From support worker to PBS provider, with Matt Sevier (interviewed by 'Sarah Knows Support Workers') (Eps. 5)

This episode was originally recorded for Sarah Knows Support Workers, where Sarah interviewed me about my journey into disability support, Positive Behaviour Support, and the story behind Steppr.

We discuss what good behaviour support should look like in practice, why plans need to be clear and useful for frontline teams, the importance of training, and how families can identify a practitioner who takes the time to understand the whole support environment.

We also talk about my background as a support worker, my lived experience, the challenges of growing Steppr, the role of systems and technology in service delivery, and the thinking behind our upcoming fitness app.

Thank you to Sarah for having me on the podcast and for allowing me to share the episode with the NDIS in the Garden audience.

Learn more about what good PBS is in practice by finding my team and I at Steppr PBS. You can find your practitioner and discover the real benefits of Positive Behaviour Support at www.steppr.com.au.

Find Sarah's podcast at: https://open.spotify.com/show/4b5KluehnHGR5bwD2sXQoi?si=7927638be8d74a3a

Matt and his team at Steppr offer 'Weirdly Different' Positive Behaviour Support. Find his team at www.steppr.com.au

Thanks for watching!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, it's Sarah No Support Workers. Today I've got Matt. Matt, it's so cool to have another podcast host as a guest. Let's go cracking into it. I love that. You entered the sort like the disability sector. Why? Because it is such an interesting sector. Why did you enter it?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I entered the disability sector. I was planning in in uh in tech. That was going to be, you know, the end of the road for me. So I studied IT and then I studied psychology. And while I was studying psychology, I was working as a support worker. So I was at uni working as a support worker. I was promoted to coordinator. And I just really fell in love with the industry. And yeah, I guess sadly, towards the end of my degree in the last year, my father passed away. And most of my life had revolved around supporting him. So in terms of my lived experience, it's with my with my dad. So yeah, childhood was was uh quite complex, but I supported him a lot growing up. He had schizophrenia, he had a cyst on his frontal lobe, so that got bigger as he got older. And long story short, I guess, yeah, I I wasn't anything new going into supporting people because I've done it my whole life. So towards yeah, what me graduating, I realized like maybe this is what I've always done and this is what I want to do. I just want to, you know, help people in this space because it's what I've done my whole entire life. I'm good at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

So I know that like you've had that lived experience, but what made you go, right, I'm going to be a support worker? Because as a a at uni and being male, it's not always the first job role that people think of.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah. I I worked at a fish pub. I loved it. I I loved uh the people side of it. I love just chatting to people, but probably too much, you know. I was a bit slack sometimes because of that. But you know, I feel like I, you know, I experienced the hospitality industry and I think I just wanted a change. I I think I just wanted that connection. I wanted to just change into something completely different to what I've been used to. I think I went through a period in my life where things it I realized that, you know, sometimes if you just let go, like things aren't always going to pan out the way that you hoped them to be, you know. So I kind of let go of that and I was just like, look, like let's let's move into something different.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

A lot of uni students do get into disability. That's how we kind of keep them around. But also the cool thing about being a uni student and being a support worker is that you get that hands-on experience, and I'm all for it. I'm like the biggest advocate when it comes to uni students working in the disability sector because they become great teachers. Uh physios, osteos, OTs, they're fantastic because they've got that skill. With you, you went into is it behavior support?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, I'm a positive behavior support practitioner. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah. So what made you want to do it? Because it's not always as glorious as it seems.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, no, that's a good question. I moved from I mean, I was always wanting to like throughout my degree, I wanted to become a clin psych. I wanted to keep doing psychology. And, you know, a lot of psychology graduates throughout their masters do PBS. Uh it's the kind of natural progression that we all go. But once I was in that role, I you know, leaving support work for me was one of the hardest things ever because I'd worked with people for like three years that I I didn't want to say goodbye to. And going into PBS, it just kind of it just kind of felt nice. You know, i I'd almost I didn't want to leave. I didn't really feel the need to go back and do another few years of study. I was able to go do that. And, you know, someday I might go do that. But I really just loved the role. I loved learning all about PBS, uh like uh just specializing in certain things, writing functional behavior assessments, supporting supporting people with disabilities from a different angle, and seeing like like support work was was there, but I didn't really see the behind the scenes and what and I didn't really know like what else I could be doing. And that was like a really uh kind of a nice nice thing to be able to actually you know improve someone's quality of life in that way.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

