In 2016, CRU ran a series of one day forums around Queensland in which people with disability and families who are accessing the NDIS could share their experiences of the scheme.    The following films are from those events.

Presenters came from NDIS trial sites in New South Wales, The ACT, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. All presenters either lived with disability themselves or were family members of people with disability  and the stories shared covered  young children through to adults.

Presenters shared their experience of:

• Getting ready for the NDIS
• Creating a vision and planning for a good life
• Self-directing and self-managing
• Staying well connected in their community
• Day-to-day experience of the NDIS

All of the presenters self-directed their supports with varying degrees of self-management and all reflected on the benefits to have more choice and more control over how and why supports were provided and how when and by whom they were being provided.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (or NDIS) is a new way of providing individualised support in Australia for people with a permanent and significant disability that affects their ability to take part in everyday activities.

The NDIS is a national scheme which will be implemented by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA). The eight state and territory schemes and a range of commonwealth funded initiatives will be replaced by a simpler and fairer nation-wide approach.

Australians who meet the access requirements can receive reasonable and necessary support to access community services and activities.  During the transition phase it will be important to understand your current support, which may be received from a variety of programs.

The benefits of the new scheme are:

• transportability – as a national scheme funded support will be recognised if you move interstate
• reasonable and necessary support will be available across a lifetime
• greater certainty and predictability of support.

The NDIS is a form of “social insurance” where the government meets the costs of the scheme.  This is similar to the Medicare system which provides basic health services for all Australians.  Funding for the scheme will come from existing Commonwealth and State disability funding as well as the increase in the Medicare Levy which started in July 2014.

As in other insurance schemes the NDIS will consider costs and outcomes over a person’s life-time; invest in early intervention, research and innovation to help reduce the needs and costs and build community capacity and social capital and develop preventative strategies.

The core vision and goals of the NDIS are to:

• Enable people with a disability to be in control and have choices
• Maximise participant’s independence and social and economic participation
• Build a world class scheme that is financially sustainable.

An Individualised Funding package is where the NDIS agrees to fund supports for person with disability.  This funding is based on what is considered ‘reasonable and necessary’ in order to maximise an individual’s independence and social and economic participation.  It is these Individualised Funding packages that will fund things like:

• daily personal activities, e.g. showering and grooming
• transport to enable participation in community, social, economic and daily life activities
• workplace help to allow a participant to successfully get or keep employment in the open or supported labour market
• therapeutic supports, including behaviour support
• help with household tasks to allow the participant to maintain their home environment, e.g. cleaning, meal preparation
• help to a participant by skilled personnel in aids or equipment assessment, set up and training
• home modification design and construction
• mobility equipment, e.g. wheelchair, mobility scooter, hoists etc.
• vehicle modifications, e.g. swivel seat, grab bar, ramps, wheelchair lift, postural support etc.

The second branch of NDIS funded support is through a broader program called Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC).  This program is designed to assist people to connect with existing mainstream and community supports.  People who are not eligible for for individually funded support may be able to access ILC supports. It will also work with the community to promote inclusion and improve the response of mainstream systems to the needs of people with disability.

The NDIS is designed to be flexible so that people can decide what parts of their support they want to be in charge of themselves and what they would like other people to help them with. For people looking to direct their own supports there will be greater freedom to choose the way they receive their support, but it will also mean they have more responsibility for how they spend their funding.

A major change with the NDIS will be that funding does not have to go directly to service providers.  Funding is allocated to the person and they choose how to manage the funds; some people will ask existing providers and companies to deliver a service for them but there are also other options.

No matter what they choose, the people with disability will remain in control of which provider they select to provide various supports, when support is provided and how that support is provided.

Self-managing your NDIS funding

The NDIS developed a guide to self-management for people who are self-managing, or interested in self-managing their NDIS funding. This guide will help people understand the benefits of self-management, roles and responsibilities and how to self-manage effectively.

This web page includes all of the resources and forms required to self-manage as well as an outline of the benefits and responsibilities of self-managing your NDIS funded supports, as well as the purchasing guide.

It is important to note that many of the core details about how the NDIS will work are still being reviewed and evolving.  It may be helpful to consider the ideas that have shaped the overall purpose of the scheme and the issues it is looking to address.

In this section we will explore the history of the NDIS, the overall strategy for change that the NDIS fits in to and importantly, your rights within the new system and how to uphold them.

The NDIS is part of the Australian Government’s National Disability Strategy.  Launched in 2011, this 10 year strategy aims to improve the lives of people with disability, their families and carers.  The NDS has identified 6 policy areas to target the change required and these are outlined within this section.

There are significant barriers to people with disability taking their rightful place in society. The strategy acknowledges that the blocks and barriers that exist are large, complex and require a significant change not only in the way government services are offered, but also from the broader community.

Read the Strategy

All files are from the Australian Government’s Department of Social Services website

The policy areas of the National Disability Strategy

The NDIS aims to provide people with disability with greater choice and control and to help exercise this choice and control it will be useful understand the rights available to them.  This will include a range of rights through the NDIS scheme, as well as the broader consumer rights available to all Australians.

For example, if you are not happy with the outcome of your NDIS planning process you can:

• ask for your plan to be reviewed.
• provide feedback or make a complaint.
• ask for important decisions, like eligibility for the scheme or what is reasonable and necessary support for you, to be formally reviewed. 

Similarly, if you purchase a service or a piece of equipment you will covered by broader consumer laws.

From time to time people with disability may need advice and support to exercise their rights.  This can be through the assistance of trusted family and friends as well as through the use of formal advocates.  We will be exploring this issue in one of the upcoming pages of this website.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission is an independent agency established to improve the quality and safety of NDIS supports and services.

This commission regulate NDIS providers, provides national consistency, promotes safety and quality services, resolve problems and identify areas for improvement.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission has information on available in an increasing selection of languages and formats. To find out more, go to their ‘in your language‘ page.

Useful Resources

The Appeals Process

NDIS Appeals providers in Queensland

For other areas visit Disability Advocacy Pathways. Pathways is an information and referral service for Queenslanders with disability, their family, friends, and carers to find advocacy services to suit their needs and location.

Here is a video created by Disability Advocacy NSW, this video offers a short introduction to NDIS review processes. To view the video click here.

The move towards people with disability and their families having greater choice and control over their funded supports is a global one that has been growing over many decades.  We believe we can learn from the experience of people in other jurisdictions;  both in how people with disability can use their funded support to benefit themselves and their communities in the best way possible but also to how we can prepare and safeguard against the likely challenges that will arise.