Our story begins with one family.  Their daughter had a passion for music, languages, writing and culture. She also had significant disabilities which required constant support and assistance.  Until the late nineties the only services available to her were the traditional day care ones – which by their nature involved doing the same pre-set activities as the rest of the group in a segregated environment.  A one size fits all approach.

The family wanted their daughter to be treated as an individual with individual needs, tastes, talents and aspirations. They also wanted her to be more a part of the general community. They just didn’t know how to bring that about.

In 2000 they attended a presentation by Michael Kendrick which Deb Rouget and Melba Support Services had organized. This led to them working with Deb to develop a proposal to put to the Department of Human Services (DHS) in Victoria to have greater influence over the use of their available funding in a more personalised, inclusive manner.

DHS agreed to them having influence over how the support funding would be spent as long as the cost came within the existing allocated funding and as long as legal requirements were met.

Meeting the legal requirements meant, among other things, that the funds could not be paid directly to the family but would have to be channeled through an approved service provider and an agreement was reached with Melba Support Services for it to act in that role. In this regard Melba Support Services became a “host” agency.

The family engaged a direct support worker enabling the daughter to become involved in a range of community based activities which fitted her individual aspirations and needs and which previously had not been available to her. These included studying Australian History and English at TAFE, becoming a member of a choir, studying Italian at a local community house, attending a local gym, composing and recording her own music and eventually studying a Foundation of Music Studies course.  

The idea agreed to by DHS was not to have a single arrangement but rather to create a small project involving a number of individuals and families – to give the concept momentum and a proper trial to see how it would work. DHS provided a small amount of seed funding to facilitate this initiation phase.

So Deb went in search of other families to become involved who affiliated with the principles of individualised lifestyle choices and community inclusion.

After a time, the original group evolved into two groups. One of these became more focused on broad based community advocacy while the other [now known as One By One] remained focused on the original concept of providing individualised disability support to its members.

And so, through the combined vision and efforts of Deb Rouget, Melba Support Services, DHS and the families who have taken part, One By One was born.