Skills
A Support Broker is a multi-talented person who actively advocates for the choices of his or her employer (the adult with a disability). The Support Broker is a people-person, who must be 1) a skilled communicator and 2) an effective listener. As a communicator, the Support Broker knows how to successfully interact with a variety of different people (i.e., community members, potential employers, landlords, business people, fiscal managers, medicaid employees, family members, friends, medical professionals).  The Support Broker is a diplomat who keeps relationships working and coordinates communication between different parties.

Essential to good communication, is effective listening. The Support Broker must listen and understand the needs and desires of the adult with a disability without imposing their own will or opinions.  But they also have to listen to others - family members, friends, co-workers, and employers.  The job of a Support Broker is to listen with an open mind and communicate what is heard. 

The Support Broker must also be able to juggle many balls at once and be creative. The people that Support Brokers serve and all of the complexities of their lives will not fit into simple formulas for service delivery. Instead, the Support Broker will need to find unique and unexpected ways to support the life plan of each individual they serve.

The Support Broker must also know about the Self-Directed Support System. The following is a list of other systems skills that the Support Broker must learn to be effective:

1. Develop a Circle of Supports around the adult with a disability.
2. Help to develop a Person-Centered plan that is based on the
    desires and goals of the adult self-advocate.
3. Make sure that the plan is implemented as intended.
4. Help to modify the plan when it is not working.
5. Navigate community resources.
6. Develop community connections.
7. Assist with managing the individualized budget (if requested).
8. Recruit, hire, negotiate rates and contracts with the selected     providers (if requested).
9. Establish work schedules and supports based on the
    person-centered plan (if requested).
10. Assist to train and supervise all support staff (if requested).
11. Assist with discharging providers (if requested)
12. Develop and implement an emergency backup plan.
13. Assist with billing through the Fiscal Management Service 

      (Fiscal Intermediary).

How do you match up? Do you have the skills to be an effective Support Broker? You will learn more specifics about the day to day work of a Support Broker directly through the Department of Health and Welfare, Division of Medicaid.   Additional information will be presented in modules to come about developing Circle of Supports, developing a person-centered plan, and negotiating budgets. But most important are the 3 essentials: 1.) communicate; 2) listen; and 3) be creative!!

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