Candella has been a trusted provider of high-quality psychosocial support services since 2018. We founded the organisation to address a critical gap in specialist psychosocial supports in the NDIS.  

Our services have always been person-centred and recovery-focused – an approach that has enabled us to build genuine connections with clients while providing them with the high-quality support they need to live their best lives.  

Specialising in recovery-focused psychosocial supports throughout these years has given us the privilege of building close relationships with thousands of NDIS participants and their families. We have been inspired and humbled by the countless stories of personal growth, achievement, and resilience while we have been supporting them. 

Our services have been delivered entirely through the NDIS. In its current state, the NDIS is lifechanging, and as a relatively young scheme it continues to evolve. We have always been optimistic about the potential of the NDIS and its future, yet there will be some inevitable growing pains as it matures.  

When we take a long-term view, these growing pains are bumps in the road towards a much-improved NDIS. But these bumps can create challenges for providers in the short- to medium-term. As we have seen, some providers have recently responded to these challenges by making the difficult decision to exit the NDIS.  

The Candella board and executive team recently decided it was time for our organisation to also exit the NDIS. However, we are pleased to announce that we have found a way to exit that ensures the good work we have started at Candella can continue for years to come through other providers.  

Recovery Coaching  

In the Recovery Coaching space, we have been able to work closely with One Good* Day Recovery Coaching to provide a smooth and orderly handover of our Recovery Coaching services to them.  

This handover followed a rigorous assessment and planning process to ensure the best possible opportunities and outcomes for Candella’s clients and employees. 

This means that most our highly skilled Recovery Coaching team will remain intact and have a new home at One Good* Day.  

Clients will be given the option to transition across to One Good* Day and retain their current Recovery Coach. Of course, this is not mandatory and if clients would prefer to take this opportunity to find and engage another Recovery Coaching provider they will be supported to do so.   

We chose to partner with One Good* Day as they are a leading provider of independent Recovery Coaching services in Australia.  

One Good* Day, who have been operating since the introduction of Recovery Coaching, have always only delivered Recovery Coaching. With that singular focus, One Good* Day have been able to refine their Recovery Coaching services since day one to become a market–leading provider in this space.  

We trust that One Good* Day will continue to provide the high-quality, recovery-focused, person-centred services that our clients have come to expect from Candella, as well as a supportive work environment that will continue to enable our team to deliver outstanding services.   

Capacity-Building Support Work   

We recently completed a carefully managed wind-down of our capacity-building support work operations. This included supporting our Wellbeing Facilitators (our term for “Support Workers”) and clients to transition into alternative service provision arrangements.  

In almost every case, the working relationships between clients and workers have been preserved in the new arrangements, thereby minimising support disruptions and setbacks for clients. 

Final words 

Thank you to our everyone who chose Candella as their recovery-focused psychosocial support provider under the NDIS for all these years, and thank you to everyone who worked with us as an employee or industry partner towards our shared mission.  

Although Candella won’t play a further role in the NDIS, I am delighted that One Good* Day will continue what we started in Recovery Coaching and that our former Wellbeing Facilitators and their clients will continue to work together. I am looking forward to seeing how the scheme improves in the coming years for the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of NDIS participants who are supported by it. 

As per our organisation’s constitution, we will donate all of Candella’s assets (in the six-figures range) to other charities as part of winding-up the organisation. To help us decide which organisations to donate to, I am open to discussions with ACNC-registered charities that are doing impactful work, have a purpose aligned with Candella’s (some connection to mental health), and could do with a funding boost. Please reach out to me directly on LinkedIn if you would like to discuss this. 

If you have any need to contact Candella while we work towards winding things up, you can reach us on (03) 8372 0403 or at support@candella.org.au until Friday 9 August 2024.  

Aaron Ford 

CEO and Founder 

Candella