It's kind of like you've seen every angle because you've seen the family angle, you've seen the support worker angle, and now you see the behavior support angle and how it all ties in with each other. Is it kind of like an advantage?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Absolutely, yeah. Uh it's a good advantage, yeah. Because I I know what it's like to be a support worker. I also know what it's like to be a coordinator, I know what it's like to be a team coordinator. And the thing about PBS is, you know, that people forget. And I tell uh, you know, my staff all the time, I tell anyone that's becoming a practitioner, it's write the plan with the participant. It's it's gotta be, I mean, we say person censored all the time, right? But it's gotta be written in an empathetic way and a clinical way, and it's gotta be basically the Bible of that person. It's like, hey, you know, even if you're write in first person, hey, my name's you know, John Smith. Hey, this is how I communicate, this is what I like, this is how I want you to support me, here's what's not working, here's what's working. And then also keeping in mind, yeah, the support workers, because I know, you know, like when I was a support worker, I didn't actually realise I could be trained in how to support that person and supporting coordinators as well. You know, it's like PPS is a holistic thing, and we're supporting the environment just as much as we're supporting the person. So yeah, it gives gives me a good understanding.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Is there anything that you had learnt from your life experience from growing up to a support work that you could really bring into your role or little tricks that people might could use?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

I guess it it's kind of that innate thing. As I mentioned before with my old man, you know, it's patience, it's the understanding that not everyone is like me. You know, people have really colourful worlds that they live in, and I want to learn all about how I can fit into that rather than them have to fit into the you know the thing that is how I live. So I guess it's that it's really that intangible sort of thing. Also, you know, at the end of the day, we're all we're all on this, you know, planet to to meet people and communicate. I was chatting to a good psychologist one time and she gave me the analogy if you ignore a baby, the baby dies, right? Uh probably not the nicest thing to say on a podcast, but the we're all here to converse, we're all here to socialise. And that's what a lot of my clients are looking for, you know. One of my clients said to me not long ago, uh, you know, because my role is to find out, you know, what well what's working, what's not, what's your goals, what do you how where do you see yourself in five years? And he said, I just want friends. I just want to have Christmas with someone, you know. And I guess that carrying that into what I do and having that on the forefront of my mind is yeah, that's that's a big win in the job. That's that's why we're here, right? That's why we do it.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

So So when you create these plans, it is for the person themselves, but it's also for our external, like our stakeholders, like families and support workers. How do you write it so everyone can understand what's going on? Because I've like, I'll be honest, I've read some in the past and be like, what have I? I feel like I've read like a like peace and war, like just this epic thing that I didn't feel like I could have earned it. So I know things have changed. How do you write differently so everyone could understand what the intention and the goal is?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah, they're like 107-page documents sometimes, right? Like they're they're really big documents, especially comprehensive. And that's that's sometimes the tricky part. That's a really good uh thing you've noticed. Yeah, because a lot of practitioners tend to not write too empathetically. They write very clinical, very objective. So I yeah, I try to write well, I do a lot of the background section first person, as I was saying before. Uh but yeah, you really it's it's gotta be plans at the end of the day need to be something that a support worker can just pick up and and understand someone. So and and importantly, the supplementary material you provide afterwards, it's like safety plans, you know, uh training. It's like this, these are the sort of things of how to find a good practitioner if they have a clear, you know, time timeline and and process with these things. Because yeah, the the plan, yeah, the the plan you need to just be able to look at it and be like, oh yeah, cool, communication, all good, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

You're right, because it's more than just writing a plan. You guys actually do uh training as well. Is there any moments when you are conducting some training with uh families or support workers where you delivered something and you can just feel like the whole room, like the penny drops?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah. Yeah, I have actually. And funnily enough, that's when the you know real questions start coming through. And that's a nice feeling, I think, because a lot of times, like if I'm honest, you know, not many people show up to training sometimes. And you know, sometimes so important.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Like I not so important. I and you're listening to this as a sport worker on this podcast, please turn up to your training.

unknown 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Because it's uh yeah. Oh sorry, I'll lecture another day.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

