NDIS Planning
Submission 132
Inquiry into NDIS Planning
I am writing as the parent of a man in his late thirties who has cerebral palsy, a visual impairment (legally blind) and suffers from PTSD. Prior to receiving supports through NDIS, my son received an Individual Support Package from the state of Victoria.
My submission relates particularly to the process for reviewing the NDIS plan. I have been happy with the expertise and knowledge of the two planners that I worked with, particularly for the original plan. My son’s complex needs were flagged very early in the process and appropriate planners were selected from outside our rural region, both for the initial planning process and for the review process. We live in regional Victoria and needed to work with planners who had more expertise than was available locally. On advice, I did contact the Victorian department who had been responsible for my son’s supports, and sought some liaison between the State and NDIS planners. This did not occur as I had expected it to. I also had the support of a person from Carers Victoria who had explained the principles underpinning the NDIS to groups of parents. I think I understand the principles that underpin the NDIS as a consequence of the 12 months of workshops that this person led me and other parents through. This person has accompanied our family to the planning meetings, and, given the complexity of NDIS plans, has become essential. With this support and with competent NDIS planners, our actual planning meetings have been good and useful to us as parents.
There is an area of concern around the review of plans. We were acutely anxious prior to the first planning meeting (in fact, leading to counseling support to cope with the stress around whether NDIS would continue to support our son in the way that the state of Victoria had). A year later, we expected that the review would be less stressful. This was not the case. The review process was very difficult. Gathering the required reports from various allied health and other support services is onerous but necessary, and did not present insurmountable problems. But waiting to learn when the meeting would occur, and then to see if the supports that we had had for our son would continue caused great stress again, for a second consecutive year. Our son’s cerebral palsy and visual impairment have not changed, and won’t. He won’t suddenly be able to wash or dress himself, or see and hold kitchen equipment well enough to prepare foods, or be able to speak. The allied health supports provided with NDIS funds will help him maintain his mobility, access his home surrounds more easily and use better communication aids; we are glad for these supports. However, meeting his basic needs will continue to be done with support. It would help our family enormously if we were not faced with annual reviews in which we appear to ‘start at the beginning’ all over again. For us, it means starting at the question that occurs at the beginning: will our son continue to get the supports that he has had in order to meet his basic needs. As his needs that are consequential to his cerebral palsy and his visual impairment will not change quickly, why do we have to worry about the threat to the basic supports every year?