About us
Started by someone who saw how it shouldn’t be done.
Able is a small, locally owned NDIS provider based at Eleebana on Lake Macquarie. We support adults across Newcastle, the Hunter, Port Stephens and the northern Central Coast.
Anita Luschwitz started as a support worker. A close friend was in a car accident and acquired a brain injury, and Anita went and worked for other providers to learn how it all worked.
What she learned was mostly what not to do. Support workers dropped on people because that worker wanted the hours. Three-hour shifts that existed because three hours was billable. Providers who said choice and control and delivered take it or leave it. And the one she still gets angriest about: someone asking, more than once, for something different, and being sent the same thing back until they threatened to leave.
So she started Able. The name is not decoration. In her words: “Able means we’re able to help you. We’re able to work outside of the box. Sometimes we can and can’t do things, but we try and do everything we can do.”
Today it’s a small team supporting people across the lake and the Hunter, with support coordination alongside it. Small, and staying that way for now, because the thing people actually want is the same person turning up next week.
In her words
“I just want to help people. I want them to be happy.”
Anita still does support coordination herself, and still answers the phone.
“One of the men we support wanted to swim. His funding wouldn’t cover the two-to-one he needs, so we asked whether the lifeguard could be on deck while we were in the water. Opening up their eyes to possibilities.”
Anita, founder
How we work
Four things we don’t bend on.
We tell you straight up
Yes we can, or no we can't. If you want something we don't currently do, we'll say so and give you time to sort it elsewhere rather than quietly doing it badly.
The support fits you
Not a package you pick from. If you've told us how you want something done, that's how it gets done, and it's written down so the next worker knows too.
We look for the way round
When the funding doesn't stretch or the system says no, that's the start of the problem, not the end of it. There's usually another way in.
Same faces
A small team is only worth choosing if it stays small and stays the same. That's the point of us, and we protect it.