No, exactly right. No, you you bang on. Because I mean, training, we you know, practitioners, we get training, we have supervision. Training is so needed in any industry you work in. And uh the training sessions I hold, it's you know, you you need an icebreaker. Sometimes I I try to tell a joke. I'm not very good at like jokes, sometimes they come out as dad jokes, but you know, it is what it is. But we'll have a little icebreaker, and you know, your slides are really important. PowerPoint slides, we try to you try to keep the material down to you know a few dot points. Knowing the material as well, knowing what you've written generally helps. I I've seen some practitioners crash and burn with with writing a plan and forgetting all about it. But yeah, having having um training is really important and having training regularly as well. You know, some some practitioners will think, you know, we like you're ticking a compliance box essentially just with training. Yeah, but it's like if you provide someone with an interim baby support plan, it's like you need training. If you're providing them with a comprehensive baby support plan, that's a completely different kettle of fish. You need training. So yeah, just keeping that continuity.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

All that training and what you create as a plan, this also comes from feedback from families, support workers, what is going on in that person's life? And can you talk talk a little bit about why that data that they collect is so important?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, no, it's it's very important. So PBS practitioners use the compendium of resources, but we we send out a lot of you know, like quality of life questionnaires. Obviously, there's a lot of questionnaires in terms of like function of behavior, ABC charts, so antecedent behaviour consequence, trying to get a clear picture of you know what is what what is this person trying to communicate, essentially? Behavior is communication, right? So, you know, if I if I'm getting angry because, say, you know, my mum doesn't give me enough choice and control, or I have a like low independence, if we're seeing uh these behaviours come about, say, you know, I'm told that I need to be somewhere at a certain time and I have a reduced amount of independence, then what's the consequence? But it's really important because you mentioned families as well. And like working the the the forms are one thing, but the information you get from the family is another. A lot of good feedback I've had has been, wow, you actually, you know, sit down and ask how the family's doing. Because as I mentioned before, we're not we're not just trying to tick a box and we're not just trying to work with just the participant. We want to find out are the you know, is the does the family burning out, support workers burning out? And if uh I don't know, if someone's listening to this on the other side of the country or you know, and they're trying to find a good practitioner, ask them, well, how do you work, how do you support the team and how do you support the family? And if they can give you a clear answer, then you know they're the good ones because that's uh you know, we're also helping the environment.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yes. And we want people to live at home as long as they can with their family and you know have that connection and not burn that out because it can be tolling.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Exactly. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

So how did you go from this to opening a business? Because because it's easy, like to to do this and turn up and and then from turning up and creating some you know plans that really do support people to have a fullness of life, you go do that and then you open Stepper. Why? In in such a turbulent market.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I'm I'm all I have uh I have no idea and sometimes sometimes I doubt myself with that. But honestly, I I did it because well, for one reason, and I think a lot of people that you know start their own business, start their own providers, do it for the same reason, and that's because we feel like we can do slightly better and we can improve people's lives a little bit better. I was seeing a lot of uh, you know, stuff in the news about fraud. I was obviously working as a practitioner with an amazing company, and they really taught me well, they were great for teaching me the foundational knowledge about PBS. Uh, but I still I I tend to think that NDIS systems, I'm obviously I studied uh IT as well, and I'm quite like techie, and I I feel like NDI systems in themselves can actually work better. And also, you know, that so we have the compliance side, we have the quality of our supports, but we also have uh tech and systems that we can if if you bring all that into together, you know, you can create like a really nice uh service for someone. And for me, it was just I just started this because like I'm always thinking about how I can I don't know, how I can improve the quality of our output for for the people we support. So sorry, I'm getting on a tangent, but with the technology side of things, you can automate everything. And I saw that you know, admin costs were skyrocketing for like a number of providers I work for. You can automate a lot of admin stuff and it streams like streamlines you know the the support that you can give. You can cut admin costs in half if you just know what you're doing with with IT and and automation. And yeah, I guess there was that. Uh also just the real I don't know, I had a really big drive to just change the image of you know us that work in NDIS just from what I'd seen. I understand there's a lot of bad providers, but I also understand there's a lot of really good ones and providers that I idolise. So realizing that we're not all in competition with each other, we're all in this together.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

