DATE: Thursday 2 November 2023
TIME: 12pm – 1.15pm
VENUE: The Arena, NAB Docklands, Melbourne (or join ONLINE)
UpSkill webinar: Supporting NDIS participants in the justice system
On this episode of Reasonable & Necessary, Dr George speaks with international expert on self-directed disability supports and citizenship, Dr Simon Duffy and NDIS participant and researcher Dr Mark Brown about their new report “Redesigning the NDIS”. The report highlights the need for a sustainable NDIS, built through co-design with reliable personal budgets and peer support at the centre. It was written to stimulate discussion and debate in the disability community about NDIS 2.0, 3.0 and beyond.
On this episode of Reasonable & Necessary, Dr George speaks with Mitchell Skipsey from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and NDIS participant and activist, Felice Vaiani, about NDIS appeals and what to do when your NDIS plan doesn’t meet your needs. This episode is full of lots of great advice, and important things to consider when appealing NDIS decisions.
You can also check out a new resource series created by the Housing Hub and PIAC teams on Challenging NDIS Decisions. These resources cover a range of interesting topics including how to request a review of an NDIS decision that you don’t agree with, how to apply to the AAT for an external review, how to find out the reasons behind an NDIS decision, how to request access to documents from the NDIS and how to ask for more time to apply to the AAT. You can access the resources here: www.housinghub.org.au/resources/article/challenging-ndis-decisions
You can download and listen to the audio version on SoundCloud, iTunes (Apple Podcasts) or Spotify.
DATE: Thursday 2 November 2023
TIME: 12pm – 1.15pm
VENUE: The Arena, NAB Docklands, Melbourne (or join ONLINE)
Transforming supports at home: Making it work for NDIS participants
Join us for the 2023 Summer Foundation Annual Public Forum to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of home and living supports. We’ll be talking about how we can transform supports at home so they truly meet the needs of people with disability.
Our host, Elizabeth Wright, Disability Affairs reporter at the ABC and Paralympian, will lead the conversation about how we put people with disability at the centre of NDIS supports.
Elizabeth will facilitate the discussion with a panel of experts made up of policy makers, sector professionals and people with lived experience of disability.
Our panel
Penelope McKay – Deputy CEO, Market Stewardship and Home and Living – NDIA
Penelope McKay is the Deputy CEO at the National Disability Insurance Agency responsible for Home and Living and Market Stewardship. Penelope will join us to discuss the Agency’s perspective on how we can transform supports at home and what the NDIA is doing to improve outcomes for NDIS participants.
With the NDIS seeking to foster innovation in the sector, there’s no better time for the Head of Home and Living to discuss the new home and living policy. The discussion with Penelope will provide insight into the challenges and opportunities the new policy may present.
David Clarke – CEO, InLife Independent Living
David Clark is CEO at InLife, a passionate not-for-profit organisation determined to break down everyday barriers and positively transform the experience of disability support. They recognise the challenges of living with disability support and want to reshape the experience for the better. David will talk about the issues and risks associated with poor quality supports and what, as a provider, can be done to make sure supports meet the needs of participants.
David has spent the last 15 years using business ideas to improve public sector and non-profit organisations.
Samar Bain – NDIS participant and Disability support worker trainer
“It might feel like you haven’t got choice and control but there are avenues you can take if you have the right supports in place.” – Samar Bain
Samar is a disability support worker trainer and shares her lived experience to support people with disability. She lives with cerebral palsy but is able to live independently since moving into her SDA apartment.
Samar’s SDA apartment provides her with the freedom she has long desired, and to live her life on her own terms. Although the NDIS has improved Samar’s life, she believes there are barriers to living with true choice and control.
Dr Kate D’Cruz – Senior Research Fellow, Summer Foundation
Dr Kate D’Cruz is a Senior Research Fellow at the Summer Foundation. She leads research projects that evaluate the experiences and outcomes of young people with disability.
