Work Assist 008-04030070

Work Assist provides support to eligible employees who have difficulty fulfilling the essential requirements of their role due to their injury, disability or health condition. The DES provider will work with the Work Assist participant and their employer to provide supports to maximise the chance of the Participant maintaining their employment.

For an employee to be eligible for Work Assist their employer must be of the view that their employee is having difficulties fulfilling the essential requirements of their job, due to the impact of their injury, disability or health condition, and the employee must:

• be currently employed
• have been working in that job for at least 8 hours per week on average over a consecutive 13 week period
• likely to require Ongoing Support

Work Assist assistance is not normally provided to assist with finding new employment.

A customer does not require an Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) or Job Capacity Assessment (JCA) to access Work Assist. The DES provider can determine if a customer meets the relevant criteria for Work Assist. The DES provider then makes the referral and commences the customer in the programme.

Services Australia has no role in making a formal assessment of a customer’s eligibility for Work Assist through DES. However, where the customer first approaches Services Australia seeking support though Work Assist, staff may need to contact a DES provider for guidance about whether their assistance is likely to be suitable for the customer.

Customers can access Work Assist either by directly approaching a DES provider, or through Services Australia.

If the customer directly approaches the DES provider and their eligibility for Work Assist is confirmed, Services Australia normally has no role. If the customer approaches Services Australia seeking support through Work Assist, Services Australia's main role is to immediately refer the customer to a DES provider. In this situation, the referral is not made in the normal way via the Online Diary, but rather by:

• (wherever possible) contacting the customer's chosen DES provider by phone and arranging for the customer to meet the provider; or
• giving the customer details of available local DES providers so that the customer can directly register with a provider of their choice

Once the customer commences with DES, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations will notify Services Australia about the referral status, which will be automatically updated on the individual customer record.

Eligible customers include JobSeeker and Parenting Payment customers who have an injury, disability or health condition which means they are:

• at risk of losing their jobs, or
• having trouble coping at work

A referral should be offered to a customer if it is possible they would benefit from Work Assist.

Normal assessment and referral procedures for DES are streamlined to ensure that eligible customers can start receiving assistance as soon as possible.

If a customer is seeking to be referred to a DES provider, Services Australia should also check whether the customer already has a Customer Reference Number (from a 'person' record, not a 'child' record).

Staff should ensure that the customer (or the DES provider) has this reference number, to assist the provider with the direct registration process. If the customer does not already have a 'person' record, staff should create a 'shell' record for the customer while they are present.