Resources
The following resources have been put together as a result of our work with people who are participants in the NDIS.
You might find them useful.
You might find them useful.
Advocacy
Image description: An icon of a hand holding a loudspeaker
Having access to independent advocacy can be important if you are trying to find out about your rights, or maybe to give you some help speaking out..
Here are a few useful links to advocacy information:
Disability Advocacy Finder:
You can search advocacy services by postcode - not bad if you are looking for a local service.
https://disabilityadvocacyfinder.dss.gov.au/disability/ndap/
Disability Advocacy Network Australia, DANA:
They have great information on advocacy and also a list of advocacy organisations.
http://www.dana.org.au/
advokit- NDIS
This is a website specifically to support NDIS participants with advocacy and other information.
http://www.advokit.org.au/
Here are a few useful links to advocacy information:
Disability Advocacy Finder:
You can search advocacy services by postcode - not bad if you are looking for a local service.
https://disabilityadvocacyfinder.dss.gov.au/disability/ndap/
Disability Advocacy Network Australia, DANA:
They have great information on advocacy and also a list of advocacy organisations.
http://www.dana.org.au/
advokit- NDIS
This is a website specifically to support NDIS participants with advocacy and other information.
http://www.advokit.org.au/
Information
image Description: A maze
Wow, where to start? This is a wild environment with loads of new start ups and existing organisations.
Here are a few of our favourites:
Ideas, or Information on Disability Education and Awareness Services
They have been around for some time and their database is probably better and more up to date than loads of other orgs.
http://www.ideas.org.au/ or call them on 1800 029 904
Council for Intellectual Disability (NSW CID)
If you are after quality information in relation to anything to do with intellectual disability, we recommend their very personalised service. They are great on the phone 1800 424 065
NDIS Portal
If you are a NDIS Participant you might like to 'play' with the "find a serivce provider" tile in the My Place NDIS Portal. You will need to log on before you can use it. Apparently improvements are currently being made to make this more user friendly.
Here are a few of our favourites:
Ideas, or Information on Disability Education and Awareness Services
They have been around for some time and their database is probably better and more up to date than loads of other orgs.
http://www.ideas.org.au/ or call them on 1800 029 904
Council for Intellectual Disability (NSW CID)
If you are after quality information in relation to anything to do with intellectual disability, we recommend their very personalised service. They are great on the phone 1800 424 065
NDIS Portal
If you are a NDIS Participant you might like to 'play' with the "find a serivce provider" tile in the My Place NDIS Portal. You will need to log on before you can use it. Apparently improvements are currently being made to make this more user friendly.
NDIS Resources
Image description: A row of shovels
Where to start?
Because information changes all the time we think you should keep an eye on the NDIS website https://www.ndis.gov.au/index.html
We also recommend that you sign up for the NDIS e-newsletter https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/subscribe.html
If you are a user of facebook you might like to check out the NDIS grassroots discussion facebook page. It's a very active page (over 40,000 members), very popular, mostly has great information, but sometimes it gets very angry and sometimes diverse views are not so well respected. We recommend you check it out and see if this is for you..
Also for great and often entertaining info you can't go past our colleague Sam from The Growing Space in South Australia. Her blog and especially her NDIS tips are ace! http://www.thegrowingspace.com.au/blog/
And below are some links to documents many people have asked about , but PLEASE check that they are not out of date by checking the NDIS website
Accessing the NDIS:
If you are new to the NDIS and are checking things out, this is a good page to start with https://www.ndis.gov.au/people-disability/access-requirements.html
You might like to also read this Evidence of Disability Guide
Just so you know, once the NDIS has received your access request, they must respond within 21 days.
What does the NDIS mean by "reasonable and necessary"?
You can find a bit of a video here https://www.ndis.gov.au/participants/reasonable-and-necessary-supports.html
and here a link to a factsheet.
Once you've got a NDIS plan:
Factsheet Starting your Plan
Managing your funding and plan
Step by step guide to accessing the My Space NDIS portal
The 2017/2018 price list for NSW (note a new one comes into play every 1 July, so watch the date on the document).
Making Service Agreements with service providers
Employing your own staff
if you really want to understand how the NDIS works and what the guidelines are, we recommend you read the Operational Guidelines (https://www.ndis.gov.au/operational-guideline/overview-sitemap.html) and / or the NDIA legislation (https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00934)
When things with the NDIS are not right:
There are different things you can do, and different actions might be required at different times.
There are administrative reviews, desk reviews, reviews of reviewable decisions, internal reviews, external reviews, AAT reviews, etc. Some of them even mean the same thing. It is messy, it is confusing and it is changing all the time.
If you can, talk to your LAC, your NDIA planner, your Coordinator of Support.
You can try and ring the NDIS 1800 800 110.
You can speak with one of the advocacy organisations (above).
And of course you can make a complaint directly to the NDIS or the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission on 1800 035 544.
Because information changes all the time we think you should keep an eye on the NDIS website https://www.ndis.gov.au/index.html
We also recommend that you sign up for the NDIS e-newsletter https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/subscribe.html
If you are a user of facebook you might like to check out the NDIS grassroots discussion facebook page. It's a very active page (over 40,000 members), very popular, mostly has great information, but sometimes it gets very angry and sometimes diverse views are not so well respected. We recommend you check it out and see if this is for you..
Also for great and often entertaining info you can't go past our colleague Sam from The Growing Space in South Australia. Her blog and especially her NDIS tips are ace! http://www.thegrowingspace.com.au/blog/
And below are some links to documents many people have asked about , but PLEASE check that they are not out of date by checking the NDIS website
Accessing the NDIS:
If you are new to the NDIS and are checking things out, this is a good page to start with https://www.ndis.gov.au/people-disability/access-requirements.html
You might like to also read this Evidence of Disability Guide
Just so you know, once the NDIS has received your access request, they must respond within 21 days.
What does the NDIS mean by "reasonable and necessary"?
You can find a bit of a video here https://www.ndis.gov.au/participants/reasonable-and-necessary-supports.html
and here a link to a factsheet.
Once you've got a NDIS plan:
Factsheet Starting your Plan
Managing your funding and plan
Step by step guide to accessing the My Space NDIS portal
The 2017/2018 price list for NSW (note a new one comes into play every 1 July, so watch the date on the document).
Making Service Agreements with service providers
Employing your own staff
if you really want to understand how the NDIS works and what the guidelines are, we recommend you read the Operational Guidelines (https://www.ndis.gov.au/operational-guideline/overview-sitemap.html) and / or the NDIA legislation (https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00934)
When things with the NDIS are not right:
There are different things you can do, and different actions might be required at different times.
There are administrative reviews, desk reviews, reviews of reviewable decisions, internal reviews, external reviews, AAT reviews, etc. Some of them even mean the same thing. It is messy, it is confusing and it is changing all the time.
If you can, talk to your LAC, your NDIA planner, your Coordinator of Support.
You can try and ring the NDIS 1800 800 110.
You can speak with one of the advocacy organisations (above).
And of course you can make a complaint directly to the NDIS or the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission on 1800 035 544.
