What do we need to do to be ready? Some reflections.

1. What do we need to do to be ready? Some reflections. Professor Lesley Chenoweth Centre for Community Science Griffith Health Institute, Griffith University

2. Outline • Preparing • Service sector • People with disabilities • Families and allies • The “mainstream” • Some Reflections

3. Service sector • New service models – private, public, community businesses • Funding models – shift from block funding, need for other revenue streams • Workforce issues – staff recruitment, training • National Disability Services projects – workforce, national training, boards, leadership, change management etc

4. Disability Service Organisations

5. People with disabilities and families • Whole spectrum of experience, readiness and knowledge • In Qld hundreds of people and families have been self directing and/or self managing for years • But others have little or no experience • Need to prepare before the planning assessment process under NDIS.

6. People with disability and families

7. People with disabilities and families UK Experience The idea that a service user could become a rational, calculating ‘consumer’, able to ‘shop around’ and express preferences through ‘exit’, did not match the complex reality of quasi-markets operating within tight resource limits. (Scourfield, 2007)

8. Mainstream services & supports • Provided by other government agencies and funding organisations - Health, Education, Employment, Transport • NDIS supports coordinate with, but are not meant to replace or duplicate, mainstream (or informal) supports • Participants plans will include what the Scheme will fund for participants and those supports which are the responsibility of the other mainstream systems.

9. Mainstream services & supports Education • NDIS will “fund supports that enable participants to attend education, where these supports are required by the participant to engage in a range of community activities” • BUT will not cover uniforms, fees, excursions etc

10. Mainstream services & supports Health • NDIS will “fund supports that assist a participant to undertake activities of daily living required due to the person’s disability – includes aids and equipment, home modifications and allied health and other therapy required as a result of the participant’s impairment, including physiotherapy, speech therapy or occupational therapy.” • BUT health system - diagnosis, assessment and treatment of health conditions. Includes: • clinical services, such as general practitioners, care while admitted in hospital, surgery, the cost of medical specialists, dental care, medications and pharmaceuticals. • sub-acute care such as palliative care, and post-acute care, including nursing care for treating health conditions and wound management.

11. Mainstream services & supports AND • Employment • Housing • Transport • Child care • Recreation • Private practitioners – providers of therapy etc • ?

12. Reflections /Questions • Where are disability service organisations at currently? • What is happening for people with disability and families to develop capacity and readiness? • How ready are mainstream services to welcome and include people with disabilities? • What services haven’t been considered? • Aboriginal & Torres St Islanders, CALD peoples, those in rural remote areas

13. Reflections /Questions • Lot of uncertainty – e.g. there are many changes mooted at the Federal level – what will any changes for example in funding, time lines, Medicare mean and how can we prepare? • Vast amount of information – can everyone access it and make sense of it? • For Queensland – being last in the roll out may be a good thing!