I am what you might call a late bloomer.
I recently had my 40th birthday and realised in the last 2 years I have achieved things that most people do in their 20s, I graduated university, got my first full time job, moved out of home and as silly as it might sound, I visited my first night club!
I would like to say that all of my achievements were a result of hard work and dedication (there was a lot of that) but the reality is that I was only able to achieve these goals because this is the first time in my life I have been formally supported and that is all because of the NDIS.
Unlike older funding models, the NDIS is about being able to achieve the goals you want to achieve, you write your own goal, you create a plan of how to achieve your goal and you get the support you need to achieve your goal.
The other thing that is so liberating is that you get the choice to do what you want to do and choose how you want to do it. For example, I used to live in an area where there were very limited service providers available to provide support workers at the times I wanted them to come. I decided I could cut out the middle man and directly hire my support workers.
As a self-managed NDIS participant you can chose to directly hire your staff. This is a wonderful option for people living in rural or regional areas where there aren’t a lot of service providers available. You have the added bonus of being able to pay your support workers a higher wage as you have less administrative fees than a service provider. That’s what I call choice and control.
I am not suggesting this option is something for everyone, there is a bit of extra work you have to do like being responsible for paying wages, taxes, superannuation, workers compensation insurance and other insurances, but this is a choice that I make and it works wonderfully for me. It gives me the option to hire high quality staff who provide the level of care I require and the flexibility to call them up and say, “I want to go out to a nightclub tonight, are you free?”
If you are interested more about learning how to use your NDIS funding, how to self-manage or directly hire your own support staff, Uniting LAC can help you, please contact us on lacinfo@uniting.org or contact your nearest office.