Changing roles under
the NDIS
The introduction of the National
Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) affects us all. Not just through an
increase in the Medicare Levy. The scheme reminds each of us we are only
one serious accident away from a permanent disability and need for
assistance ourselves.
Imagine if you had a horse riding
accident tomorrow and your spinal cord is broken at the bottom of your neck.
The good news is you survive and are eligible for assistance under the NDIS,
this can be organised while you spend up to the next 12 months in
a rehabilitation hospital, as one
of the priorities of the funding is early intervention program to get you 'back
into life again'.
The bad news is you will never be able
to move anything below your lower neck again and you will need to access 24
hour care for the rest of your life. When you go to bed at night someone will
need to come in and turn you every few hours so you don't get a pressure sore.
You are now dependent on somebody else for everything. You can't
even starch you nose.
More bad news you have a physical
disability. You intellectual process, thoughts and feelings are
all as there were before. You are lucky! You can still speak and
voice your thoughts and feelings and soon every therapist, doctor and
nurse is going to know about it.
Each person that walks or wheels into
your room for the next 12 months is going to have the opinions on,
'how you can put your life back together'. You are forced to listen and proceed
with your daily therapy. While you are feeling unheard you are
also grieving for you loss of mobility and the life you once knew.
It gets worst you are a
professional support worker, you know how to help people with
disabilities, you know what you want and you can still communicate this
clearly, but your wishes are often dismissed. Instead you receive constant
reminders you are the patient. . .
Relax . . . this is not your current
reality and I hope no one reading this ever experience this reality. Because
the funding for NDIS is so individualized the best way to providing
training and understanding of how this new system works is to provide examples.
The priorities for funding under the
NDIS are very different to what is currently here in Queensland. Under the
National Disability Insurance Scheme, the funding priorities are early
intervention, access to therapies, medical aids, mobility aids and
technologies; education; employment; accessing public transport and buildings,
meaningful community participation, access to the arts and sporting
participation.
Despite popular misconception, the
introduction of the NDIS is not a change in funding roles between the state and
federal governments. Under the NDIS funding is assigned to and individual or
family based on the goals and lifestyle choices. Rather than a diagnoses made
by a doctor at birth or time of injury. For the first time a person’s
funding package will look at all their needs and how best to enable them to
achieve their own lifestyle
goals.
This is not merely a changing of
the guard or a change in who is paying the bills. The choices clients and
their families will make about their own lives. A change which will be directly felt by
support workers who work one-on-one with clients. For the first time clients
and/or their families will be able to chose the service or services they want
to access for their support needs.
These revolutionary changes will be
based on the clients lifestyle choices (ie to life independently in their
own home near the beach); and their goals and aspiration (eg to play
basketball in the Australian Special Olympics team). Support to attend
training and travel to tournaments with be a large feature in this person
support package. My recommendation is the person who supports this person
will need to be both fit and a early rises.
This fundamental shift to funding
being assigned based on individual lifestyle and goals, will see a big shake up
in how and when clients are supported and the
organisation that is most suitable to support them.
While support has always been based on
a goal, (such as to enable the client to leave the house), all their goals and
how they will achieve them is now determined by them and their families or
careers. This is their lives, their dreams, their goals
and their choices! The NDIS is ALL ABOUT CHOICE.
MY
LIFE! MY CHOICE!
SELF-DIRECTED
FUNDING
Regardless our how you view you're client’s
ability to make choices, around their lifestyles. As a support worker it is
your job to assist your client to achieve their goals. If their goal is
to organised a surprise party for their dad's 80th Birthday, but you
doubt their ability to achieve and afford the party, as a professional support
worker your role is only to enable the client to achieve throwing a
successful party. Whether they then occur a debt, under the rules of the
NDIS is their choice and their responsibility.
Until now in Queensland people with
disabilities and their families have had little choice on who will support
them, when they will be supported and what they will be support to do.
Currently, the Department of Communities undertakes an assessment and
decides the types of support you need e.g. community support, personal care,
in-house, respite care and how many hours that will before. They then place you
with a service that will provide that support.
Despite popular beliefs held by
support workers a number of factors which currently determine the way you
support clients. This includes their diagnoses, the type of disability (e.g.
physical disability); whether the disability is progressive; even their post
code. The chances are whether you are on a in-house support shift or a
community access shift has not been determined by your boss, but the
Departments of Communities.
