Spam: Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012
From: To: Community Affairs, Committee (SEN); Subject: Spam: Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012 Date: Friday, 25 January 2013 10:15:11 AM
Please consider this email a formal submission by me to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012.
The current disability system has many problems that need to be addressed.
I am the Executive Officer of Interchange Inner East, a respite service that supports families who have a child or young adult with a disability. We specialise in listening to our clients and developing innovative RESPITE options through Recreation, School Holiday, week-end activities and in-home/community respite support. We also support a well established HOST volunteer program which matches children with a disability to families interested in giving their families a break.
I write on behalf on our clients and families, our staff and volunteers. Our waiting list is long. Families with younger children are not eliglible for our DHS and HACC funded respite services. We seek to be creative with philantropic funds to offer ad hoc respite support for these clients. Our families speak of the problems in navigating a complex system which offers them no point of immediate access to the servcies they require. Similarly,with the ageing population, innovative community repite support for adults over 36 is limited. We receive a small amount of NRCP funding for older arers. Parents lament their “burn out” and their wish for their child to be supported on outings in the communitywhich are dignified and reflect the age/interest appropriateness of that cohort. We anticipate that NDIS will address this servcie gap but ONLY if RESPITE support is given its own focus through a range of respite funding options which should include some block funding.
At an operational level, limited block funding models have not met the needs of these two groups at an equitable level. In order for us to “create” spaces for the younger children, older clients need to be exited“. This is unfair and places unreasonable demands on families and services alike. Familes want and need MORE respite.
However, under NDIS our concern is that the importance of timely appropriate respite as a preventative mechanism for family, sibling, carer, and client well being is not necessarily understood in the early stages of the lifespan for families and may not be adequately planned for (or funded) when families need it.
The main features of the NDIS that will make a difference to the community are:
- People with a disability can choose the types of support to use,
- People with disability/family will influence the types of support and services offered,
- Older parents and families will not worry what happens when they can no longer provide support
The most important services for the NDIS to provide are:
- Therapy and allied health services,
- Support for families and carers,
- Flexible in-home/outside home respite
I support the introduction of the NDIS.
I have hope that this will be a more cohesive system of integrated support for people with a disability which will impact positively on their families and carers.
I am however, skeletal about whether all disabled people will receive even a small piece of the NDIS “cake” and wonder what will happen to those who fall through the system (episodic, chronic or progressive degenerative illnesses) or those who cannot/will not/manage their funding allocation responsibly.
I am concerned about the Transition years and what will ahappen to services and clients located outside of the Launch Sites.
As previously noted, I am supporting this scheme because we need a better way of doing things. I hope that the scheme can embrace a creative, inclusive and diverse model for Respite Care for Australian disabled people and their families and carers.
I agree for my submission to be made public
Regards,
Mrs Marie Lugg