Our Journey
Then, in 2016, the NDIS arrived, and with it, a new kind of challenge. Delivering support at national scale meant building large systems fast — bringing on thousands of new staff, standardising processes, measuring comparability across providers. All necessary, in its way. But Steve watched something get lost in that scale-up: the individual story. The person.
To Steve, real support is an ecosystem and you have to be part of it to actually make change. A planner based in the Eastern states, writing a plan for someone living in Broome or Joondalup, is never going to have the context, the local knowledge, or the relationships that real, person-centred support depends on. It's not a failure of effort. It's a failure of the system. Support started to look more like a formula rather than a considered response to the unique and individual circumstances of a person - requires assistance with personal care = 2 hours - and less like people actually being known by the people supporting them.
So we built FIShR differently, on purpose. Instead of hiring at scale and replicating the same issues, FIShR is built around genuine partnership - Independent Support Workers and Coordinators of Supports who are business partners, not names on a roster, working in/with small, intentional teams rather than being lost in a large one. It's a structural answer to the same problem: you can't be part of someone's ecosystem from a distance, and you can't build a real relationship with people in a role driven by deliverable hours. Small teams and real partnership are how FIShR stays close enough to actually do the work Steve spent 35 years learning matters.
That's still what drives FIShR today. Every model we offer, every decision we make, comes back to the same question Steve's been asking his whole career - does this actually serve the person in front of us? If the answer's ever no, we adapt.
Today, alongside running FIShR, he's still out delivering direct, hands-on support to participants and families - the same frontline work he started with 35 years ago. Not because he has to. Because you can't understand the real pain points from a distance. You can't understand the communities you're working with, or see the day-to-day challenges participants, families and staff actually face, unless you're still out there seeing them yourself. Staying close to the work isn't a gesture. It's how FIShR stays honest about what it's actually building.
Thirty-five years ago, Steve Robinson started out on the frontline of Western Australia's disability sector as a Support Worker - the hands-on work, the early mornings, the actual day-to-day of supporting people. It's the kind of start that teaches you things a leadership role never could.
Steve's academic foundation in Special Populations (BA, Edith Cowan University) and Not-for-Profit Leadership and Management has guided his career, spanning frontline support to senior leadership roles in government and across organisations like Interchange, Enable WA and Cam Can Inc. His hands-on approach ensures that our focus remains on real outcomes, community inclusion and meaningful change.
As a passionate advocate driven by real world experience and learning inspired by renowned leaders in the inclusion movement, Steve has been instrumental in shaping initiatives like WA Individualised Services (WAIS) and Individualised Living Options. His leadership upholds the highest standards of integrity, compassion and innovation.