Anyone started with the NDIS?

Hi @CheerBear good on you for being proactive with NDIS. 2 things spring to mind. 1. you can ask for a different date postponing your planning meeting if you're not ready for it and 2. lots of people on fb recommend having a face to face meeting rather than doing it over the phone. I did and it worked out really well. I had a (free) disability advocate helping too (google them, they're in every state). If you've got a planning meeting it sounds like they have accepted you already. The questions at my planning meeting in early July were almost identical to the ones I posted here. The focus was entirely on daily function and I stress you need to present to them what your worst days are like.

The primary focus is proving permanence (lifelong) of your 'psychosocial' disability (mental health diagnosis) even if it is episodic, and going into detail of the way it effects your function in the five areas that are on the initial application form (which I hope you kept a copy of). There has to be significant functional impairment in at least one or two of those areas.

To prove permanence my psychologist had to report something like .... even with ongoing therapy it would only 'ameliorate' my symptoms and help me manage better daily, that it would not be a cure as such.

Truly hoping that there is plenty that helps you in this thread and wishing you well for this stage of the process.

For anyone preparing for a planning meeting or starting their application I found the page numbers on this thread of really helpful suggestions that were spot on for me

p56 Mapping My World booklet, Endeavor Foundation

p57 List of questions you will be asked at the planning meeting

@CheerBear I realized you already saw them.

@JasJac @Queenie @Tight-Control

I've only had to go on the myGov website once, to activate my plan. NDIS sends you an access code when you get your plan. My Plan Manager helped me and since then she takes care of all invoices, getting the funds from NDIS and paying them. If you ask to be plan managed and it is approved it will be funded in your plan. It gives you the most freedom about what supports you use (compared to Agency managed where NDIS does it all and you have to use NDIS registered providers), while at the same time removing the daunting and stressful tasks of self-managing. There is information about these 3 choices re managing your plan on their website.

Hi @CheerBear did you get a good plan with enough funds to do what you need and want to do over the next 12 months? How are you going with putting supports in place?

Hey @CheerBear congratulations for your overall result - you deserve it.

As far as I know (from something that happened with my plan) funds that are in 'core supports' (ie not capacity building or assistive technology) can be moved between categories within core. Maybe that will help you.

I hope self-managing works well for you. I know it would be beyond my capabilities. You might want to look at HireUp for support workers. They are all independent. It's a brilliant set up and has plenty of people available over the festive season.

Maybe searching for mental health trained support workers might help you bridge that gap @CheerBear. Or your psychologist might help you put that kind of support in place.

Also I think if you have funding for a Coordinator of Supports part of their role is to help those self-managing to learn how. It's probably a capacity building line item that they'd charge for on top of getting their payment for CoS direct from NDIS. Dunno, just maybe.

It's such a steep learning curve isn't it... brave you!