The Summer Foundation’s research into the personal impact of moving into purpose-built specialist disability accommodation (SDA) provides compelling insights into the importance of support for people with disability to live well.
Watch highlights from last year’s Annual Public Forum below:
Join us on Thursday 2 November for this free event. The in-person event will be held in Melbourne, with the opportunity to join us online for those who can’t attend in person.
Face to face (Docklands, VIC) and Online – FREE
The Arena
The Village at NAB Docklands,
700 Bourke Street,
Docklands, Victoria 3008
Doors open at 11.30am
Annual Public Forum: 12pm – 1.15pm AEDT (online live streaming)
Light lunch from: 1.15pm
Interested to hear more about Specialist Disability Accommodation and what housing options may be available to you?
Our UpSkill team have created 2 new workshops on the hospital and NDIS interface. These online workshops are partially subsidised and are suitable for people that have basic NDIS and health interface knowledge.
Source: The Australian – Sarah Ison | Photo: Martin Ollman
The NDIS review is being urged by disability providers to reconsider eligibility criteria for the scheme and prioritise early intervention for autistic children to prevent “increased reliance” on the NDIS throughout their lives, as part of more than 700 submissions made to the review of the $40 billion scheme.
On this episode of Reasonable and Necessary, Dr George speaks with Professor Bruce Bonyhady AM and Ms Lisa Paul AO PSM in this exclusive first interview about the NDIS Review and what the NDIS might look like in the future.
To have your say on the NDIS Review visit www.ndisreview.gov.au
You can download and listen to the audio version on SoundCloud, iTunes (Apple Podcasts) or Spotify.
Source: Disability Support Guide –David McManus
Three disability advocacy groups — Synapse, Youngcare and the Summer Foundation — have penned a letter to National Disability Insurance Minister Bill Shorten, Aged Care Minister Anika Wells and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth, to address growing concerns of young Australians living with disability being placed into aged care.
On this episode of Reasonable and Necessary, Dr George speaks with Minister Bill Shorten about the 2023 NDIS budget to understand what the budget will mean for people with disabilities and our families. Is there a cap on the NDIS, will our funding packages be cut and will it be harder to get onto the NDIS? You will get the answers to these questions and more.
You can download and listen to the audio version on SoundCloud, iTunes (Apple Podcasts) or Spotify.
Source: The Conversation | Author: Di Winkler
Just over three years ago, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the federal government would finally solve the issue of young people with disability having to live in nursing homes. The government developed a strategy and committed to getting all young people out of aged care facilities by 2025.
On this episode of Reasonable and Necessary, Dr George speaks with NDIA General Manager Sam Bennett and NDIS guru Sam Paior about how to manage your NDIS funds efficiently, creatively and innovatively so you can get the best outcomes out of your plan. While we focus on self management, you don’t need to self manage to benefit from this episode. It will be relevant to you if you are plan managed and even if you are agency managed and want to have more control over your supports.
To learn more about self management you can visit:
https://www.ndis.gov.au/self-management
https://www.selfmanagerhub.org.au
You can download and listen to the audio version on SoundCloud, iTunes (Apple Podcasts) or Spotify.
Source: The Age – Henrietta Cook | Photo: Xavier Edwards and his father, Jase, in the Royal Children’s Hospital – Photographer: Wayne Taylor
Xavier Edwards has been stuck in hospital for 12 months and just wants to go home.
But while the quadriplegic teenager is ready to leave, a bureaucratic nightmare means there is no end in sight to his lengthy stay.
Online Workshop – Zoom
DATE: There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop.
Please check back again soon!
As the NDIA shifts its focus to living an ordinary life at home, there is much to learn about how to explore and design an ordinary life through individualised support.
Support coordinators and allied health professionals are uniquely placed to support the development of innovative and individualised support for people with complex support needs.
