When you get the call to arrange your transfer/transition meeting it can feel a little daunting but in this short story below, a Mum who attended the NDIS planning meeting for her 28-year-old daughter, shares her experience and a few tips that made the meeting a positive experience, while ensuring the needs of her daughter were fully heard.
“I received a call from the NDIS to arrange my daughter’s NDIS Plan transfer meeting and on that phone call I made it clear that I would be bringing my daughter, two of her support workers and a chosen representative from the disability support organisation (DSO) that I chose to help me with my daughter’s WANDIS plan and who I planned on continuing to use once her plan was transferred to NDIS.”
The NDIS representative was absolutely fine with it – she had to be because you are allowed to take whoever you want to a planning meeting. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
Prior to the meeting, I spent time:
– Checking my daughter’s WANDIS plan, writing down any changes in her circumstances over the previous year that would need to be reviewed and therefore may require additional support.
– Thought about the future with regard to work/microenterprise and decided to request Finding and Keeping a Job funding. This is 150 hours of support across the year that helps an NDIS participant through a discovery process to work out what kind of workplace environment they would like to be part of, whether it is supported employment or developing their own microenterprise.
– Filled out a skills assessment form of the things my daughter can and cannot do. I did this to give to the planner so that she understood where my daughter is at with regard to her support requirements.
– Collected all my daughter’s recent allied therapy reports e.g. speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy reports. Took copies of them with me to leave with the planner.
– Took a copy of my daughter’s WANDIS plan too.
At the meeting, the planner worked her way through my daughter’s plan saying that it all looked pretty straightforward with regard to transferring over to the NDIS. However, there was one area that required a bit of discussion around my daughter’s living arrangments. My daughter lives in her own home with support and in her WANDIS plan was funded to have supported independent living. In NDIS supported independent living means a person is in a group home environment – my daughter’s living arrangement is certainly not a group home and never will be. This meant the Planner had to work out where that portion of funding would come from. The planner informed us that NDIS is working reflectively around individual circumstances like ours and would discuss with her team leader to ensure my daughter’s supports would be like for like. Luckily my DSO representative also had knowledge around this area of funding and was able to support me in the discussions around the support required for my daughter.
The meeting finished after about an hour and I was very happy with the way it went; I felt that my daughter’s needs had been heard, I felt supported and I felt confident that the NDIS was on my side and definitely not out to slash funding and make life difficult for my daughter.” Karen R.