Getting started
Starting is a conversation, not a form.
There are two funding worlds behind almost everything Grove does. Pick the one that sounds like you and skip the rest of the page. If neither sounds right, call us and we will work it out on the phone.
If you have an NDIS plan
Support work, funded through your plan
Grove delivers the everyday support side of an NDIS plan. Not therapy, not clinical care, and not plan management. The practical help, and the person who provides it.
What Grove delivers under the NDIS
- Daily living support
- Community access
- Supported independent living
- Support coordination
- Gardening and home help
- Cleaning and domestic assistance
Whether a specific support is funded for you depends on your own plan rather than on the list. Tell us what you want help with and we will tell you what we can see.
Who we support
Any age. That is worth saying plainly because a lot of providers pick an end of the range and stay there.
We support children and teenagers, including school hours, holidays and the routines either side of a therapy appointment. Paediatric support work is genuinely hard to find done well, and worker consistency matters more for a child than for anyone else.
We support working-age adults, including people living in their own home with support rostered through it. And we support older participants who came into the scheme before turning sixty five and want to stay with it.
How your plan pays for it
Support work generally sits in the everyday-support side of a plan rather than the therapy side, and that is the part Grove is set up to deliver. The exact wording, the categories and the amounts are specific to your plan, so we will not tell you what is in yours from a webpage.
What we will do is read it with you. Send it through, or read it out over the phone, and we will tell you what we can see and what we cannot. If something you want is not funded, we would rather say so at the start than bill against a category that was never meant for it.
Self-managed, plan-managed or agency-managed
How your plan is managed changes the paperwork, not the support. If you are self-managed we invoice you and you claim it. If you are plan-managed we invoice your plan manager. If you are agency-managed, the provider has to be registered, so ask us directly whether we can take you on before you plan around it.
If you are not sure which one you are, that is a completely normal question and we can usually work it out from your plan in a couple of minutes.
Choice and control, in practice
Choice and control is a phrase that only means something when it survives an awkward conversation. In practice it means you choose who comes into your home, you can change your mind about that person without giving a reason, and you can leave us without a fight.
It also means we will tell you when another provider is a better fit than we are, including for the parts of your plan we do not deliver.
If we also coordinate your plan
Grove delivers support coordination and support work, which is a conflict of interest we name rather than hope you miss. If we coordinate your plan, you are never required to use Grove for the support itself.
You get real options, the choice you make gets written down, and you can change it at any point. Ask us to explain how we keep the two jobs separate and expect a direct answer, not a policy number.
If you need support at home
Aged care, delivered where you already live
Support at Home is the government program for older Australians who want to keep living in their own house. Grove does the support work side of it: the help that makes staying put actually workable.
What Grove delivers under Support at Home
Supported independent living and support coordination are NDIS supports, so they do not appear here. Everything else on this list is the same work, funded from a different place.
Who we support
Older people who are managing, mostly, and who would manage a lot better with a few hours of the right help each week. You do not need to be in crisis to be eligible for help, and waiting until you are is the most common mistake we see.
We also support people who are not yet assessed and want to start privately in the meantime, so that momentum is not lost while paperwork moves.
How you get assessed
Access to government-funded aged care at home starts with an assessment arranged through My Aged Care. Someone talks with you about what you can manage and what you are struggling with, and the outcome sets what support can be funded.
It is worth being honest in that conversation rather than stoic. People routinely describe their best day rather than their average one, and then wonder why the support that comes back does not match the life they are actually living.
We are happy to talk you through what to expect before you make the call, and we can keep a service going privately while an assessment is underway.
If you are the adult child reading this
You are the person who usually starts this process, and you are often doing it while managing your own work and family from another suburb or another state.
A few things that help. Start before the crisis, because support arranged calmly is better support. Bring your parent into the conversation early rather than presenting a decision. Frame it as keeping the house, not as losing independence, because that is what it actually is. And write down what a bad week looks like before you ring anyone, because that is the information every assessor and provider actually needs.
With your parent's consent, we will keep you in the loop on rosters and changes. Plenty of the families we work with have someone interstate doing exactly this.
Where the clinical line sits
Nursing, wound care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry and dietetics are clinical services. Grove does not deliver them, and a provider who quietly stretches to cover them is doing nobody a favour.
If that is what you need, we will point you at Constellation Therapies inside our own group, or at your GP and existing health team. Support work sits alongside clinical care, not instead of it.
What actually happens next
Shared across both funding paths. Timeframes here are what a straightforward start looks like, not a promise, and we will tell you at the first call if yours is going to run longer.
- Day one A conversation Fifteen or twenty minutes on the phone about what a hard day looks like. No plan documents needed, no forms to fill in first, and an honest answer about whether we can help.
- Within a few days We work out the detail What support, how many hours, which days, and how it gets paid for. If we need to read your plan or wait on an assessment, this is where that happens.
- Before the first shift We match your worker We put forward someone we think fits, and wherever timing allows you meet them first. You can say no, and saying no costs you nothing.
- Then, and after Support starts, and we check The first shift happens, and we come back to you after a few of them and again once the routine has settled. Week three is when the honest answer usually arrives.
What to have ready, and what you can absolutely ignore
Enquiry friction is the reason people put this off for months. So here is the whole list.
Useful to have
- A rough idea of which days and times are hardest
- Your suburb, so we know which team you sit with
- Whether the person needing support is you or someone else
- Anything a worker would need to know before walking in: stairs, pets, other people at home
Not needed yet
- Your NDIS plan, or a copy of anything
- An assessment outcome or a reference number
- A decision about how many hours you want
- A diagnosis, a report, or a letter from anyone
If you have the paperwork it speeds things up. If you do not, it changes nothing about whether you can ring us today.
Questions from both sides of the fork
Labelled by path, because the answer is often different depending on which funding you are in.
NDIS
How quickly can support start?
Once we know what you need and how it is funded, the limiting factor is matching a worker rather than paperwork. A straightforward start is usually a week or two. If we cannot staff it in that window we will say so rather than book you in and hope.
Can I change support workers?
Yes, at any point, without giving a reason. Tell your coordinator or ring the office. The worker is told the roster changed, not that you complained about them.
Can Grove support my child?
Yes. Paediatric support work is a real part of what we do, including school hours, holidays and the routines around therapy. Tell us the age and what the day looks like and we will match on consistency first.
What happens when my plan changes?
Tell us as early as you can and we will map the new plan against what is currently rostered. If something is no longer funded we will tell you straight away rather than letting it turn into an invoice you were not expecting.
Do I have to be with one provider for everything?
No. Plenty of participants use several providers, and there is nothing unusual about using Grove for support work and someone else for therapy or coordination.
Support at Home
Do I have to be assessed before I can talk to you?
No. Ring us whenever you like. We can explain what the assessment involves, and we can start privately in the meantime if you would rather not wait.
Can I keep the arrangements I already have?
Usually, yes. If you already have a cleaner or a gardener you are happy with, keep them. We are not interested in replacing something that is working, only in filling the gaps around it.
What if we need nursing or therapy as well?
Then you need a clinical provider alongside us. Constellation Therapies inside our own group covers allied health, and your GP covers the medical side. We will make the introduction rather than leave you to search.
Can my family be involved in organising this?
Yes, with your consent, and it is very common. We can keep an adult child in the loop on rosters and changes, including from interstate.
How much does it cost?
That depends on what is funded for you and what you choose to add privately, so a number on a webpage would be a guess. We will give you real figures once we know what support you actually want.
Ring us before you have it all worked out
The first conversation exists to work it out. If we are not the right provider we will tell you that too, and point you somewhere better.