This workshop will:
- Take a dive into what person-centred practice looks like
- Unpack notions about 24/7 paid support
- Go through the person-centred process of exploring and designing individualised supports
- Provide examples of innovative solutions to meet support needs of individuals
This workshop via Zoom, is facilitated by UpSkill Lead Linda Hughes and Vivien Williams.
There will be practical exercises, opportunity for group discussion and questions and answers.
Learning objectives
- Use a person-centred approach to the design and implementation of home and living supports
- Work with participants to identify their home and living preferences and support needs
- Identify risks and safeguarding strategies
- Understand the importance of circles of support and assist people to expand and strengthen informal, mainstream and community support
- Understand NDIS funding packages for home and living support
- Work with support providers to implement individualised living supports, including negotiations on cost of support, terms and conditions of service agreements
Important note:
This workshop will not focus on the ‘bricks and mortar’ of housing. To find out more about housing support please see UpSkill training:
- NDIS and Mainstream housing
- Applying for SDA: eligibility and evidence for positive outcomes
Who is this for:
- Support coordinators
- NDIS allied health professionals
- Hospital clinicians
There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop. Please check back again soon!
Any questions?
If you would like to know more about this workshop or UpSkill training, check out our FAQs page, or email: upskill@summerfoundation.org.au
Online Workshop – Zoom
DATE: There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop.
Please check back again soon!
Build your understanding of the evidence required for an application for specialist disability accommodation (SDA). This workshop is valuable if you’re working for people who may be SDA eligible, as you will need to provide the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) with supporting evidence that addresses the SDA eligibility criteria, set out in the SDA Rules (2020).
This workshop assumes you have good working knowledge of SDA including what it is, how it is separate to support and how it is different to mainstream housing. We will focus on the SDA Rules (2020), SDA eligibility and the evidence required for an SDA application.
This is an interactive workshop via Zoom, facilitated by UpSkill Lead Linda Hughes.
There will be practical exercises, opportunity for group discussion and questions and answers.
Learning objectives – after this workshop you will be able to:
- Apply the SDA Rules and eligibility criteria
- Identify the types of supporting evidence required to support SDA requests
- Work with other professionals to source and collect evidence for SDA
- Write a housing report addressing the SDA Rules
- Complete a Home and Living supporting evidence form for an SDA application
- Use new knowledge of NDIS decision-making to inform your applications
Who is this for:
- Support coordinators
- NDIS allied health professionals
- Professionals assisting people with complex support needs
There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop. Please check back again soon!
Any questions?
If you would like to know more about this workshop or UpSkill training, check out our FAQs page, or email: upskill@summerfoundation.org.au
Online Workshop – Zoom
DATE: There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop.
Please check back again soon!
As the NDIA shifts its focus to living an ordinary life at home, there is much to learn about how to explore and design an ordinary life through individualised support.
Support coordinators and allied health professionals are uniquely placed to support the development of innovative and individualised support for people with complex support needs.
This workshop will:
- Take a dive into what person-centred practice looks like
- Unpack notions about 24/7 paid support
- Go through the person-centred process of exploring and designing individualised supports
- Provide examples of innovative solutions to meet support needs of individuals
This workshop via Zoom, is facilitated by UpSkill Lead Linda Hughes and Vivien Williams.
There will be practical exercises, opportunity for group discussion and questions and answers.
Learning objectives
- Use a person-centred approach to the design and implementation of home and living supports
- Work with participants to identify their home and living preferences and support needs
- Identify risks and safeguarding strategies
- Understand the importance of circles of support and assist people to expand and strengthen informal, mainstream and community support
- Understand NDIS funding packages for home and living support
- Work with support providers to implement individualised living supports, including negotiations on cost of support, terms and conditions of service agreements
Important note:
This workshop will not focus on the ‘bricks and mortar’ of housing. To find out more about housing support please see UpSkill training:
- NDIS and Mainstream housing
- Applying for SDA: eligibility and evidence for positive outcomes
Who is this for:
- Support coordinators
- NDIS allied health professionals
- Hospital clinicians
There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop. Please check back again soon!
