What The Nest offers, how shared-environment support works, who it is for, how support connects to real-life goals and how to get started.
The Nest is a real-life community practice environment where neurodivergent children, young people and adults can receive individual disability support alongside others who may share similar interests.
Support may involve communication, everyday skills, practical capability, relationships, self-advocacy, planning, participation and navigating everyday life.
Neurodivergent Empowered also provides separately assessed professional services including counselling and Specialist Behaviour Support.
Every person's support is shaped around what matters to them, their goals, communication, support needs, strengths and current life. The shared environment creates context and opportunity. It does not decide what service a person receives.
Every person's support is individual. These four streams are simply a way of understanding the kinds of support we provide. You do not need to know which one is right - we work that out together.
Rights-based, neurodivergent-affirming Specialist Behaviour Support that seeks to understand what is happening before deciding what should change - including assessment, formulation, Behaviour Support Planning, implementation guidance, team capability-building and review. If you are asking about behaviour support, please contact us first. We will let you know what support is currently available, what needs to be separately assessed, and whether another provider or pathway is needed. Specialist Behaviour Support is individually assessed and is not automatically part of attending The Nest.
Learn more →Neuroaffirming counselling can be delivered through The Nest where it is clinically appropriate, individually agreed and within professional scope. Interests or real-life contexts may be used where they are meaningful and useful to the person, but counselling is a separately assessed professional service and is not automatically included in attending The Nest.
Individual support with communication, everyday skills, practical capability, relationships, self-advocacy, confidence and meaningful participation in everyday life. At The Nest, shared interests can create an accessible real-life context in which this work happens. The interest or activity itself is not automatically the funded support.
Support with understanding options, making decisions, navigating services and systems, planning transitions and having greater influence over what happens next. Where a separately funded service such as Psychosocial Recovery Coaching applies, it remains individually assessed and delivered within its own scope.
Book a PRC chat →The Nest is not simply about attending an activity. Support is connected to what matters in everyday life - communication, relationships, practical capability, self-advocacy, navigating change, building skills, participating in community and having greater choice and influence.
We document what changes over time through the person's own account, Practitioner observations, relevant family or supporter input, support-team collaboration and review of agreed goals and evidence.
Progress does not have to mean becoming more independent. For some people it may involve greater independence; for others it may mean having support that fits better, communicating more effectively, participating more fully or having more say.
Meaningful interests create accessible opportunities for communication, participation, confidence and practical skill development.
The activity provides the context. The person’s goals and individual support determine the work.
The Nest is not a standardised recreational or social program. People may share an activity or environment while receiving different individualised disability-related support connected to their own goals and support needs. Where counselling or Specialist Behaviour Support is involved, that is separately assessed and delivered within the relevant professional scope.
These programmes are built around what people genuinely care about. Gaming, art, Dungeons and Dragons, Pokemon, music, movement, making things, being together. When participation is shaped around real interest, connection, confidence, communication and skill development are more accessible and sustainable. Shared interests are used as an accessible pathway into communication, participation, confidence, relationship-building and functional skill development.
Sessions are held at The Nest, our purpose-built space at Caloundra Rumba Resort on the Sunshine Coast. The Nest is sensory-aware and designed to feel welcoming, low-demand and human rather than clinical. It is a place where people can settle, connect, participate and build confidence in ways that make sense for them.
These outcomes may support NDIS goals relating to social participation, daily living skills, feeling safe, communication, self-management, community access and independence.
Caloundra Rumba Resort, Sunshine Coast QLD
The Nest is our home base. It has been built with sensory access, flexibility, choice and different ways of participating in mind. Sessions are small, shaped around what people actually love, and never run to a script.
Lighting, layout and noise levels are designed for a range of sensory profiles. You can arrive in whatever state you arrive in. Loud, quiet, talkative, non-speaking, settled, frayed - all of it is welcome.
You bring your interests, preferences and goals. We bring skilled support and a deliberately designed environment in which participation can happen in different ways.
The environment, pacing, support structure and participation pathways are intentionally designed around access needs and sustainable engagement.
The team in the room. The matching of people who share something in common. The setup that makes the space feel okay. The planning, matching, pacing, observation and support structures that help participation actually work and show what is changing over time.
