Support coordinator leave
Support coordinator on leave: who to contact and what to hand over
Leave should not turn one person’s out-of-office into a week of reconstruction. This page is a leave pack: who is acting, what is waiting, and where the current picture sits.
Use it on its own. Kinovo is optional at the end.
- For:
- Participants, families, nominees, Team leaders, support coordinators, covering coordinators
- Includes:
- what not to hand over, six fields that belong in the leave pack, copyable family note, covering-coordinator brief, and out-of-office
- Time:
- about eight minutes to read; about fifteen minutes to send before leave starts
Published 5 September 2026 · Updated 5 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 support coordinator is away from Monday.
The quote is still with the supplier. The OT report was promised this week. School wants a letter. Someone in the family has the latest plan on their phone. The covering person — if there is one — has a caseload of their own and an empty inbox labelled “just in case.”
That is not a holiday problem. That is a picture with nowhere to sit.
Agencies often sell cover. Independents are often the single point of failure. Neither arrangement helps if the acting person still has to reconstruct the last six weeks from threads, voicemail and a folder called “current.”
The leave pack is how you stop being the reconstruction.
What this page is not
This is not a reason to change support coordinators.
It is not a clinical handover, a case-note dump, or an emergency plan. It does not replace a service agreement, an organisation’s continuity process, or the participant’s right to choose who coordinates their supports.
If someone may be unsafe, do not wait for a covering coordinator to open email. Use the agreed emergency, health or safeguarding channel.
Ask this before leave starts
Three questions. One named answer each.
- 1. Who is the acting contact while they are away?
- A name, a role, and how to reach them. “The office” is not a name. “Reply to this email and someone will pick it up” is not a name.
- 2. What is allowed to wait until they return?
- Most coordination can wait a week. Some cannot: a support that stops, a review date that lands inside the leave, a provider who will close a file if nobody answers, a decision the family already made that still needs to be sent.
- 3. Where is the current picture?
- One place the acting person can open without asking the family to retell it. If that place is an inbox, it is not a place.
If those three answers do not exist the week before leave, write them. Do not wait for something to break in week two.
Agency cover is not the same as a handover
An agency can roster another coordinator. That is cover. It is not automatically a picture.
Cover fails when the acting person inherits:
- A caseload list with no current priorities
- Access to a system the family cannot see
- Last month’s notes and this month’s silence
- Every provider number, and no owner for the one thing that is waiting
Independent coordinators fail in a different way. There may be no acting person at all. The out-of-office says “I will reply when I return.” The family becomes the coordinator until then.
Both can work. Both need the same six fields written down before the last day in the office.
What not to hand over
Do not attach the last three years.
A covering coordinator does not need every old report, every closed complaint, and a biography of why the last provider ended. A pile that large gets skimmed. The one thing that cannot wait gets lost in it.
Leave out:
- Full history “for context”
- Internal case notes the covering person should not inherit by default
- Clinical detail that belongs in the professional’s own system
- Funding arguments, complaint threads, or the story of the last plan — unless it changes what must happen this fortnight
- Passwords, portal logins, or payment-card details
- Anything the participant has not agreed should be shared with this acting person
If a document is only useful after they have spoken to the family, it can wait until they ask.
What belongs in the leave pack
Six fields. One screen. No novel.
- 1. Who is at the centre — one or two lines
- Name they use, who in the family or nominee is the day-to-day contact, how that person prefers to be reached while the usual coordinator is away. Not a biography.
- 2. Who is acting, and until when
- Name, organisation, email, phone. Leave start and return dates. What they are authorised to do: take a call, chase a waiting item, book a meeting, or only hold the line until the usual coordinator is back. If nobody is acting, write that plainly and name the family contact who will hold the picture.
- 3. What matters this fortnight
- The current goal or problem that cannot wait for the return date. One or two sentences. If the plan has twelve goals, still pick the ones that move in the next two weeks.
- 4. What is waiting
- Each open item on its own line: what it is, who owns the next step, what it is waiting on, and the date or trigger for the next check. A covering person can work a waiting list. They cannot work “a few things in train.”
- 5. What must not be restarted
- The current “do not.” Do not change providers. Do not book a second OT. Do not send the draft report to the school. If nothing in that list is current, write “no special hold — use the waiting list.”