It always amuses me when my staff complain they weren't told what we were we're
doing on a particular day. As they are always informed Debbie will tell you
what she needs when you arrive at her place. The fact that my support plan
clearly states my support will be center around my needs at the particular time
of the shift (I might wake up vomiting and that will change what I had planned
for the day.) I am a real person and real people get sick). The change with the introduction of
the NDIS is that clients no longer need to negotiate with the
scope of what 'my needs at the time of the shift' means.
Self-directed funding means the client
choose who will support them, which what activities the will be supported
and when they will receive their support. Without a support service being in
control of a client's funding, the division of funds will be directed by the
client or their guardian. So if a client wishes to be supported at a time when
higher penalty rates are paying and receive less hours of support, under the
NDIS that is their choice.
The major priority for funding under the new NDIS is to ensure the human
rights of all Australians with a disability and their families are upheld. Just
as you have the right to choose things like where you send your children to
school and what type of work you do. People living with disability and their
families have the same basic
rights regardless of the intellectual ability.
Under NDIS even the Adult Guardian Board will be held more accountable to ensure its
client have access to choice and the way they are cared for. The NDIS is very
much about empower people with disabilities to exercise their right of choice.
It may interest you to know current there are 30 articles on the Human Rights
For People with Disabilities. Currently there are
hearings occurring in Geneva around Australia's record in
upholding the rights of people living with disabilities. As recently as
September the Australian Government was using the introduction of the NDIS as
its defence and omission that until now it has been in violation of the
convention and these articles. The stakes for getting
the implementation of the NDIS spot on are very high.
The changes we are
about experiences are fundamental and will be felt far beyond
the disability sector. These are changes that demand dignity and
respect of all people living with disabilities and a goal of
social inclusion. Therefore will
be felt:-
- The Public Health System
- The Public Trust
- Private Therapist
- Education System
- Public and Private Schools
- Transport System
- Equipment Providers
- Public Housing
- Telecommunications
- Technology Specialist
- Medical Providers
- and Support Services Providers of course.
As the framework for this new model of
social reform was being developed under the guidance of the Productivity
Commissioner, people with disabilities and their families were very clear
the things they wanted the NDIS to achieve the most is social inclusion
with meaningful participation in their community.
They have asked for specific things to be included such as education,
employment, an end to underemployment, accessibility to bookshops,
libraries, restaurants; recreational activities, sports, sporting
venues, gyms, and theaters.
People were very,
very specific and very clear on what the visions was for
the future. Remember the person in the hospital who was told they would need 24
care, their minds, their thoughts, the feelings, their passions and their
dreams are still present. Their vision about a future living with a disability
is now taking shape. Their ideas to will be wishes on how they want to be
supported will too clearly stated at the right time.
The person you next support to develop
a lifetime support map, could be your husband, your daughter, your grandson or
your father. What kind of choices would you want to enable them to make?
Would you be happy for them to go see a movie every day? Or sit fishing
in the summer sun for six hours? If you was the person with the spinal
injury and you wanted to stay in bed an hourly longer or have a PJ day; how
would you feel if you were made to get up and get dressed?
With the National Disability Insurance Scheme, trips to the beach, a night at
the movies or local pub aren't on any agenda under this reform. The
game has changed. Yes, I am sure some clients, who will chose to
be continued supported in same way they have always been supported.
The NDIS means We're no longer debating over a clients right to watch an
adult movie or get drunk. Our role is now about demanding buildings are
accessible. Assisting the client to apply for work or choosing a swimming coach; engaging
an advocate so your client can join a choir (as an intellectual disabilities doesn't affect
the voice, just the way you need to teach the person the words.)
If clients are genuinely continuing disappointed with the service
receive and/or if the feel their choices are not herd, NDIS gives them the freedom to go to another
service.
I know there are people who like to
complain and nothing ever seems good enough for them. Want to know how I
know this?
Well, I spend about 10 hours every listing to support workers complaining about
everything from the husband not putting the wheelie bin out the night before;
the neighbours setting traps for the cats because they’re not keeping them in
at night; being cheated on by boyfriend; clients not answering the door; shifts
either being too short or too long and then of course there’s the weather.
Excuse me - I the one sitting in the wheelchair, I really need to start
charging counselors rates, as my degree is in Behavioural Science.
For some workers . . . should I chose to complain, I am accused of
being hormonal! The fact I have a disability somehow the gives me a
hassle free life. Go figure! (For the record that was the week I wrote three
grant submissions!)
If clients are upset for the right reason they will change their provider, just
like you won't return to the hairdresser who didn't listen to you. The game has change!