Any questions?
If you would like to know more about this workshop or UpSkill training, check out our FAQs page, or email: upskill@summerfoundation.org.au
Online Workshop – Zoom
DATE: There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop.
Please check back again soon!
This workshop is for NDIS allied health professionals and support coordinators who want to build on their capabilities and ensure the services they provide are of the highest standard, are ethical and empowering for the people they support.
You will gain insight into the guiding approaches of service provision including taking a human rights and person-centered approach to practice, working in a trauma informed way, practicing cultural sensitivity and promoting self determination. You will learn strategies to demonstrate leadership in promoting and upholding the rights of those you support who live with complex support needs.
This workshop via Zoom, is facilitated by UpSkill Lead Linda Hughes and Vivien Williams.
There will be practical exercises, opportunity for group discussion and questions and answers.
Learning objectives
- Recognise when a person’s rights are at risk and identify ways that you can assist to reassert their rights
- Identify key guiding approaches that are essential when working with people with complex support needs and consider ways to incorporate these approaches into how you work
- Demonstrate strategies to improve your overall practice and identify ways to work collaboratively with mainstream and NDIS services
- Lead, innovate and develop service improvements in line with contemporary best practice
Who is this for:
- Support coordinators
- NDIS allied health professionals
There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop. Please check back again soon!
Any questions?
If you would like to know more about this workshop or UpSkill training, check out our FAQs page, or email: upskill@summerfoundation.org.au
Online Workshop – Zoom
DATE: There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop.
Please check back again soon!
The government set ambitious targets of no one under the age of 65 being admitted to residential aged care (RAC) by 2022. While there has been modest progress on these targets there are still 3,435 people under 65 living in aged care, and each month another 44 enter.
This UpSkill workshop, brought to you by the Summer Foundation, will enable you to assist younger people living in aged care to access appropriate home and living supports through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
This is an interactive workshop via Zoom, facilitated by UpSkill Lead Linda Hughes.
There will be practical exercises, opportunity for group discussion and questions and answers.
Learning objectives – after this workshop you will be able to:
- Leverage the implementation of the government’s younger people in residential aged care (YPIRAC) Strategy and NDIS policy
- Provide YPIRAC with information and examples of NDIS supports
- Identify and understand responsibilities in the interface between the NDIS and aged care systems
- Work together with RAC and NDIS professionals to lead a collaborative approach across service systems
- Assist a person choosing to leave RAC to access appropriate supports to live well in the community
Who is this for:
- Support coordinators
- NDIS allied health professionals
- Professionals assisting people with complex support needs including RAC providers, Nursing Unit Managers and lifestyle coordinators
There are currently no upcoming sessions for this workshop. Please check back again soon!
Any questions?
If you would like to know more about this workshop or UpSkill training, check out our FAQs page, or email: upskill@summerfoundation.org.au
VIDEO PODCAST: 15 December 2022
On this episode of Reasonable and Necessary, Australia’s leading podcast series on the NDIS, Dr George Taleporos is joined by the new CEO of the National Disability Insurance Agency Rebecca Falkingham about her key priorities, how she plans to rebuild trust and much more.
You can download and listen to the audio version on SoundCloud, iTunes (Apple Podcasts) or Spotify.
The Summer Foundation’s Annual Public Forum was held on November 25, 2022. For the first time since 2019, we were pleased to host an audience in person, as well as online. The hybrid event saw almost 600 people join us online and close to 150 in person at The Arena, NAB Docklands.
Watch highlights from the forum:
Our panel of experts, made up of policy makers, sector experts and people with lived experience of disability were hosted by Beverley O’Connor (ABC News 24), and discussed what a reimagined NDIS might look like.
Bram Heinrich-McPartlan and Tobias O’Hehir brought the voice of lived experience to the discussion, with valuable insights into their own experiences navigating the NDIS. Importantly, they both highlighted the life-changing supports that their NDIS funding provided, while also sharing how complex the NDIS is, and how difficult it was to access and understand.
