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The fridge list is last month’s protocol
A laminated card on the fridge is easy to find. It is also easy to go stale.
This page is a current-instruction card for the room, and a rule for when the printout and the latest version no longer match. Use it on its own. Kinovo is optional at the end.
It is not worker training. It is not a way to watch whether someone followed the protocol. It is the difference between an instruction that lives in the room and an instruction that is still true.
- For:
- Participants, families, nominees, Team leaders and support coordinators
- Includes:
- What not to leave in the room + a copyable current-instruction card + when paper is no longer enough
- Time:
- 8 minute read
Published 8 September 2026 · Updated 8 September 2026
Editorially reviewed 8 September 2026
Written by Callum Cruikshank — Founder of Kinovo
Callum draws on his family's lived experience of coordinating support. These resources offer practical coordination ideas, not clinical, legal or NDIS funding advice. No independent clinical review is claimed.
The hoist sheet on the wardrobe is dated March.
The OT changed the transfer in June. That letter is in email, or in one provider’s app, or on the phone of the person who usually explains things. Saturday’s worker is covering. They do what the wardrobe says.
Nobody is careless. Paper is good at being in the room. It is bad at being current.
The same thing happens to the mealtime card on the fridge, the communication steps by the front door, and the “please don’t” that only lives in the group chat. A new worker in week one can be briefed. A casual worker in month four is briefed by whatever is still stuck to the cupboard.
What this page is not
This is not what to give a new support worker in week one. That page is the first pack. This page is what happens after the pack has been on the fridge long enough to go out of date.
It is not the group chat. A thread can change Saturday’s arrangements. It cannot be the instruction a covering worker should trust at the hoist.
It is not the speech pathologist’s mealtime management plan, the OT’s handling plan, or the provider’s shift notes. Keep those source documents available to workers who need them where support is provided; the card does not replace them. This page is the short current instruction a worker can use in the room — and the rule for when that short version is no longer the latest.
It is not worker training, competency sign-off, or a way to prove someone followed the steps. If someone may be unsafe, do not wait for a card to be reread. Use the agreed emergency, health or safeguarding channel.
Paper is not the problem. Last month’s paper is.
A card in the kitchen is often the right idea.
Dietitians and families already laminate a mealtime sheet and put it on the fridge. The NDIS Practice Standards ask registered providers to keep mealtime management plans available where the meal actually happens and easily accessible to the workers providing that support. A transfer instruction next to the hoist is the same job. Findable beats buried.
Findable and current are different jobs.
Paper fails when:
- The clinician updated the instruction and the card did not move
- Three agencies rotate through the same house and each holds a different copy
- A covering worker reads the wardrobe because that is what they can see without an account
- The “do not” changed after an incident, and the laminated version still says the old thing
- Someone photographed the card into a group chat, and that photo outlived the update
A provider app can be current for that organisation’s rostered staff. It does not help the independent who covers Sunday, or the second agency that does personal care, or the family member who is in the house when the usual worker is not.
The current instruction still needs a home that more than one organisation can reach — and a date so a worker can tell last March from this week.
What not to leave in the room
Do not leave the archive because it is what you printed.
A covering worker does not need every old report, the full NDIS plan, and a biography on the cupboard. A pile that large gets skimmed. The one current “do not” gets lost in it.
Leave out:
- The whole plan as a default kitchen pack
- Clinical detail the worker is not there to carry
- Other people’s notes you were copied on
- An undated sheet with no owner
- A photo of last year’s card sitting in the family chat “so everyone has it”
- Passwords, portal logins, or a QR or link that opens more than this instruction
- Anything the participant has not agreed this person should see
If a document is only useful after they have asked a question, it can wait. The room needs this task’s current steps, not the file.
What belongs on the current-instruction card
One job. One page. A date.
Write a separate card for each standing instruction that a worker uses in the room. Mealtime is not the same card as the transfer. Communication at the door is not the same card as personal care.
1. What this card is for — one line “Mealtime.” “Transfer from bed to chair.” “How to start a shift if [first name] is overwhelmed.” Not “support plan.”
