Going Direct: How to Bring and Recruit Your Own NDIS Support Workers

Marketplaces like Mable and Hireup serve a real purpose, especially when you are starting from nothing. But once you have found people you trust, paying a cut of every hour they work, forever, stops making sense. Here is how going direct actually works.

What does “going direct” mean?

Going direct means you hold the relationship with your support workers, not a platform. You decide who you bring on, you keep their details and history, and if you ever leave a tool, your team comes with you. A marketplace owns the worker relationship and takes a percentage of each hour. Direct means the relationship is yours.

There are two halves to it: bringing the workers you already have, and recruiting new ones yourself when you need to.

Can I bring my existing support workers with me?

Yes. The workers you already trust are not locked to any one platform. You can keep working with them directly and simply move the coordination, their profiles, pay rates, availability and documents, into a tool you control. Nothing about the relationship has to change for them. For you, it means their details, history and shifts live in one place instead of scattered across texts and notes.

This is usually the first and biggest win of going direct. Most families already have one or two people who fit. Bringing them across stops the marketplace from taking a cut of hours you were always going to use anyway.

How do I recruit my own support workers?

Recruiting your own worker has four practical stages, and none of them require a marketplace.

1. Write a clear role. Describe the person you support, the hours, the type of support and what a good fit looks like. Specifics attract the right people and filter out the wrong ones.
2. Advertise where workers actually are. Local community groups, support worker job boards and word of mouth through other families all work.
3. Interview for fit, not just availability. Skills can be taught. The right temperament and a genuine connection with the person you support cannot.
4. Check before you start. Confirm the right screening and checks are in place, an NDIS Worker Screening Check or Working With Children Check as relevant, first aid, and any training the role needs, before the first shift.

Once they are on board, they become part of your own team, managed the same way as everyone else.

What changes when you stop using a marketplace?

Two things change. You gain control, and you take on coordination.

The control is the point: your choice of worker with no pool limits, your data, your platform, and no percentage skimmed off every hour. The coordination is the trade: rostering, confirmations, notes and compliance are now yours to run rather than the agency's. That trade is only worth it if you have a system to carry the coordination, which is exactly the gap a tool like Sparks Flow fills.

How Sparks Flow supports going direct

Sparks Flow is built for direct teams. You bring and keep your own workers, you stay the one in control, and you pay one flat annual fee with no cut of wages. Add the workers you already have with their pay rates, availability and documents, and use the built-in self-serve recruitment for the times you need someone new. Then run the whole team from one place: rostering, SMS shift requests, shift notes and compliance tracking. It is not an agency and not a marketplace. It is the tool you use to run your own team.

Can I claim a direct-management tool from my NDIS plan?

If you self-manage, you have flexibility in how you use your budget, so you may be able to fund a tool like Sparks Flow as a cost of recruiting and managing your own workers. Plan-managed families should check with their plan manager first, and agency-managed plans generally cannot fund it. This is general information, not financial or NDIS advice, so confirm with your planner or plan manager what your plan allows.

Once your team is in place, the day-to-day is rostering your own support workers without an agency and managing, reviewing and letting go of a worker when you have to.