Tobia’s noted that his work as a lawyer helped him to recognise what was needed to put together an application that ensured he would get the funding package he needed, bringing into sharp focus that most do not come to the NDIS with this level of expertise. “Immediately I knew this was an evidence-based process, straight away… I came to it with a law degree and comms degree, and all of my professional experience, and I was able to get the information that I required, I was able to get the evidence that I required.”
John Dardo, Deputy CEO Partners, Providers and Fraud Taskforce Group, represented the NDIA and he was joined by Alecia Rathbone from the Housing Hub and Paul Simmons from Ability SDA, who added to the discussion from the perspective of sector and housing professionals.
It was widely acknowledged throughout the discussion that the NDIS is a young organisation with an enormous task, and while it is not where it needs to be, the organisation is committed to getting better.
John Dardo explained that the NDIA is working on both system improvements and immediate interface improvements to make the NDIS better now, and into the future. “But we also have to look forward and go, what do we need to keep focussing on at every level, to improve and be better next year, and in 5 years, then in 10 years.”
Watch the full recording:
There were some fantastic suggestions for improvement from all our speakers. A key theme that emerged was improvements to workforce. For example, there needs to be more level 3 support coordinator funding, as well as funding for training for support coordinators so they can become the experts that they need to be. The implementation of NDIS in-reach roles within the hospital system was also needed so there are experts within the hospital system that can work with participants and support coordinators to get the best possible outcomes.
Suggestions for change within the NDIA included NDIS policy being separated from implementation, and a positive demand activation scheme, where the NDIA identifies participants who will likely be eligible for SDA. Paul Simmons explains, “the NDIA knows who is likely eligible for SDA, it wouldn’t be perfect, but they would cover it a lot better than the market would”.
The event concluded with a great sense of optimism for the future of the NDIS. For the full discussion – the range of barriers and possible improvements, watch a recording of the event above or download the transcript.
Speakers:
John Dardo – Acting Deputy CEO of the NDIA’s Partners, Providers and Fraud Taskforce group
John Dardo joined the NDIA on secondment in August 2022 as Deputy CEO of the newly formed Partners, Providers and Fraud Taskforce group. John is responsible for outward facing interactions with providers, partners in the community, the national contact centre and the recently formed cross-government Fraud Taskforce. John has a longstanding senior executive career in the public service, having previously worked at the Australian Taxation Office and Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
Alecia Rathbone – Chief Social Enterprise Officer, Housing Hub
Alecia Rathbone is the General Manager of Summer Foundation’s social enterprise the Housing Hub, that connects people with disability to appropriate housing. She is responsible for the development and growth of products and services of the social enterprise including the Housing Hub website, where people with disability can search for suitable housing by housing type or location, and the Tenancy Matching Service, which supports people with disability to apply for new property developments across Australia.
Bram Heinrich McPartlan – NDIS participant and SDA tenant
Bram lives with multiple disabilities in fully accessible specialist disability accommodation. Bram found accessing the NDIS a trial and it took multiple attempts to obtain the appropriate housing and supports in their plan. Bram now works casually, does disability advocacy and is grateful for the personal freedom and agency the NDIS has given them.
Paul Simmons – CEO, Ability SDA
Paul Simmons is a registered SDA provider that builds specialist disability accommodation. Together with his wife Angie, Paul founded Ability SDA in 2016 in direct response to the need for high quality SDA in NSW. Paul recognised an opportunity to support people with high physical needs by offering independent living solutions and a better quality of life. Today, Ability SDA has 45 accessible apartments with further developments in the pipeline. With a combination of industry experience in economics, finance, property, aged care and SDA, Paul is driven to build cost effective, beautiful, accessible spaces for vulnerable Australians.
UpSkill will continue to offer training and resources to support coordinators, allied health professionals and other sector professionals assisting people with complex support needs. Check out our upcoming courses for 2023.