2. The date this version became current Month and year at the top, in a size a tired person can see. If there is no date, treat the card as untrusted.
3. Do / do not — only what would change this task The steps that belong in the room. Positioning, texture, equipment in the house, the current “please don’t.” Not the assessment that produced them.
4. Who owns the current version A name and a role. The OT who wrote the transfer. The speech pathologist who wrote the mealtime plan. The Team leader who keeps the short card in step with that plan. One owner, not “the team.”
5. Where the latest version lives One place a covering worker can be pointed to: a labelled file, a shared workspace, the clinician’s letter dated June 2026. “Ask mum” is not a place.
6. If this card and the latest version disagree Check which version the responsible practitioner has confirmed is current. If the instructions conflict or are unclear, seek clarification before the task; do not split the difference. Tell the owner so the card can be replaced.
That is the card. Everything else is available on request.
Copyable current-instruction card
Paste this onto one page. Print it. Date it. Delete the lines that do not apply. Avoid extra sections “just in case.”
Current instruction for [first name] — [one job: mealtime / transfer / communication / personal care]
Current from: [month year]
Owner of this version: [name, role]
Do
[The steps that belong in the room.]
Do not
[What must not be done, as stated in the current authorised instructions. Ask the responsible person if unclear.]
Equipment / what is already in the house
[Only what changes how they do this task.]
If this card and a newer letter disagree
Check which version the responsible practitioner has confirmed is current. If unclear or conflicting, contact [owner / agreed clinical contact] before the task. Do not invent a middle step.
Where the latest version lives
[One labelled file, one workspace, or one clinician letter — title and month year.]
If someone may be unsafe
Do not use this card as the emergency plan. Use [the agreed channel].
Put it where the task happens: the fridge for mealtime, near the hoist for a transfer, by the door for the first five minutes of a shift. One card per job. Two cards that contradict each other are how Saturday goes wrong.
Replace the card when the instruction changes. A card you do not replace is how March survives into June.
Copyable note when the instruction changes
Send this when a clinician updates a standing instruction, not as a second novel.
Subject: Current instruction for [first name] — [job] updated [month year]
Hi [worker / provider / covering name],
The [mealtime / transfer / communication] instruction for [first name] changed on [date].
What changed
[One or two sentences.]
What to use now
The [month year] version. The older card / printout / photo is not current.
Where the latest version lives
[One place.]
What stays the same
[Anything that did not move.]
Please do not keep using the [old month] sheet if it is still on the [fridge / wardrobe / door].
Thanks,
[Your name]
[Role]
Send it once to the people who actually do this task. A group chat that also holds last year’s photo is how the update and the old version travel together.
Who should write the card
Default: the Team leader — the person trusted to hold access and the current picture. That is often a parent, a partner, an adult sibling, or a nominee.
The clinician owns the underlying plan. The Team leader owns whether the short card in the room still matches that plan. Do not ask a support worker to rewrite the OT’s transfer on a sticky note.
If the participant can and wants to write the card themselves, they should. The point is one current version, not a particular family member performing it forever.
Do not write two cards for the same job. Two cards give the worker two competing current pictures.
When paper is no longer enough
Keep using the card if the instruction rarely changes and the same few people read it.
Move the current version off paper-only when:
- The instruction changes more than once in a plan period
- More than one organisation sends workers into the same room
- Cover and casual shifts are common
- The last update died in a thread and the cupboard still shows March
- You are reprinting the house every time the OT writes
The room still needs something a worker can see without unlocking a phone. The current version still needs a home that updates when the instruction updates. Those can be the same system. They do not have to be the same sheet of paper.
Before you put anything on a cupboard
Share the smallest useful set.
The participant, or the person with authority to decide, chooses what a worker sees in the room. An old behaviour report, a hospital discharge, or another family member’s email is not automatically part of a fridge card.
A card on a cupboard is a document in a shared space. Anyone in the house can photograph it. Do not put nominee disputes, budget pages, or clinical history on the fridge because it was convenient.
If you are unsure whether a line belongs in the room, check with the participant or authorised decision-maker and the relevant practitioner before displaying it. Do not omit instructions needed for safe support.
