NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework – Building participants’ capacity discussion
Information is an important safeguard because some people will find it difficult to exercise choice and control unless they have access to high-quality, meaningful and credible information about support delivery and providers.
The support of family, carers and community will also be an important safeguard for people with disability.
It is vital to actively support participants in developing their self-advocacy and decision-making skills, exercising their rights and using available information to make well-informed choices.
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12 comments on NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework – Building participants’ capacity discussion
Keep it simple!
Website not overloaded and unmanageable. Funds for regular software and hardware upgrades, ongoing funds for staff to manage the website information. Keep the language simple, relevant and uptodate.
Annual report available with results in a prominent position each providers website of where they stand against a list of quality, measureable and acceptable standards of services and costings.
Use social media.
Expos – this is the best place to have face to face meetings with providers and staff. Let’s look at services. Good place for health providers and other services from other areas to be involved as well,
People need to know where providers are and the services they provide. There needs to be an easy way to discover the services within a given area.
yes a local flow chart with all service providers and what they provide. I can see a lot of money being wasted!
There are quite a few FB pages being set up by individuals to try to meet the gaps that the NDIS is creating. Here are links to a couple that may be of use.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/239631286154106/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/834629726596280/
People with disability can learn new skills – it may take longer, and they may learn in a different way, but they can learn – with the right support. Skills around keeping safe, like decision making and speaking up when things aren’t going well are important safeguards for people. But regardless of all the capacity building that might be done, its still important that independent advocates are there to keep an eye on things and support people to speak up when they need to. Advocates can also help people to learn new skills by showing them a way to approach something and supporting them to do it themselves. I see advocacy as a capacity building thing as well as a preventative thing and someone to help when things go wrong.
Even trying to get onto this web page has been a trial for me. And I am not the only one.
Thanks for letting us know you had problems registering Greenforestfairy.
In order to make it easier for people to participate in the consultation process you can now fill out a questionnaire or make a submission without registering first.
You will still need to register to participate in the discussion pages though. In most cases, the issue is that the confirmation email has been directed to your spam folder, so we suggest checking your email filter system.
If that doesn’t resolve the problem, please contact us through the email address on the web page.”
My daughter will need life long advocacy. What is the NDIS doing to provide that?
I think that using nursing homes for the elderly to care for young people with brain injuries should stop. Young people with brain injuries should be cared for in facilities that are age appropriate and helped to engage in activities and experience things that are suited to their time of life.
Developing self advocacy skills requires participants valuing their own voice and having the perception that their voice, their self determination is valued. It seems to me that we need to build a capacity to encourage input and self determination from those participants who are fearful or dubious regarding their own capacity. This should start at the initial contact between the NDIA and the prospective participant. Once a person is a participant their planner should emphasise self determination and begin a dialogue focused on what this means and how it might come about.
Currently there seems to be a range of approaches adopted by planners. These occupy a spectrum from total deference to and encouragement of the participant’s direction to planner direction based on the participants outline. This range of approaches is magnified by a planner’s interpretation of the guidelines under which they work. Thes guidelines need to be reviewed to (1) clarify and remove ambiguities (2) deal with possible conflicts between planner guidelines and the ethos of the NDIS act and (3) intensify efforts to have planners see their role as supporting and facilitating the plans of participants, rather than primarily as guardians of resources and determiners of priority. Ultimately, though oversight is essential, the role of the planner should change to a role of Facilitator.
Advocacy agencies are an important part of building an individual’s capacity. A disability advocate has a special and trusted relationship with their client, and is ideally placed to assist the person learn about the NDIS, and exercise their rights under the new scheme. It is also important that the advocate is there for the times things go wrong with the NDIA or a service provider. It is much easier for someone to turn to a person they already know than to go back to square one and try to build a relationship with a new person. Advocates are also accustomed to working with families and carers to the benefit of the person with a disability.
You asked the question “What approaches to delivering information, such as web-based information, peer review sites and consumer expos, might best meet participant information needs?”
From the NDIA Family and Carers Webinar yesterday, it seemed pretty clear that most participants value a positive relationship with some sort of service provider, whether that’s a therapist, local area coordinator, planner or other. Perhaps the best way to share information is for these service providers to be accessing it (maybe through an email/list serve) and share it with the participants where relevant. For some people, any form of written information electronic or hard copy either doesn’t get to them, or gets lost. Having people they have a positive relationship with provide this information might be another way to ensure that it reaches them. As well as the electronic and hard copy form as well.
This may benefit those people who don’t access the internet or see a lot of information about the NDIS, as they will likely come into contact with some service provider at one stage who can help to explain their rights.
Often first point of contact is through the hospital after the event (or an incident from the event). So again, it will be very important for service providers to assist those people in accessing the NDIS. Therefore using those resources will be invaluable to pass on information.