Council Members talked about the NDIA’s co‑design projects.

Co-design is when people work together to plan something new.

One of the co-design committees is the Information Gathering for Access and Planning Co‑design Steering Committee.

A committee is a group of people who meet to talk about ideas.

Council Members explained how important it is for the committee to tell people about what they are doing.

The committee should also use advice from:

• health professionals

• people with disability and their families.

A grant is money from the government to pay for important work that can help others in the community.

The Information, Linkages and Capacity Building program gives grants to organisations that support people with disability.

We call it the ILC program.

Ms Sarah Guise is a Branch Manager at the Department of Social Services (DSS).

Sarah shared the work DSS has done on the ILC program.

Sarah told us about a new grant to support businesses to hire people with disability.

She also told us that funding for 350 ILC grants will last until June 2024.

This is longer than they were supposed to last.

Sarah also told us DSS is making an ILC Strategy.

A strategy is a plan for how they will do things in the future.

She told us DSS have to wait until after the government reviews the NDIS.

Then they will finish the Strategy.

DSS are also working on:

• a new way to share how well grants are working

• ways to use more funding far away from cities and towns

• making ILC grants more accessible.

Council Members shared what they think about the work on the ILC program.

Members explained the ILC program should support small organisations to apply for grants.

Organisations who get ILC grants should have a place to share information and support.