Horizons Program

• Overview of Horizons Program
• Collaborative Partnerships
• Lead Agency Concept
• Key Components of Service
• Client Referral and Funding Arrangements

The Horizons Program provides individually tailored packages of accommodation and support that facilitate transition of clients toward increased independence and community connectedness.

The program aims to encourage integration into the wider community through the provision of a variety of supports that encompass all of the individual’s life domains - working with the client to identify their strengths and life goals.

Southern Junction Community Services has a long and sustained history of providing flexible client focused service delivery and support mechanisms that promote integration into their communities. Action research through recent contracts of service has demonstrated that Southern Junction’s model of service delivery is adaptable to the ENU client group.

The Horizons Program provides assistance to clients to access sustainable recreational, cultural and social links with their local community and to assist in the development of an appropriate peer network. This may also involve assistance in supporting individuals to access and maintain educational and long term employment options where appropriate. The adoption of a multi-agency approach is considered integral to achieving this aim.

Southern Junction Community Services predicates its service delivery on the value of strong positive relationships and ‘connected communities’. The program seeks to foster the development of supportive relationships and networks that can significantly enhance each person’s experience of life and view of the community and ultimately facilitates a sense of citizenship.

Partnership and Collaboration

Southern Junction Community Services has always worked in a collaborative manner that encourages positive alliances partnerships between SJCS and other service providers and stakeholders. Central to this model is the identification and maintenance of links that are vital to the client and are clearly seen as essential to good outcomes. Southern Junction’s reputation as a provider of quality support and accommodation services and its strong links with a range of other service agencies in the southern and outer southern areas of Adelaide will facilitate this.

Lead Agency

The SJCS’s Horizons Program is part of an integrated approach from a variety of service agencies.

Integral to the model is the application of case management and case work principals. Southern Junction acknowledges that as an agency it may not always be best placed to take on this important ‘Lead Agency’ role but will work alongside other agencies identified as responsible for this task.

Southern Junction believes that the needs of the client should be identified and the most appropriate and skilled agency should be placed in the case management role. The service model provides for flexibility in the case management and co-ordination of the delivery of services.

The service model has at its core the capacity to recognise and dynamically respond the changing needs of the client. Over time, this may include shifting the ‘Lead Agency’ responsibility in order to ensure congruence with changes in presenting and/or emerging client support issues.

Key Components of Service

Support Services

Horizons will continue to maintain the existing focus of Southern Junction Community Services upon providing adaptable and holistic support services in a manner that places an emphasis on the individual’s positive attributes. The nature and extent of support provided will be flexible and tailored to meet individual needs following scheduled case management meetings.

Support services will focus on key life domains and will provide for progression with an appreciation of the varying ‘stages’ that individuals may move through. The model will promote self-reliance and aims to provide each client, and their families (or significant others), with the option to adjust the nature and extent of support provided to the client.

Housing and Accommodation

The Horizons Program recognises that stable, safe and affordable accommodation is an integral element of the program’s success as it enables individuals to integrate into their community of choice. Southern Junction therefore endeavours to allocate and/or source housing that is the least restrictive and acknowledges the capacity of individuals with exceptional needs to successfully address tenancy and home maintenance issues. The Horizons model includes provision of a variety of in-home and ‘outreach’ support and accommodation options that are planned to adapt and respond to the needs of clients as appropriate. 

Southern Junction is currently exploring the possibility of constructing a number of tailor made units in conjunction with DFC’s Affordable Housing Innovations Program. See SJCS Affordable Housing Strategy.

It is anticipated that several clients may be supported by one ‘Team Leader’ but that each client will have their own identified ‘Key Worker’ – usually a support worker whom the client can identify with to assist them.

A Coordinated Team Approach

Southern Junction Community Services recognises the many complex issues that may accompany an individual with exceptional needs. A coordinated team approach is therefore acknowledged to be an integral part of the model. SJCS actively pursues staff integration through regular weekly team meetings and fortnightly supervision sessions with all service delivery staff.

Client Referral and Funding Arrangements

SJCS’s Horizons Program is currently only available through individual clients-based funding arrangements through contractual arrangements with government agencies, including the Exceptional Needs Unit and Disability SA. 

Following definition of client needs, SJCS is able to quickly develop a specifically tailored service and associated budget for the delivery of quality support services for individual clients.

Southern Junction is currently seeking to secure more flexible core funding that may enable acceptance of direct client referrals.  We are keen to work with funding bodies, including philanthropic and corporate groups, to develop cost-effective service responses that build on the existing strengths and networks of clients.