News and commentary on the NDIS (41)

Disability Loop eNews Issue #10 24th November 2015 Subscribe for your own copy delivered via email. NDIS and Me People with Down syndrome and/or their families and carers can join the new closed Facebook Group, NDIS and Me,  for discussion specifically about the NDIS and people with Down syndrome.

Tasmania becomes third state to sign up to National Disability Insurance Scheme

ABC News, 3rd december 2015
Tasmania has become the third state to sign up to the full-rollout.More than 10,000 Tasmanians are expected to benefit from the full roll-out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which will start next year ...

BREAKING NEWS: First round of funding for NDIS housing
Disability Services Consulting, 4th December 2015

It's not a lot of money but the Department of Social Services (DSS) has finally broken ground and announced real dollars for NDIS housing. 

DSS is making $10m available in grant funding to complete housing projects for people with disability outside the NDIS trial sites. This funding is designed to assist projects that have already secured most of their finance from other sources. 

The projects must be for people with disability who living in areas outside the NDIS trial sites . The ideal target group are people with disability who are currently living with ageing carers or living in residential aged care. The expectation is that residents will be eligible for the NDIS when it is implemented in the resident's local area.

Applications are due 11 February 2016. Further information and application forms can be found here.

‘Reducing the Inequality of Luck’
Bruce Bonyhady, Chairman, National Disability Insurance Agency, 11 November 2015
Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability 50th Annual Conference, Melbourne

... According to the OECD, 45 per cent of Australians with a disability were living at or below the poverty line in 2010 – the worst outcome of any OECD country. 

Our record in terms of employment of people with disability is also very poor, ranking in the bottom one-third of OECD countries. 

And, most disturbingly, people with a disability are significantly overrepresented in Australia’s jails. 

More change is necessary – and, ladies and gentlemen, that change does not begin and end with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. 

And that’s what I want to talk to you about this morning ...

Waiting for the NDIS: Samuel’s story
Every Australian Counts, 3rd December 2015
On International Day of People with Disability we’re reminding governments just how important the NDIS is to the many thousands of people still waiting to find out when it will come to them. People like the Klopf family from Adelaide…

Is Australia ready to give people with disability real choice and control over services?

Helen Dickinson, The Conversation, 24th November 2015

... The existing one-size-fits-all approach was built more around the needs of organisations and the system than people with disability. But what might happen if NDIS users want to purchase very different sorts of services? Would politicians have the courage to stand up to backlash caused if people with disability used their care money to pay for overseas holidays, sex workers, internet dating subscriptions or tickets to sporting events? ...

NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework – Consultation report
Commonwealth, State and Territory disability ministers have released this report which summarises the outcomes of public consultations on quality and safeguarding in the NDIS in early 2015. Links to download the report are included.

Advocates warn disability workers struggle with low pay, staff turnover and casualisation
Christopher Knaus, Canberra Times, 18th November 2015
Disability advocates have warned that support workers are struggling with woeful pay, high turnover, and casualisation, while dealing with added responsibilities and complexities in group homes ...
... "It's not going to be solved by the NDIS. Everybody is just thinking the NDIS will fix all of this, but the truth is it won't." ...

A Rabbit in the NDIS Headlights?

Roland Naufal, Disability Services Consulting, 30th November 2015
Some of the disability service providers I have met over the last couple of years remind me of a rabbit in the headlights. They see danger ahead but are not responding. I think I am now beginning to understand why they are stuck in the midst of the dramatic NDIS change ...

Carers Australia - videos about preparing for the NDIS
Carers Australia has developed a series of short videos that provide information about the NDIS to help support families and carers as they join the scheme

Disability sector has grave concerns about NDIS roll out
Rachel Browne, Sydney Morning Herald, 7th December 2015

Disability groups have reported an alarming lack of confidence in the NDIS roll out ahead of the full transition to the $22 billion scheme which will launch across the country next year. Only one-third of organisations in trial sites reported scheme administrator, the National Disability Insurance Agency, was working well with providers and almost two-thirds said governments were not responding to their requirements ...

• See also, this post, from 27th November: Accommodation for people with disabilities and the NDIS: submissions invited