- 6. Where the latest document is
- One link or one labelled file for each live item. “Latest OT letter, August 2026” is useful. “Reports.zip” is not. Say who is allowed to see it.
That is the handover. Everything else is available on request.
Copyable note to the family or nominee
Send this before leave starts, not on the morning of. Delete the lines that do not apply.
Subject: While [SC first name] is on leave — who to contact for [participant first name]
Hi [family / nominee name],
[SC first name] will be on leave from [date] to [date].
Acting contact
[Name], [role].
Email: [address]
Phone: [number]
They can: [take calls / chase waiting items / book a meeting / hold until return].
What can wait until [return date]
[Items that are paused.]
What we will still move
[The one or two items that cannot wait.]
If something urgent happens
Use [agreed emergency / after-hours / safeguarding channel]. Do not wait for the leave inbox.
Current picture
[Where it sits — one link, one file, or “held by [name]”.]
If this acting arrangement does not work for you, say so before [leave start]. You can choose who coordinates your supports.
Thanks,
[SC name]
[Organisation]
One note. Do not send a second version from the office manager with different dates.
Copyable brief for the covering coordinator
This is the document the acting person should be able to open without a briefing call. Paste it into email or a shared workspace. Do not add a seventh section “just in case.”
Subject: Leave cover for [participant first name] — [leave start] to [return date]
Hi [acting name],
You are the acting contact for [first name] from [date] to [date]. Below is the current picture so you are not reconstructing it from my inbox.
Who is at the centre
[First name]. Day-to-day contact: [name, relationship, best number or email].
What you are authorised to do
[Take calls / chase the waiting list / book / hold only.]
Do not: [the current holds].
What matters this fortnight
[One or two sentences.]
Waiting list
[Item] — owner: [name]. Waiting on: [reason]. Check by: [date or trigger]. Latest file: [title, month year].
[Item] — owner: [name]. Waiting on: [reason]. Check by: [date or trigger]. Latest file: [title, month year].
Who else already knows
Family / nominee: [name].
Providers who may contact you: [role and organisation only, if they already have consent to be in this loop].
Where the current picture sits
[One link or one labelled pack.]
If you need an older report or a longer history, ask and we will send that piece. Please do not hunt the full file “in case.”
I am back [date]. Anything still open that day comes back to me unless you and the family agree otherwise.
Thanks,
[SC name]
Send it two to three days before leave, with the family note in the same window. Do not send it from the airport.
Copyable out-of-office
An out-of-office that only says “I am away” sends every urgent thing into a family group chat.
Thank you for your email. I am on leave from [date] to [date] and will not be reading this inbox.
For [participant first name] / for coordination during this period, contact [acting name] at [email] or [phone].
If this is an emergency or a safety concern, do not use this email. Use [the agreed channel].
I will pick up non-urgent messages after [return date].
If there is no acting person, say that. Name the family or nominee contact only if they have agreed to be named. An out-of-office that invents cover is worse than one that tells the truth.
Who should write the pack
Default: the usual support coordinator, before they leave.
A Team leader — often a parent, partner, adult sibling or nominee — should receive it and keep a copy. They should not have to write it from memory the night before.
If the coordinator is already gone, the Team leader can still write the six fields from what they know. That is worse than a pack written on time. It is better than a covering person starting from zero.
Do not write two packs. Two packs is how the acting person gets two current pictures.
If the participant can and wants to approve what is shared, they should. Cover is not a reason to widen access.
What the covering person should do — and stop doing
Do the waiting list. Do not reopen the plan.
In the first sitting:
- Confirm you can reach the family contact
- Confirm you can see the latest labelled document for each waiting item
- Put a next-check date on anything still open
- Reply once to anyone who wrote into the empty inbox, with the acting name and what will wait
Then stop. Do not “get across the whole file.” Do not introduce a new provider because the usual coordinator is away. Do not rewrite goals. Do not turn leave cover into a second coordination relationship unless the participant has asked for that.
A useful covering update is four lines
- What moved
- What is still waiting
- Who owns the next step
- Whether the family needs a call before the return date
When nobody is acting
Some independent coordinators have no backup. Some agencies have cover on paper and nobody briefed.
If that is the situation, write it down before leave starts.
The family then holds a thinner version of the same pack:
- Who in the family will take provider calls
- Which two items may still move
- Which items are paused until the return date
- Which emergency channel is already agreed
Paused is a decision. Silence is not.
