• Blog / NDIS Plan Management Blog /

• Accessing NDIS: Practical Guide – Tips and Strategies to Put Your Case Across

Calling all parents of a young adult on the Autism Spectrum – you have just been notified that your offspring’s NDIS funding has been approved – yes, you read that right – so what now? First off, he/she has just become an NDIS PARTICIPANT. So, for the purpose of expediency, I shall now refer to your loved one as a ‘participant’.

You want your participant engaged in meaningful tasks each day.

You want the participant making goals and achieving them just like his able peers.

You want qualified support staff who embody patience, kindness, and empathy.

You want quality services at reasonable prices.

Let’s be honest. You’re overwhelmed. Fifteen to twenty years into your child’s life and YOU are exhausted. In truth, occasionally, you still find yourself grieving. You have a child (perhaps multiple children) on the spectrum, and you’ve had to negotiate an often-inequitable education system while continuing to maintain a harmonious home (and perhaps a job outside the home as well.) Your kids are usually oblivious to the fog you inhabit and often don’t know what they want to do with their lives – or perhaps they simply don’t have sufficient skills, physical capacity or motivation to sustain constant activities, let alone employment.

How do I know? I’ve been there, truly, it’s rough.

Stay with me. I can help.

By the way, this article is written with young people in mind who present with classic autism. Kids who were previously labelled as having Asperger’s Syndrome can often voice their desires more easily than those with High Functioning Autism. Sometimes those presenting with HFA may offer excellent input; generally, the thinking is left up to you. Imagining a different reality is often difficult for ASD kids.

In a nutshell, the NDIS provides support to eligible Australians with a significant and permanent disability. It is designed to help people get the support they need so that their skills and independence improve over time.

The assistance is comprised of three Support Purposes. NDIS participants’ budgets are allocated to these three areas. (I recommend you download the NDIS Price Guide for reference)

1. Core – funding allocated to support daily living. There is considerable flexibility in this area and participants may be able to select specific supports.
2. Capital – covers such things as assistive technologies, home or vehicle modifications or Specialist Disability Accommodation. It covers specific supports identified in the participant’s plan.
3. Capacity Building – the participant is supported to build his independence from this funding.

Okay, you’ve got that. Now what? Well, there are eight Support Categories that must be used to achieve the goals set out in the participant’s plan.

But I haven’t got a plan yet, I hear you say. Bear with me. We’re getting there.

You can request a Local Area Coordinator. An LAC will: -

• Assist with initial goalsetting when helping participants to create a plan
• Identify where extra help with the plan is needed, and suggest the assistance of a Support Coordinator if required
• Reassess goals when assisting with the review process

Trained LACs can be found here: - https://www.ndis.gov.au/contact/locations

Participants can request the assistance of a Support Coordinator if required. The cost is covered under Capacity Building.

Where do I find a Support Coordinator?

Registered Support Coordination Providers may be found by using the Provider Finder tool in MyPlace. https://ndis.gov.au This tool will enable you to locate providers near you. Every three months the NDIA publishes a list of registered providers in your state on the NDIS website.

There are three levels of Support Coordination. (see NDIS Price Guide)

Level 1 – Support Connection

This provides participants with: -

assistance to understand their plan

the specific purposes of funded support

connecting to service providers

connecting to broader systems of support

achieving effective use of the funds

increasing a participant’s capacity to maintain support relationships

sometimes increasing a participant’s capacity to change support relationships

resolving service delivery issues

participating independently in NDIA processes.

Level 2 – Coordination of Supports

This level of support includes assistance to: -

Strengthen participants ability to design the best plan for them

Build supports with an emphasis on linking the broader systems of support

Encourage participants to direct their lives in the direction they want to go

Assist participants to understand the funding and how it can work for them

Identify what participants expect from the services

Level 3 – Specialist Support Coordination

In situations where a participant experiences complex needs or high-level risks, an expert or specialist approach is necessary. This support is delivered by an appropriately qualified and experienced practitioner, for example a psychologist, occupational therapist, social worker, or mental health nurse.