This page does not replace consent processes, professional obligations, a mealtime management plan written by an appropriately qualified practitioner, or an emergency plan.
If you want the room to point at the current version
The card above works on paper. That is enough.
If the same instruction keeps being rewritten onto the fridge every time a clinician updates it, that is the gap a shared workspace is for: one current protocol, an owner, a review date, and a way for an invited worker to open this week’s version instead of last March’s sheet.
In Kinovo that standing instruction sits as a Care Protocol — practical current guidance, not a medical record and not the clinician’s formal plan. It can have an owner and a review date so it does not quietly go stale. Each protocol has its own visibility. An invitation to the workspace is not permission to open every file. Treat the Team leader as someone who can see a protocol you put in the workspace. If they should not see it, do not put it there.
The Team leader can also print an A4 Care Protocols QR poster and put it where the task happens — near the fridge, near the hoist, by the door. The code is a doorway into the right workspace. It contains a random identifier, not a name, a diagnosis, or the protocol itself. Scanning it does not grant access and does not show any care content. An authorised person signs in and opens the current protocols they are allowed to see. Someone without access sees a request form. A Care Protocol reader does not get the rest of the workspace. The Team leader can regenerate the code so an old printout stops working.
There is also a branded PDF of the current protocol set for offline use. Treat that PDF like any other printout: it is a snapshot. Date it. Replace it when the instruction changes.
Kinovo does not train the worker, watch whether they followed the steps, or replace the speech pathologist, the OT, the provider’s notes, or the emergency plan. You can also keep reprinting the card and never create an account.
- Using a Care Protocols QR
- Adding Care Protocols
- What Kinovo should and should not be used for
- What Kinovo is and who it is for
- How document visibility works
- What to give a new support worker in week one
- The group chat is not the current plan
- Who should see my NDIS plan (and who should not)
- What to send the new OT so you are not the briefing
- How to keep an NDIS care team on the same page
- NDIS care-team setup checklist
- How support coordinators can reduce chasing without adding more admin
- Care Team Clarity Starter Pack
Full MVP access is free for a limited time. No payment card required.
Official guidance
Use these sources for current consent, provider communication and practice-standard wording. The card on this page is practical coordination, not an NDIA or Commission requirement.
FAQ
How do I share current care instructions with support workers?
Write one dated card per job: what to do, what not to do, who owns the current version, and where the latest file lives. Put it where the task happens. When the clinician updates the instruction, replace the card and send a short change note. Do not leave last month’s sheet on the cupboard “until someone reprints.”
What if support workers are still using an old care plan?
Assume they can see the copy that is in the room. Take the old card down. Date the new one. Tell the people who do that task which month is current. If a photo of the old card is still in a group chat, say that photo is finished.
Should the mealtime plan live on the fridge?
A short current instruction can, with appropriate privacy. It does not replace the clinician’s mealtime management plan, which must remain available where that support is provided and easily accessible to the workers who need it. Put the room-level do / do not on the fridge only if appropriate, with a date and a pointer to the current plan.
Does a casual support worker need the whole file?
No. They need the instruction for the tasks they will do on this shift, who to call, and the current “do not.” Week-one briefing is a different page. Cover still uses the same dated card.
Can I put a QR code on the fridge instead of the protocol?
You can point the room at a current version without printing the protocol onto the page. In Kinovo that is an A4 Care Protocols QR poster: a doorway, not the instruction itself. The code contains no care information. Scanning it does not grant access. An authorised person still signs in. Do not post that poster in a public place or in a public photo.
Does Kinovo check that the worker followed the protocol?
No. Kinovo can hold the current instruction and make it findable for invited people. It does not train workers, monitor a shift, or replace the clinician’s plan, the provider’s notes, or an emergency process. The paper card is enough on its own.
Disclaimer
This resource provides general coordination information only. It is not legal, clinical, privacy, safeguarding, financial or NDIS funding advice. It does not replace a mealtime management plan, manual-handling plan or other guidance written by an appropriately qualified practitioner. Use current instructions from the appropriate qualified person and follow agreed emergency, consent and professional processes.