You can collaborate. It doesn't collaboration.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, amazing. And uh you know, I love seeing people thrive.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I mean, you you are I'm a podcaster, you're a podcaster, and this is called collaboration. This is us working together.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah, yeah. That's exactly right. And uh, you know, we probably met each other through other people we've c collaborated with, right? Like and on LinkedIn, it's such a good environment. I'm always getting, you know, like information about NDIS updates and what people are doing and their processes. I've even talked to some other PBS providers in Perth and I've had like an hour-long, like just lovely conversation about like how's how's things gone for you? Like what do you what do you do with yourself? Like, how do you do this system? How do you, you know, what's your workflow? Just I don't know. That side of things is lovely.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

People are willing to help if you just ask. Like, I that's what I think. It doesn't hurt. And what they maybe they ignore you, so be it. There's always another person.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

So how so you're in Perth?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

I am.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Yep. And you how much of like have you grown your team? Like how what's the go? Tell me. I'm I'm always Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

So we I got us registered back in October 2025. I registered the business in March. We were operational December 3rd. And what's the date today? It's the 10th of June. So in under just under six months, we've grown to what is it, seven practitioners and an admin. Yeah. And it's it's really it is really moving quick. And you know, and that doesn't come from scary? You know, sorry?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Is it scary?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Is it scary?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Because six months yeah, six months and like, was it seven staff members?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

It's so scary. I've got to be honest. It's terrifying, you know, because it's like I've never run a business. Like when I started this, you are just like thrown in the deep end and without without floaties. It's it's a completely different kettle of fish. And you can know all you know about PBS, but running a PBS provider, it's a whole different thing. And I had to learn really, really quickly to keep up. But in saying that, it is running so well, and I'm really happy with our team. You meet a lot of lovely people as well. You know, and yeah, we grew kind of. I mean, we grew just because I guess that word of mouth, not trying to, you know, toot my own horn, but I guess it happens with a lot of it's important.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

I think word of mouth is one of the best marketing that you can have. Very underrated at times.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's it's like if you if you're just seen, you know, trying to do a good thing. And uh if you're, you know, you it's pretty easy to spot providers that are the bad ones, you know. So I guess we've just kind of grown the more we gain trust in in Perth. You know, I've I've flown over to the Gold Coast and I've met a lot of other providers and learnt a lot from some of the bigger providers over that way. And uh yeah, I guess if you love something enough and the more you do it, that you know, the the better it becomes. But the thing with scaling as well, I'm not always huge when talking about profit when it comes to you know NDIS. There's profit profiting and there's there's profiteering, which we see in the news a lot. But you need profit to provide a better service, you need profit to grow. A big thing for me though. Yeah, you want to feed your people, you need to eat, you need to m pay your mortgage. But uh saying no when we're at capacity was really important for me, not just taking in every single referral and then being overwhelmed, like we're growing quick, but the real struggle is actually trying to keep our quality uh keep our staff trained all the time, keep a you know, clear optics on everything as we grow slowly. Yeah, that's yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

How do you pick your staff? Like like how do you get to them? Like you just put it out as a job add or these people that you've known for some time that you trust to come into your company?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

I'm still trying to understand this one because I've chosen good so far. I'll give myself that. And a lot of people have you know told me uh certain questions you ask, you know, sort sort of sort of ways you sort of like weed out a few answers or anything. But I guess for me it's kind of like you just get this hunch. I'm not sure if I can't really explain it. You get this feeling when you're talking to someone.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

The skill set for support workers that comes out, you it's it's like you've got this skill set you can read people because you're like, all right, how's my day gonna be?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like if the conversation flows, you know, and obviously you do ask questions. I like to I mean, what's a what's a question I ask? One one of them would be, I'll ask if you're I I got this from my business coach, Michael Clark, as well. He he mentioned this question to me. If I call your references, you know, and they're having a chat to them, what's one bad thing they might say? What's what's one thing they might say that you could improve improve on? And nine times out of ten, someone's not gonna answer that. But if they do, you know, that's great, that's amazing. But what I'm looking for isn't necessarily the things that they could improve on. The thing I'm looking for is integrity. So yeah, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

