The National Disability Insurance Scheme will create at least 36 new jobs when it comes to the south-west on October 1.
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The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) is responsible for delivering the NDIS and will have 10 staff located in the Centrelink offices.
The NDIA’s community partner, Latrobe Community Health Service, will employ about 20 people at its new Warrnambool offices on Raglan Parade.
There will also be two people at each of its offices in Camperdown, Hamilton and Portland. The Port Fairy office will be open at least one day a week.
Most staff are locals and are undergoing training in preparation for the roll-out.
NDIA regional manager of Victoria west Deb Connock said Latrobe Community Health’s role as the local area coordinator was to work with individual participants to create and help implement a plan. The participant then purchased the support they needed from the provider of their choice, she said.
The NDIA’s role is to fund those plans, (as well as create plans for the few complex cases). “We fund participants, we don’t fund providers,” Ms Connock said. The NDIS was not a one-size-fits-all approach. “It’s absolutely an individualised scheme,” she said.
Ms Connock said every participant would get a plan – which was reviewed at least annually - based on what was needed as well as what their goals were. “There can be variances across people who have a similar disability but different circumstances. The funds in their plan will reflect their own circumstances and their own needs,” she said.
About 2800 people in the Wimmera South West region are expected to transition to the NDIS, but hundreds more who have never received state or federal government funding may now be eligible.
Ms Connock said providers in the region who had been delivering disability support services for a long time, would continue to so.
Latrobe Community Health area manager Leeanne Thomson said the scheme would be implemented in phases, and people who have been on waiting lists will be phased in first.
“One of the most exciting things about the scheme is there are so many families out there that have never accessed any services before that will have access and be able to get the supports that they’ve never got before,” she said.
“Choice and control is another exciting aspect of the scheme. Previously people were told what they could have, now they are the consumer and they can pick and choose their providers.”
Ms Thomson said historically there had been people who had needed equipment and had to spend large amounts out of their own pockets. “That’s another exciting part of the scheme, it’s an insurance model and if someone needs a new wheelchair, then that will be covered by the scheme,” she said.
