Reference Group members connected with the community to find out about issues that affect them.

This includes issues that affect participants.

Members shared reports about these issues with the NDIA.

People from the NDIA also shared their response to some of these issues.

Reference Group members talked about:

• new changes to the NDIS
• the affect the new changes will have.

Members shared their thoughts as:

bullet people with disability

bullet participants

bullet carers of participants.end of list

The NDIA:

• gave an update on the new changes to the NDIS
• answered members questions about the new changes.

Reference Group members said people in the community are worried about losing funding for some supports.

For example, community supports.

Funding is money from a participant’s NDIS plan that pays for the supports they need.

An NDIS plan has information about:

• a participant and their goals
• what supports they need
• what the NDIS will pay for.

Members said this might affect participants in a bad way.

For example, it will stop participants from being able to use their NDIS plan in different ways.

Members also said it makes them feel stressed about what else might change in the future.

Reference Group members said some people in the community are not happy about how much the NDIS costs.

Sometimes the news talks about participants in a bad way when it talks about changes to the NDIS.

This causes a lot of participants to feel hurt and upset.

Members also said there are things that make it harder for some participants to use the NDIS.

These things can mean some people with disability don’t have the same experience with the NDIS.

Reference Group members asked the NDIA about how they will protect participants from funding changes.

Members are worried that losing funding for some supports will put some people at risk of harm.

For example, participants who are at risk of family and domestic violence.

Family and domestic violence is when someone close to you hurts you, such as:

• your partner, like your boyfriend or girlfriend
• a member of your family
• someone who takes care of you
• someone you live with.

Members said they had only heard about ways to:

• keep the NDIA safe
• protect providers.

Providers support people with disability by delivering a service.

The NDIA said it wants to work with the community as they make changes to the NDIS.

But it can be hard to talk about changes to the NDIS right away.

This is because the NDIA have to wait for the Australian Government to finish changing the laws.

The NDIA told members they want to make sure the NDIS:

• works well
• lasts for a long time.

Members said the community also know how important the NDIS is for the future.

Reference Group members talked about support needs assessments.

Support needs assessments help the NDIA work out:

• how a person’s disability affects their life
• what supports a person needs.

Members said the assessors need to read about participants before the meeting.

An assessor is someone who runs a support needs assessment.

This is to make sure assessors know what information the NDIS needs or doesn’t need.

Members said a lot of NDIS information about participants might be old.

The NDIA said they’re hiring more assessors.

This includes 200 assessors from their staff.

Reference Group members said information about changes to the NDIS is still:

bullet confusing

bullet not reaching the right people.end of list