NDIS FAQ

• help a person to reach their goals
• enable participation in the community (social and economic), and
• increase a person’s independence.

The National Disability Insurance Agency is known as NDIA. It is the government organisation set up to implement the NDIS.

After you meet with the NDIS to speak about the supports you need to achieve your goals, you will receive an individual plan. It will include details about your personal goals and needs, details about the supports you will be funded for, and how much funding you will receive for these supports.

To get your first plan going there are four main steps.

• Get in touch with the NDIS and make sure you are eligible for NDIS funding
• Prepare for your NDIS planning meeting by thinking about your goals and the supports you need to achieve those goals
• Attend your NDIS planning meeting
• When your plan arrives, implement your plan by contacting providers and arranging to get services

At the moment, eligibility is determined by three things, your:

• age –  People have to be between 0-65 years of age to sign up to the NDIS
• residency status
• disability

The NDIS will fund ‘reasonable and necessary’ supports needed to meet your needs and achieve your goals. Depending on your goals, the funding in your plan may include the following:

• Core funding– funding that covers functional support needs for daily living and participation and to access community supports and activities.
• Capital funding– funding that covers the purchase of one-off items such as equipment, technology or modifications. It also includes funding for Specialist Disability Accommodation.
• Capacity funding– funding that supports skill building, training, learning, capacity building, accessing employment, improving health and wellbeing and support coordination.

Reasonable and necessary supports must:

• be identified in your NDIS plan as helping you to achieve your goals
• be related to your disability
• help you take part in the community or to find paid work or volunteering work
• not include day-to-day living costs not related to your disability
• represent value for money
• be beneficial to you and be evidence-based (tried and tested), and
• take into account informal family, carer and community support that is available to you.

The NDIS will only fund reasonable and necessary supports needed to meet your needs and achieve your goals.

The NDIS will not replace funding from mainstream services such as education, health, medication or other community services. For example, if you have a disability and need a wheelchair to get around, this will be funded by the NDIS, but it will not pay for medications you need due to having allergies for example.

The NDIS will also not fund anything that is:

• likely to cause harm to you or pose a risk to others
• unrelated to your disability
• part of day-to-day living expenses incurred by the general public and not related to disability support needs (rent, groceries, household bills, etc.)
• related in any way to income replacement.

The funding is not means tested. The only Centrelink payment that may be affected is the mobility allowance.

Your plan is generally automatically reviewed after 12 months. If your circumstances change or you have forgotten something, you can request a review to occur at any time.

The prices for all of Inclusion Melbourne’s NDIS services and supports are in line with the latest NDIS Price Guide.

When a new NDIS Price Guide is issued, the prices for all Inclusion Melbourne supports are adjusted in line with the new guide.

Inclusion Melbourne uses the Temporary Transformation Payment (TTP) prices for some of its services. These will be outlined in your individual service agreement.

Inclusion Melbourne can provide services to you if you are:

·       18 years of age

·        Have an intellectual disability

·        Have NDIS funding and you want to have opportunities to:

•  Build an Identity as a valued member of the community
•  Develop friendships & relationships
•  Engage if further learning and study
•  Make connections in your local community
•  Have support to participate in your community

Then we can offer the following services:

·       Support Coordination

·       Education and Training

·       Personalised Individual Supports

·       Community Support

If you know the services you want or require more information then please contact Inclusion Melbourne and ask to speak to someone about one of the following:

Support Coordination: Inclusion Melbourne Support Coordination can assist you with:

·       The implementation of all supports in your plan, including informal, mainstream and community as well as NDIS funded supports

·       Maximise the value for money you receive from your supports

·       Strengthen and enhance your abilities to coordinate supports and participate in the community

·       Ensure mainstream services meet their obligations

·       Build your capacity to achieve greater independence to self-direct services and supports in the longer term

Education and Training: Inclusion Melbourne is a Registered Training Organisation (TOID 6404) offering Foundation Skills training in literacy, numeracy and life skills.  A list of courses currently being delivered can be found on our Inclusion Training Courses page

Personalised Supports: Personalised Supports involves designing a unique and individual approach to assisting a person to move towards the goals and life they desire. At Inclusion Melbourne, this means there is no “One size fits all” approach to supporting people to achieve their goals. We work together with every person and those who care about them to help imagine, design and begin to live the life they desire. Personalised Supports comprises of:

·       Individual service design to ensure supports are relevant to you

·       Creating inclusive opportunities like volunteering, work and membership in social recreational activities

·       Valued roles leading to greater self-esteem and self-worth

·       Regular lifestyles through community Inclusion

·       Reduced social isolation through relationship and connection in the community

Community Support: Community Support offers the Leisure Buddies service that creates opportunities for participants and their buddies to form lasting meaningful friendships. Buddies meet up on weekends, or after hours on weekdays, and share time together participating in mutually enjoyable activities. The Leisure Buddy service can support and empower an NDIS participant to reach goals. These may be related to building confidence and independence, and increasing social participation community access and engagement. The service aims to foster inclusion and citizenship on behalf of the participant. Skill development and exploring new activities can also be supported.

• At 70 years of age, we are the longest serving disability day support organisation in Victoria for adults with an intellectual disability, and have been delivering a variety of personalised services for over 25 years with a focus on genuine inclusion, belonging and valued roles.
• Our people are friendly, genuine and approachable and are passionate about genuine social inclusion and equality of opportunity
• Inclusion Melbourne’s transformation from the old day service model to personalised services commenced in the early 1990s, placing the organisation well ahead of the current NDIS sector for disability support
• We work alongside you and your family with a shared vision of what you hope to achieve. This means working in partnership and seeking to earn your trust and respect, based on your experiences of our work
• Engaging with Inclusion Melbourne means that you will be working with an organisation who specialises in working with adults with intellectual disability, and who knows about genuinely engaging with and building community

To find out more contact us:

T: 03 9509 4266

E: includeme@inclusion.melbourne