He'd been through the system before. Multiple employment providers, plenty of appointments, not much to show for it. By the time we met, he wasn't frustrated with the idea of working - he was frustrated with the process of being processed. Turned up, assessed, referred, repeated. The system had seen him. It just hadn't seen enough.
We didn't start with his resume.
We started with his mornings. His energy levels. Whether he was getting outside. Whether he had people around him in a way that felt good rather than just tolerated. We talked about what made him feel capable and what made him shut down. What kind of environments he moved well in and which ones cost him more than they gave back. We worked on routines, social confidence, community exposure - small things, done consistently, that compound over time in ways that are hard to see until suddenly they aren't.
It wasn't linear. Some weeks were better than others. But we stayed in it.
Then one day - unprompted, in the middle of a regular session - he said something I've thought about a lot since.
Not "I got a job." Not "I completed a module." Re-energised. That word carried something most employment outcomes don't - the feeling of being genuinely accompanied through a process rather than managed toward one. It told me everything about what employment support is supposed to feel like. And how rarely it actually does.
He found open employment and he's still there. Not because we placed him - because he was ready. That's the difference.
I felt limited. Not by the people I was working with - by the system around them. I could see the gap clearly. I just couldn't get to it from where I was standing. So I stepped away, studied career counselling formally, and built Shift Support.
One lives in documents. One lives in someone's actual life. Most of the time those two versions are not the same thing. Shift Support was built for the second one.
The people we built it for:
These aren't people without potential. They're people without the right support. There's a difference. And it's the only difference that matters.
Our Capacity to Employment Model isn't something we invented. It's grounded in career development theory - simplified and applied to real life. Because theory is only useful when it changes what you actually do with people.
The Capacity to Employment Model draws on four internationally recognised career development frameworks - each one informing how we work with participants, their families and the communities around them.
I run all job coaching personally. Every session draws on career counselling principles to understand who someone is at their core - their strengths, their motivations, their context - before we ever talk about where they're headed. Participants and their families work directly with me throughout the entire employment journey.
Before Shift Support, I spent years in corporate recruitment at Amazon's Sydney headquarters running disability-accommodated and neurodivergent hiring programs. I left because I could see the gap clearly - and couldn't get to it from where I was standing.
I stepped away, studied career counselling formally, and built Shift Support. What started as employment support evolved naturally through client experience - merging support work, employment support and career counselling into what we now call the Capacity to Employment Model.
We have a team of support workers out in the community every day, walking alongside participants in the parts of life that matter most. Hired for values, not just qualifications.
One that will communicate clearly, show up consistently, and deliver outcomes you can report on. Here's what referring to Shift Support looks like in practice.
We work with NDIS and DCJ participants across Western Sydney and the Inner West. Our focus is school leavers, young adults and adults with employment as a goal - now or in the future.
No pressure. No jargon. Just an honest conversation about where you are and how we can help.