Specialist Support Coordinators:-

Assist participants to reduce complexity in their support environment

Assist participants to overcome barriers to connection with broader systems of supports

Negotiate appropriate support solutions with multiple stakeholders

Seek to achieve well-coordinated plan implementation

Assist stakeholders with resolving points of crisis for participants

Assist to ensure a consistent delivery of service

Ensure access to relevant supports during crisis situations

May design a complex service plan that focusses on how all the stakeholders in a participant’s life will interact to resolve barriers and promote appropriate plan implementation.

What about those eight Support Categories?

NDIS has an outcomes framework which was developed to measure participants’ goal attainment as well as an overall performance of the scheme.

The framework is comprised of these eight Support Categories (or outcome domains). They help participants determine goals and assist planners to explore where supports are required.

The Support Categories are: -

Daily Living

Home

Health and Wellbeing

Lifelong Learning

Work

Social and Community Participation

Relationships

Choice and Control

Families need to be aware that all support and services offered by Service Providers MUST contribute to the achievement of the individual’s goals as outlined in their plan.

Now you’re ready to set some goals.

Prior to the inception of the NDIS in our area, I went to every seminar/meeting I could. I recall the words of a woman explaining the NDIS to prospective recipients.

She said “My physically disabled adult son loves going to the pub with his mates on a Saturday afternoon. The NDIS will pay for the transport to the pub, but it won’t pay for the drinks.”

This explanation illustrates that the NDIS provides reasonable and necessary support (the driver and vehicle). The assistance enables the young man to make choices and fosters his desire for independence and social participation.

Be specific when you set your goals, but always be mindful of being ‘reasonable and necessary’. There is a good explanation of this on pg 27 of the Price Guide

What is important to you?

Ask yourself these questions:

Are you looking for a service provider that offers social skills, community participation or work experience programmes?

Have you selected one or multiple service providers for:

• therapies
• daily programmes
• weekend respite – in or out of home
• holidays (we were so unaccustomed to holidays that this is something that didn’t even occur to me!)

Find therapists and service providers in the Provider Finder – do your research to determine that what they offer suits your needs?

What strengths and abilities have you identified in your participant that will assist you to choose programmes?

What wouldn’t work for you?

What is occurring now that you want to change?

Who are the significant people in your loved-one’s life? Can they offer suggestions? (Sometimes ideas are elusive in the fog that this parent inhabits.) Other parents’ will be a good resource though.

How does the disability impact on the participant? What does he/she long to do but cannot because of the disability?

Make a list of the things you all want for the participant.

Have you collated all the latest doctors’ and clinicians’ reports?

I know it’s soul-destroying concentrating on the ‘disability’. That’s what you had to do in the education system. But remember that the funding you ask for from NDIS will support what the participant wants in order to live a ‘normal’ life. Additionally, it will be what you feel is required to support and promote growth in his/her abilities.

Where will you find information?

NDIS Price Guide

Provider Finder Tool in MyPlace – Be aware that though your correct address will automatically appear in the tool, you must backspace over it and write it again. If you click on Search without retyping your correct address, you will receive an error message and a suggestion to enter the correct address – even though it’s already there.

Google words like ‘NDIS Coordination of Supports’, ‘NDIS Be Prepared’ ‘NDIS Planning’ to find suggestions.

Odds are that you will be exhausted just thinking about all this, but once it’s done, it’ll be great. And with every review, you can tweak it to suit the participant.

Written by: Rhonda Valentine Dixon

Rhonda completed a Diploma of Family History through the University of Tasmania and a BA (Hons) at Griffith University. Her thesis, The Transformative Effects of the Steam Locomotive in English Literature, combines her passions, literature, and steam engines.

Rhonda has co-written three books on teaching communication to students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. She has also published a children’s picture book which highlights tradition and the elderly.

She has contributed chapters to books, in Australia and her native New Zealand and has written for local publications, Sandgate Guide and Redcliffe Guide. She continues daily to document family history and revel in the joy of the written word.