If you are using NDIS funding, what is covered depends on your plan, goals and the disability-related support needs being addressed. We are happy to walk through this with you before you start - or your plan manager, support coordinator or trusted person can help you work it out.
Where NDIS funding is used, the claim relates to the individual disability-related support required to access and participate. The interest, friendship or ordinary activity is not itself the funded support.
We’re opening some additional Nest sessions across the school holidays.
These are in addition to our regular weekly sessions, which will continue over the holidays for people who are already booked.
The additional sessions will follow the same Nest approach, with the interests and activities shaped around the people attending rather than us deciding the program in advance.
At this stage, these sessions are Expressions of Interest only. Sessions will go ahead depending on the number of people interested and the mix of attendees.
Choose any days and times that could work for you. We’ll let you know as soon as possible if the session is proceeding and you have secured a place.
Regular sessions continue during the holidays
Our regular Nest sessions continue across the school holidays for people who are booked. Existing age groups and session times remain the same.
Sessions run Monday to Saturday at The Nest in Caloundra, 52 weeks per year. We only close on public holidays. Use the filters to find sessions for a specific age range.
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Want more detailed session information?
The Session Information Tool explains participant experience, functional-capacity focus areas, likely support needs, and NE-delivered support descriptions across different age groups and support pathways.
The tool is informational only. Final support pathways and service alignment are reviewed by NE during follow-up.
Explore the Session Information Tool →Tell us what lights you up. When we see enough shared interest and there is a viable support context, we may develop a new session around it. New sessions are developed around shared interests, participant access needs, sustainable participation pathways and likely capacity-building outcomes.
Tell us about interests or environments that may make participation more accessible. This helps us understand possible session contexts; it does not guarantee a particular group, friendship or funded service.
Same space. Different goals. Individual support. The visible activity can be shared. Each person’s support remains individual. In the same room, one participant may be building communication and self-advocacy, another may be supported to enter and stay in a shared environment, and another may be implementing strategies from a Behaviour Support Plan. Each person's support is designed, delivered and evidenced individually. What always stays individual:
Sessions at The Nest happen alongside others who share similar interests. That is why you may see several team members working together in the space at the same time. People come with different access needs, and the environment is shaped so connection and participation can happen more naturally between people who actually share something in common.
The Nest creates real-life opportunities for communication, relationships, skill development, self-advocacy, decision-making, practical capability and meaningful participation. Shared interests can make those opportunities more accessible, while skilled individual support is matched to what the person actually needs.
The level and type of support are tailored to the individual and the way each session is designed.
Fees are confirmed for each participant in their service agreement and Schedule of Supports. For a quote confirmed for your situation, please contact us.
If you are using NDIS funding, your plan manager, support coordinator or trusted person can help you work out how the cost fits with your plan.
The Nest is a neuroaffirming, LGBTIQA+ affirming and identity-safe space. It is not a general community program that accommodates difference on paper. It is a place built around neurodivergent access, sensory access, different communication and participation styles, and meaningful disability-related outcomes - by people who understand those experiences from the inside.
If you are a parent, carer, partner, sibling, or someone who walks alongside a person who comes to The Nest - you are welcome here too.
Many of the people who come to The Nest do not come on their own. Family looks different for everyone, and so does the role you play in someone's day-to-day life. Some families want to be closely involved in what happens at sessions. Others prefer to drop off and pick up. Some want to talk through what is working and what is not, and others want a quiet space to themselves while their person is here.
We work with you in whatever way fits your family. Where the person you love wants you involved, we welcome that. Where they want their time at The Nest to be just theirs, we hold that too.
People come to The Nest in different ways. Some use NDIS funding where their goals and plan allow it. Some come privately. You do not need a diagnosis, an NDIS plan, or anything else worked out in advance to start a conversation with us.
If you are using NDIS funding, we can help you think through how The Nest may relate to your goals, disability-related support needs, participation, capacity building and functional outcomes. Final funding decisions remain the responsibility of the participant, nominee, plan manager, support coordinator and/or NDIA, depending on the plan.
Tell us a little about yourself and what you are looking for. We will respond within two business days.
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