If leave will run across a plan review, a provider end date, or a support that stops without an answer, do not pause those items by default. Name an acting person or bring the work forward before the last day.
Participants can change support coordinators. Leave cover is not the same as choosing a new one. If the arrangement is not workable, that is a separate conversation — not something to invent in an out-of-office message.
After they are back
The first day back is not for reading every email in date order.
It is for:
- What changed
- What is still waiting
- Who owns that next step
- The new “latest document,” dated
- Whether the acting person should stay on one item or step off
You do not re-send the original pack with a new cover sheet. You close the leave and put the usual owner back on the list.
Thank the covering person with the outcome, not with another folder.
Before you share anything with a covering person
Share the smallest useful set.
The participant, or the person with authority to decide, chooses what the acting coordinator sees. An old behaviour report, a hospital discharge, or another family member’s email is not automatically part of leave cover.
If you are unsure whether a file belongs in the fortnight they will cover, it does not.
Access should match the dates. When the usual coordinator is back, review who still needs to be in the loop. Cover that never ends is how a temporary inbox becomes a second coordinator.
This page does not replace consent processes, professional obligations, a service agreement, or an emergency plan.
Official guidance
Use these sources for current role, choice and consent information. The leave pack on this page is practical coordination, not an NDIA requirement.
If you want that sitting somewhere other than the thread
The messages above work in inbox form. That is enough.
If the same six fields keep getting rewritten every time someone is away, that is the gap a shared workspace is for.
In Kinovo those six fields already have a home, without turning leave into a reconstruction job:
- Who is at the centre, and the family contact, sit in the shared profile. That is a short current picture, not a medical record.
- What matters this fortnight sits as a goal.
- The waiting list sits as tasks: one owner, what it is waiting on, and a next-check date.
- What must not be restarted can sit as a short Care Protocol — current “do not,” not a case history.
- The latest document sits in the private library, labelled and linked to the waiting item. Each file has its own visibility. An invitation is not permission to open every file.
The Team leader invites the covering coordinator for that period. A professional account only opens the client workspaces that person is invited to. When the usual coordinator is back, review membership and put the usual owner back on the open tasks. Kinovo does not end access on the return date by itself, and it does not replace the coordinator’s case notes, a service agreement, or an emergency process.
A support coordinator can send the pack as part of ordinary leave. A family can keep the same fields so they are not the backup system. Neither has to rebuild the file to do it. You can also keep using the pack and never create an account.
- What Kinovo is and who it is for
- What Kinovo should and should not be used for
- How document visibility works
- How support coordinators can reduce chasing without adding more admin
- How to keep an NDIS care team on the same page
- NDIS care-team setup checklist
- NDIS plan review checklist and reassessment evidence tracker
- Care Team Clarity Starter Pack
Full MVP access is free for a limited time. No payment card required.
FAQ
Who do I contact when my support coordinator is on leave?
Ask for one named acting person, how to reach them, and the dates they are covering. If there is no acting person, agree who in the family will hold provider calls and which items are paused until the usual coordinator returns.
Does an agency backup mean I do not need a handover?
No. Cover is a rostered person. A handover is the current picture, the waiting list, and what they are allowed to do. Without those, the backup still has to reconstruct the file.
What if my support coordinator is independent and has no backup?
Write the six fields anyway. Name the family contact, the items that can wait, the items that cannot, and the emergency channel. If leave will cross a date that cannot move, bring that work forward before the last day or agree a short acting arrangement.
Should the covering coordinator get the whole file?
No. Send the smallest useful set for the fortnight they will cover. Older reports and closed issues stay available on request. Access should match consent and should be reviewed when the usual coordinator is back.
Is this the same as changing support coordinators?
No. Participants can change support coordinators. Leave cover is temporary. If the usual arrangement is not working, that is a separate choice — not something to decide inside an out-of-office message.
Can this pack live in Kinovo instead of email?
Yes, if the care team already uses a shared workspace. The same six fields belong there: current goal, acting owner, waiting tasks, latest document, and who is invited for the leave dates. Invite the covering person; review that access when the usual coordinator is back. Kinovo does not replace the coordinator’s case notes or an emergency process. The email pack 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. Use current instructions from the appropriate qualified person and follow agreed emergency, consent and professional processes.