I work as part of a not for profit organisation offering speech pathology
services to those with disability funded under the NDIS including early
intervention, teenage and adulthood services.
The shortage of services is impacting our ability to provide services within
our pure scope where I am often having to work transdisciplinary to support
missing services, primarily Physio therapy and psychology.
What currently works well within our organisation is that those with a
recognised disability are serviced - however those that fall out of criteria
(ie after GDD diagnosis and not qualifying for ID) are transitioned to
mainstream and have supports removed - which is a huge gap in service delivery.
The families I service cannot provide funds for private services, yet waitlists
and intervention under the government scheme can not only be a long wait but a
short in and out service, of course, due to capacity and regulations. What I
see is the children who go without, and the gap increases and the strain on
families becomes much larger, especially those requiring behavioural
intervention.
Another gap is the lack of primary placed speechies in schools - the amount of
teachers who ask me for advise on other students not receiving 1:1 supports who
feel at a loss and would like some expertise advise - the government and
education dept of WA should team up to place 1-2 speechies full time in schools
for early intervention and ongoing supports for those who are captured in the
learning gap.