But most yeah, most of the time I just I just ramble on the So you've gone from building can you uh oh I've got a question. So in your time with the business, have you got a success story that you're allowed to share and just bear in mind of confidentiality?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Do. Yeah, of quite a number. Uh one of them tell me. One of them was actually one of my clients I've worked with for oh it's coming up to two years now I've worked with him. Uh he told me he doesn't need my services anymore. And uh that was the biggest win. Because it wasn't in a you know, he wasn't saying it in any kind of way, or I wasn't offended by or whatever. We were he just said, Look, like I'm actually really happy, you know. And uh he started doing Pilates with his sister. And for anyone that's read The Body Keeps the Score, amazing book. Such a good book. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure if you've read it, but it's all about the how trauma coincides with the physiological stuff that's happening in your body. And then you know, he started doing exercise, start doing Pilates, and you know, he would he would he would have this wicked session with his with his sister, and then you know, he would tell me all about it. I'd be like, Oh man, like you could you could teach me some things. Like that's uh that's so cool. And then the more he did exercise and the and you know, we worked on a range of other things as well, like replacing self-soothing strategies because, you know, a lot of time, say uh drinking as a behavior or self-harm or anything like that. You know, we see if we can work out why that is a self soothing mechanism and what we can replace it with. And one of those turned out to be Pilates. And he came to me and just said, Look, I don't really I don't really feel like I need your support anymore. You know, I don't know. It was a really nice moment.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Did you celebrate the win?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

I did actually. I did. I did. I even dropped him off the book, The Body Keeps the Score. I left it in his mailbox. Yeah, absolutely celebrate the win. Yeah, you have to. You have to celebrate these little wins. Even told our team about it and I was just like, yes. You know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

So when as you're going along with your team, have you got any advice for support workers out there seeking support from uh from your team or you're like when it comes to BS, like is there any advice you could give people?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah, absolutely. If you're a support worker, just understand that there is, you know, there's so much support from the people working behind the scenes that you might not realize us. You like if you ever feel uh, you know, like you need you need certain tools to support someone in the way that they need. If you ever you know feel like, oh, there's maybe a risk, but I don't know how to manage that or I'm not sure what to how to present myself. There's you know, PBS can support you. If yeah, uh there's there's a whole I I don't even know how to describe it. There's a whole world of things, like there's restrictive practices that we don't know about. There's uh you know, there's a whole there's functional behavior assessments, there's functional capacity assessments that OTs do. There's a whole stakeholder group that are here to help. And we're all designed to help, you know, implement uh safe and supportive service. So yeah, it's it's all available to you. And if you if you're ever wanting to become a practitioner, practitioners, you know, NDIS, the commission has has sort of guidelines on this, but you can study nursing, you can study uh psychology, which is what I did, you can study social work. Yeah, there's a there's a few things you can do to become a positive behavior support practitioner, and I really do encourage it because it's such a yeah, such a worthwhile fit uh career.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

So now I've got to ask because I'm noisy. You've got a podcast. Go on, tell me the name. I know it, but tell everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

The old shameless self self-plug. It's NDIS in the garden. Yeah, yeah. It's NDIS in the garden. I wanted something different. I wanted something peaceful, something you can sit and relax to. I think I wanted to have a podcast similar to the values that you hold in your podcast. I really love your podcast, by the way. But yeah, just having chats to people and you know, just really relaxed. So I tend to have, you know, my little podcast microphone out in the garden around the flowers and the bees and I haven't been stung yet, but we'll I am. I'd like to think so anyway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Lucky. No, we don't want to show you my garden because everything's dead.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

There you go. Yeah, my mystery. Oh, really? Well, I mean, you should see me with a fiddle leaf fig, it's pretty tragic. But my partner studies environmental science, so I've learned learnt a lot from her. I'm still still learning, but get there.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Did you with your podcast, is it aimed for just people that are behavior practitioners, or is it aimed for other business owners?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah, it's aimed for business owners, support coordinators, PBS, you know, anyone allied health, all of the above really. I just want to talk to people about, you know, their background, their experiences in the NDIS. You know, sometimes it talks about politics, sometimes it talks about philosophy. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, I'll just be talking to a maybe I'll be talking to a single mum who's a coordinator and she runs her own provider. And the question will be, how do you find, you know, having two kids, being a single mum, running a provider? Like that's incredible. So it's just um talking to all the people that you don't usually meet.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

It's a lot of fun. I'm nosy. Have you got any like have you got anyone that you've like when you've podcasts that you just absolutely enjoy talking to? Like you guys?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

This is in my top ten. Uh yeah, I love the questions. Uh I've also talked on my podcast.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Sorry, I'm really nosy. I'm incredibly nosy. I'm I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Well, I mean, Sarah, maybe that's why we do it because we're both really nosy people. But honestly, I've talked to my favorite one was talking about ethics with Ward Sheehan. That was really good. Yeah, really good. He's he runs Ethical Tick, and yeah, it just kind of blew me away talking about you know how some providers might be registered, but you know, registration still doesn't mean they're gonna do the right thing, how to sort of spot the good ones, how to spot the bad ones. Uh yeah, talk talking about a lot of that stuff, and it was actually really interesting. I had some good conversations there.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

So, what do you you see will happen with your company and as you grow and develop it? If you had a crystal ball, where are you five years from now?

