Children’s Checks can be made available upon request and allied health assistants are encouraged to have a physical copy of these checks with them at all times when working in the community.
Meet & Greet
I’m starting to see a few therapy assistant applications come through, what happens now?
Now it’s time for a Meet & Greet! Choose one of the therapy assistants that you think would be the best fit for you or the person you care for. The therapy assistant will have provided some available time slots, so choose one of those to automatically book in a meeting.
Make sure you don’t wait too long though!
The therapy assistant applications will expire after 5 days! For more information and to learn about what happens at the Meet & Greet, you can read the Meet & Greet guide here.
Some common questions about Meet & Greets:
This is for two reasons:
- Allied health assistants are in high demand, so we cannot reserve their availability or stop them from pursuing work with other clients.
- Their availability changes very quickly as they are constantly being offered new clients and work opportunities, so after a week their schedules have often changed.
This meeting is solely for the client and the allied health assistant to find out whether they would be a suitable fit for each other (like a two-way interview).
Therefore, a Fora team member will not be present during the meet and greet.
We will aim to get back to you as soon as possible! Please give us a call on 1800 921 422 if you have not heard back from us.
Our meet and greets are complimentary 1-hour (maximum) sessions to allow both parties to find out whether they are a good fit for each other.
You will have a complimentary meet and greet with each allied health assistant that you are interested in if they have submitted their application.
Team Meeting & regular sessions
I’ve met the therapy assistant and we both want to proceed, what’s next?
We need to have your allied health professional (AHP) delegate some tasks to the therapy assistant. Usually this occurs by having the therapy assistant attend and observe one of your regular therapy sessions.
If the therapy assistant is unable to attend your therapy session, handover can occur via telehealth or over the phone.
Some common questions about your AHP handover and ongoing sessions:
We will aim to get back to you as soon as possible! Please give us a call on 1800 921 422 if you have not heard back from us.
To ensure you are achieving your best outcomes and complying with NDIS guidelines, all allied health assistants must be linked with your allied health professional.
With your permission, we will contact your allied health professional, to ask a few questions:
- Do they think it is appropriate for you to work with an allied health assistant (eg. are there suitable goals, are the interventions suitable for an allied health assistant to carry out).
- What is the best way to have a Team Meeting (in-person vs telehealth).
- How often would they like the allied health assistant to check in with them (we recommend every 4 to 6 weeks to ensure the therapy plan is up-to-date).
With your permission, Fora contacts your AHP directly to check that they are happy to provide guidance to your allied health assistant (and in what capacity).
To do this, we require their full name, email and the name of their organisation. This will need to be provided to us when you fill out an application form. We understand that your AHP can change from time to time so we ask that you keep us up-to-date when there are changes made.
If you work with more than one AHP but your allied health assistant won’t be working with these other AHPs, you do not have to provide us with their details. We only need to contact the AHP that your allied health assistant will be working with.
Invoicing occurs fortnightly.
If you are paying for the service privately, or if your NDIS funding is self or plan-managed, you will be emailed an invoice that can be paid via direct bank transfer or PayID.
Participants with agency-managed NDIS funding can request to have their invoices sent to them.
Allied health assistants are not involved in the invoicing process. For any questions or concerns with payments or invoicing, please email accounts@foratherapy.com.
Feedback and problem solving
How can I give feedback?
Please contact the Fora support team directly via phone or email for any type of feedback, concerns, questions, extra support or just to have a chat.
We are available via phone and email between Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm.
Feedback that you should contact us about immediately include:
- It has been difficult organising sessions with your therapy assistant, or if they are consistently cancelling
- You are concerned that your therapy assistant might be working out of scope (coming up with new additions to your therapy plan by themselves and implementing them)
- You feel concerned about your safety
Some common questions about logging your assists and receiving payments:
We work towards providing a high level of service and support for our customers and workers. Please share your feedback with us – complaints, compliments and suggestions will help us to better our service in order to assist you.
For Fora Customers:
- You can lodge a complaint online or over the phone.
- Email info@foratherapy.com and someone will get in touch with you.
- Call 1800 921 422 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.
- Speak with us on live chat between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.
For Fora Workers:
- You can lodge a complaint online or over the phone.
- Email info@foratherapy.com and someone will get in touch with you.
- Call 1800 921 422 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.
- Speak with us on live chat between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.
Other complaints:
We are unable to deal with complaints about:
- The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)
- Access to the NDIS
- Decisions about NDIS participant plans.
You can speak to the NDIA to make a complaint about these.
If you’re not sure who to talk to about your complaint, contact us and we can help direct you to the right place.
Making a complaint about Fora:
A complaint can be made to the NDIS Commission by:
- Phoning: 1800 035 544 (free call from landlines) or TTY 133 677. Interpreters can be arranged.
- National Relay Service and ask for 1800 035 544.
- Completing a complaint contact form.
The NDIS Commission can take complaints from anyone about:
- NDIS services or supports that were not provided in a safe and respectful way
- NDIS services and supports that were not delivered to an appropriate standard
- How an NDIS provider has managed a complaint about services or supports provided to an NDIS participant
If there is a work-related injury,
- Fora and the allied health assistant will be required to fill out a worker injury claim form
- The completed forms will be sent to our insurance company
- The insurance company will investigate the incident
- The insurance company decides the next steps and informs the parties involved
Still have questions?
Contact the Fora Team via email at info@foratherapy.com or call us on 1800 921 422 Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
