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For a long time, a support worker wasn't something I was willing to consider.
Not because I didn't need help. Anyone who knows our life knows I needed help. Working, three kids, every caring role, constant burnout, I was the default parent for everything, always. But accepting help? That felt like a whole different thing.
There was the guilt. The feeling that it should be me. That if I needed someone else to step in, I was somehow doing it wrong.
And then there was my daughter.
She was adamant. Absolutely, categorically, not interested. And she made sure I knew it. "You just don't want to spend time with me." Delivered with the kind of precision that only a child who knows exactly where to aim can manage.
So we shelved it. For a while.
But burnout has a way of making decisions for you eventually. And her behaviour psychologist had been quietly, consistently suggesting that a bit of independence — some time with someone who wasn't mum — could actually be really good for her. Help with the separation anxiety. Give her something that was hers.
I knew she was right. I just wasn't sure how we were going to get there.
Nobody was going to make the cut
Here's the thing about handing your child over to someone new when your child has complex needs, it's not a simple process. You can't just find someone on a list and hope for the best.
Nobody was going to make the cut. That was just the reality.
So I did what any slightly obsessive disability mum would do. I tracked down a teacher aide she had absolutely loved, who had gone on maternity leave and left the school. Tracked her down. Asked if she'd be interested.
She was.
And then — because I know my daughter — I changed the name. No "support worker." That was never going to fly.
She got a support bestie.
Her new support bestie also had a little girl of her own, who sometimes came along. Instantly, it didn't have that formal arrangement feel. It was just hanging out with someone cool and her cute kid.
The transition was actually easy peasy
I say that knowing full well it could have gone the other way. I had braced for weeks of resistance, meltdowns, negotiations. The full production.
But it didn't happen. Because the relationship was already there. The trust was already built. We weren't starting from zero, we were starting from a place she already felt safe.
We kept it small at first. Short bursts. At our house, on her turf, where she felt comfortable. No pressure, no big outings, no sudden independence. Just getting used to the idea that this person being around was a good thing.
From there, appointments. Then dancing. Then the community. Little by little, further from home.
And somewhere in there, something shifted.
A year later
She asks to see her.
She asks to stay longer.
She asks to go to their house.
She has her own playlist they listen to in the car. They vibe to the same songs.
We've since added a second person to the mix. A young adult she already knew too, she is young, more like a cool older friend. They access the community together, and she works on physio goals in a way that doesn't feel like physio at all. It just feels like doing stuff together. It's easy. It's good.
The guilt I felt about needing help? Honestly, a distant memory.
What replaced it was watching her thrive with people who aren't me. Watching her separation anxiety slowly, quietly loosen its grip. Watching her have relationships and experiences that are completely her own. Watching her smash therapy goals without even knowing she's doing it.
That's not something I could have given her by doing everything myself.
The funding reality (because I have to mention it)
When we first got funded for support, it was for three hours a week.
The suggestion was one hour a day across three days.
And I remember sitting there thinking, nobody is going to take a shift for one hour a day. Nobody. You can't build a relationship, get everyone settled, do anything meaningful, and then pack up and leave in sixty minutes. It just doesn't work like that.
So we used the three hours together. Which made a lot more sense.
To friends of mine who had much bigger support worker allocations, three hours a week sounded ridiculous. And honestly, I get it. But for someone who was starting from nothing, who wasn't even sure she could get funding at all, I felt like I had won the lottery.
Because here's the thing I had to sit with. She was 11, with cerebral palsy and autism, and I had spent years telling myself I could do it all. And technically, I could do most of the physical things. But the day-to-day reality of her life, the support she needed, the things that weren't sustainable for me to carry alone, that wasn't the same as any other 11-year-old's life. And I couldn't keep pretending it was.
Three hours felt like the beginning. Not the end.
We've since gone through a plan review to look at increasing hours, which is ongoing. But if you're sitting there with a tiny allocation wondering how on earth this is supposed to work, just know, you're not alone, and you can absolutely advocate for more.
If you want extra support navigating this, email us at hello@kindship.com.au and ask for our How to Request Funding for a Support Worker toolkit. We'll send it straight to you.
And if you want to know more about making support workers work for your family, our webinar covers it in detail. 👉 Support worker bundle
A few things that actually helped us
If you're at the beginning of this, either trying to convince yourself, or trying to convince your child, here's what worked for us:
Start with someone they already know if you can. A familiar face changes everything. A teacher aide, a family friend, a neighbour's older kid. The trust is already halfway there.
Change the language. Support worker has a clinical ring to it that some kids (and parents) bristle at. Support bestie, community buddy, helper, whatever feels right for your family. The label matters less than the relationship.
Start at home, on their turf. Don't go straight to outings. Have them come over and just help out around the house first. Hang around. Be a presence. Let your child get used to them being there without any expectation of going anywhere or doing anything big. That low-pressure familiarity is what makes the bigger steps feel safe later.
Know their interests and lean into them hard. Whatever your child loves, dancing, a particular show, a favourite cafe, being outdoors, that's where you start. A good support worker will wrap everything around what your child already cares about, so it never feels like a session. It just feels like fun.
Remember what they can actually do. This was a big one for me. My daughter needs a lot of support with self-help skills, independence, movement, and accessing the community. A support worker can work on all of that, and when it's done well, your child doesn't even realise it's happening. They think they're just hanging out. But they're building independence, working on therapy goals, getting out into the community, doing things that genuinely matter for their development. It just looks like a good time.
Give it time. There will probably be a come-down period, especially early on (honestly, another reason I put it off for so long. Just knowing what heightened behaviours could come from being with someone new). Masking is exhausting, and transitioning back home after time with someone new takes energy. That doesn't mean it's not working. It means your child is doing the hard work of building something new, and it is all a part of the process.
The guilt thing
I want to come back to this because I know I'm not the only one who felt it.
Needing help is not a failure. It doesn't mean you love your child less. It doesn't mean you're opting out.
It means you're human. It means you recognised that burnout isn't sustainable. It means you made a decision that turned out to be one of the best things for your whole family, including your child.
She has more independence now than she ever had when it was just me. She's working on independence, goals and self-help skills in a way that feels natural to her — not forced, not clinical, just part of her life. And she's learning, slowly, that she can be okay without me right there.
And me? I can work. I can be more present for my other girls. I can actually tend to the parts of my life that had been running on empty for too long. Not because I've stepped back from her, but because I finally let someone step in.
If you're on the fence about a support worker — for whatever reason — I just want to say this: it might be one of the best things that ever happens to your family. Not just for your child. For all of you. For the version of you that exists outside of being the default parent for everything.
It was for us.