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Great question. Well, I I would like to say that we are over East as well. That would be ideal, you know. But the the biggest thing for me would be, you know, that we've grown. I mean, that's ideal, but also grown in a way where we're trusted by people and we're trusted by other providers. The other thing is where, well, I've released a I'm releasing an app, a fitness app.

unknown 27:24

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Yeah, and it's called uh it's called Stepper. Lo and behold. Basically, when I started a business, you know, Stepper sounds like sort of gym fitness thing. And I was just like, oh, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna run a uh the first NDIS gym or something like that. And I was sorely mistaken because I realized NDIS doesn't do anything like that. It's all functional capacity and you know, therapy. So I figured why not just, you know, create a public-facing app and it has like fitness programs. So that's another division of our company, the fitness side of things, and you know, has meal plans and sort of motivational stuff. And yeah, something something like that. So I would like that to be a bit more developed. And look, honestly, I just I just hope I meet a lot of great providers, make a lot of connections with uh you know, with the good ones, and I hope that we're still here. That's uh that's the main point.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

I've got two questions. All right, did you create this app because you read that book, or did you create the app because you saw a gap?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I do I did. I'm sorry, I did create it because I read that book. Great. Yeah, great pickup there, because yeah, the the I don't know, the correlation between you know your physiological like exercise, how you treat your body, our app connects with it integrates with, you know, Apple Watch, connects with Garmin, connects with you know your Apple Health and stuff like that, tracks your water, tracks your sleep, like the interaction interplay between that and your cognitive, you know, mental health, like it's it's uh it's pretty significant. And I don't I don't know. Like, and the story I was telling you before about you know the client that started doing Pilates, it all just kind of culminated together and I was just like, look, I need to develop this thing, I need to get it out. And I'm you know, I think we might be offering it to our clients for free. I'm just still checking on that, so no one quote me on that. It first and foremost, it'll be a public-facing app.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah, that's exciting. When do you launch?

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Hopefully in a few weeks. It's done. It's completed.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Are you gonna let me know?

SPEAKER_01 29:25

I wanna know.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

You can just send me the link so I can see it. I'm all for celebration.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I'll send that through to you. Yeah, for sure. It's uh yeah, it's done. I'm just waiting for it to get on the the app store and you know, Google Play and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

So that's awesome. Well done. It's a lot easier to create an app. Yeah, it's definitely that tech background of yours.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, it comes in handy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Well, I hope you don't mind. Uh so I know as we're filming this, we're filming this in early June and we have a price guide coming out in the next couple of weeks. How are you feeling about it?

SPEAKER_01 30:00

I'm feeling okay. I'm not too worried about it, to be honest. Uh you know, I've I obviously uh with the recent reforms and stuff like that, uh you know, PBS wasn't too affected because it's you know still functional capacity. There seems to still be a need for PBS. I'm quite concerned about uh what it means for you know coordinators and support workers and what that's gonna look like in the future.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

So now anyone listening to this podcast and they want to reach out to you, what is the best way to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn, uh Matt Sevier, so S-E-V-I-E-R. You can also send me or you can get in contact as with us at uh hello at stepper.com.au. So yeah, but LinkedIn honestly is the best way. Just connect on there and reach out and let's have a virtual coffee.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

For if anyone, a family members and participants sometimes they listen to this podcast. Is it best through the website or social media with you guys?

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Yeah, yeah, through our website. So yeah, there's a bunch of information on our practitioners, on our service, everything on our website. If you want to refer, make a referral, that's through our website as well. Or you can just email us uh hello at steppa.com.au and we'll say good day.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Excellent. Now, is it anything that I have missed or I should have asked, or anything that you any parting words?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Keep on keeping on and we'll see you around like a wristle. I'm not I'm not too sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

I think you That's the dad joke. Yeah, you weren't joking about that.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, no, I think this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Thank you. It's so good to finally meet you.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Yeah, likewise.