In this webinar, Fighting Chance’s Senior Support Coordinator, Alex Browne, takes a look at accessing (or applying to) the National Disability Insurance Scheme for the first time, including:

• the eligibility criteria for accessing the NDIS, including disability requirements
• what evidence you might need to support your application, and
• what to expect when you look at the Access Request Form (ARF).

Additional resources:

• NDIS Access Request Form
• Access Request – Supporting Evidence Form
• Evidence of psychosocial disability form
• Applying for the NDIS, Booklet 1 of 3
• Creating your NDIS plan, Booklet 2 of 3
• Using your NDIS plan, Booklet 3 of 3
• NDIS Getting started: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
• Information pack – Applying to the NDIS
• Information pack – Creating your plan
• Prompts for Clinician Report / Part F of the NDIS Access Request Form

If you are an NDIS participant and want to live more independently, either now, or in the future NDIS home and living supports may be appropriate to help you achieve that goal. It’s not always straightforward, though, to get the right funding, at the right time. In this webinar, Alex Browne breaks down what you need to know about home and living options into digestible and actionable steps.

• What are the home and living options?
• What’s the difference between Supported Independent Living (SIL), Individualised Living Options (ILO) and Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA)?
• How does home and living funding work/ what is included?
• How do I get home and living funding included in my NDIS plan, and when should I apply for it?

Additional resources: 

1. NDIS Consultation Paper: An Ordinary Life at Home

2. Home and Living Supporting Evidence Form in relation to a person requiring Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA)

3. SDA evidence flow chart (Summer Foundation)

4. NDIS form: Request for Home and Living Supports

5. Determining Need – Identifying Suitable Housing Solutions template

6. NDIS Provider SIL Tool for 2022 / 2023

7. NDIS form: Change of details or situation form

8. NDIS form: Supporting evidence – home and living

In this webinar, we’ll guide you through all things evidence. Relevant to everyone with an NDIS plan, we break down: 

• What does the NDIA mean when they ask for evidence?
• What is the NDIA looking for in clinical reports?
• Examples of how evidence can be translated into NDIS language.
• What to avoid when it comes to providing evidence to the NDIA. 
• If a clinician doesn’t provide sufficient evidence, what can you do?

Additional resources: 

1. NDIS Act 2013 Section 34 Reasonable and Necessary Supports

2. NDIS Rules 2013 pdf

3. NDIS vs Mainstream NDIA Operational Guideline

4. NDIS Know-how podcast: How to craft kick-ass NDIS evidence: part one and part two

5. Plan reassessment or plan variation preparation template

6. NDIS prompts for clinician report: connecting NDIS functional domains, symptoms, functional impact & support

A guide to understanding, accessing and implementing a behaviour support plan under the NDIS. In this webinar, Senior Support Coordinator Alex Browne and Henry Ellen, Behaviour Support Practitioner, deep dive into:

• What is behaviour support?
• Who is behaviour support funding for?
• What is the best way to access behaviour support funding in an NDIS plan?
• What does behaviour support funding include?
• What is the relationship between behaviour support and restrictive practices?

Additional resources: 

• Restrictive Practices Authorisation Procedural Guide. This procedural guide outlines operational processes and guiding principles for registered NDIS providers and practitioners when providing behaviour support that includes restrictive practices to persons receiving funded supports through the NDIS. 

Watch this webinar, where Alex Browne, Fighting Chance Senior Support Coordinator, breaks down:

• What is an independent disability advocate?
• How an advocate can help you
• When to engage and how to find an advocate
• Process for feedback & complaints

Here are some helpful resources that Alex references in the webinar:

• NDIS complaint form (Word)
• NDIS complaint form (PDF)
• NDIS Participant Service Charter
• Ask Izzy (website which points to a variety of different support services, including disability advocacy)
• Disability Advocacy Resource Unit (DARU) – Disability Advocacy Code of Conduct

Watch this webinar, where Alex Browne, Fighting Chance Senior Support Coordinator, breaks down:

• what are ‘Core’, ‘Capacity Building’ and ‘Capital’ funding?
• what do the names of the support categories really mean?
• how do I know which parts of my funding are flexible and which are not?
• how do I know what I can use my funding for?
• how does my choice around funds management impact the flexibility of my funding?

Here are some helpful resources that Alex references in the webinar:

• How to start my NDIS plan with a Support Coordinator
• How to start my NDIS plan with a Local Area Coordinator
• Using your NDIS Plan
• NDIS guide to: Self-management
• Fact sheet: How to make a service agreement
• Fact sheet: Support budgets
• Directly engaging your own staff
• MyPlan Purchase Payment Request Form

Learn how to ‘speak NDIS’. Empower yourself to best prepare the evidence for your plan reassessment and self-advocate towards better plan outcomes.

Join us for this webinar, where Lisa and Alex break down:

– NDIS legislation on “reasonable and necessary” criteria
– Why understanding “reasonable and necessary” can give you the best chance of success in your plan reassessment.
– How you can use your understanding of NDIS language to write your NDIS goal statements, and work with your therapy and support team to ensure that their reports and funding recommendations also address the “reasonable and necessary” criteria

Are you, or a person you support, nearing the end of their school career?

The transition from high school to post-school is a significant time of change: change in routines, change to supports, and a shift in the mindset and identity of the person and their support network.

This webinar will help you to consider:

– what is important to me/my person post-school?
– how does the role of the family and informal supports change post-school?
– what do I want to experience, and how do I want my post-school weeks to look?
– what evidence and reports might I need, to justify the supports and funding that I require after high school finishes?

Here are the resources Lisa references in the webinar: 

NDIS Rules 2013