Founder and director of Personalised Support Systems, disability support, Melbourne
Fernando Berghella is an Australian disability support director and the founder of Personalised Support Systems, a provider running two hubs in Melbourne.[1][2] He came to it after more than a decade working in the sector, with formal training in exercise physiology, and he works from the premise that support should be personal.[1]
He founded the company in 2018 against the normal shape of the industry: rotating rosters, clinical language, and a relationship that resets every time the staffing does.[1] Matthew, who had run his own service, joined forces with him and is the other director.[1][2] Their answer is to match on personality and then hold the match in place, so that support feels like friendship.[1] He works inside the hubs, and stays reachable to participants and families.[1]
He is a Henosis Community Leader.[5] His current venture is Path Collective, a discovery platform for facilitators, communities and experiences, launching first in Melbourne.[5][7]
Fernando worked more than a decade in the disability sector before founding anything, and trained in exercise physiology.[1]
Earlier he was a disability support worker at Interchange Inner East and held a position at Cerebral Palsy Support Network. He majored in physiology at Deakin University.[4]
The training stayed in the business. Allied health at Personalised Support Systems is exercise physiology and counselling.[3]
The company has run since 2018 and supports participants across all age groups, with most of its programmes aimed at young adults.[1][3] It operates two purpose-built hubs: Nunawading, the original, serving Melbourne's east across Box Hill, Ringwood, Doncaster, Blackburn and Glen Waverley, and Sunbury, serving the north west across Melton, Diggers Rest, Gisborne and the Macedon Ranges.[3][6]
Both hubs carry music rooms, art studios, gyms, sensory spaces and kitchens, and the timetable is built out of them: pottery, music, cooking, fitness, drama, art, life skills, LEGO and a session called TinkerTech.[1][3] Alongside the group programmes the company provides one-to-one support covering personal care, community access and sleepovers, and allied health in exercise physiology and counselling.[3]
Fernando is one of the company's two directors, alongside Matthew.[2]
The second hub opened on Horne Street, Sunbury, on 28 May 2023. Fernando is a Sunbury local as well as its director. Living in the area and working in disability support, he had concluded the community needed services of this kind and did not have them.[6]
Around 190 families had signed up before the doors opened, against a capacity of 200, so a waiting list was expected almost immediately. The hub created roughly 150 local jobs and opened with a community day carrying live music, food trucks and trials of the programmes themselves.[6] The state member for Sunbury, Josh Bull, had visited beforehand and framed it in terms of belonging and social inclusion for young people living with a disability.[6]
He summed the company up to that paper as youthful, family orientated, and present in times of desperate need.[6]
The company works to five principles, and four of them shape the support itself. Support is relational, and matching is done on personality. The worker's job is to build capability instead of dependency. The same support worker stays, because trust needs time. Families are kept in the conversation.[1]
The hiring follows from it. The team is deliberately young, hired as relatable role models, and staff turnover is low, which lets a relationship accumulate.[1] His and Matthew's line is that if you match the right people, everything else follows.[1]
The company holds that young adults with disabilities deserve real social lives and genuine friendships, and deserve to be seen for who they are, not for what is in their plan.[3]
Path Collective is a discovery platform built to connect people with facilitators, communities and experiences. It is launching first in Melbourne and is currently open as a founding membership.[7] Fernando is the person behind it.[5]
It sets itself against algorithmic discovery. The algorithm, it says, is not qualified to decide how you spend your weekends, and is definitely not qualified to decide who changes your life.[7] The gap it names is visibility: thousands of facilitators nobody knows exist, and communities that somehow still leave people at home on a weekend.[7]
The first Melbourne programme is three recurring formats, conscious social nights built around dinner and discussion, a Sunday run club that ends in coffee, and ice bath sessions run with breathwork.[7] Around the membership it runs an ambassador track for community leaders and connectors, and a listing route for facilitators, coaches and wellness practitioners.[7]
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