Larry
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Larry is a support coordinator with an NDIS service provider.
‘My role is to assist a person with a disability to gain access to services, encourage them to take advantage of services available, and to be their link to the NDIS and other programs that may be available.’
Larry also deals with the local area coordinators and planners. He told the Royal Commission that many NDIS employees he met were committed, but are ‘burnt out’.
‘A lady I spoke to today has been with the NDIS for six years, is still not permanent, and has no [long term] contract. Her workload is horrendously large and she was in tears when she spoke to me today.’
Larry said that made it harder for him to support NDIS participants.
‘In my dealings with the NDIS to date, if I get a response inside a month I am doing very well.’
He said the NDIS could take six to eight months to respond to a major change in a participant’s circumstances.
‘Today, I have [a teenager] who is homeless, living on the streets. He suffers from an acquired brain injury from a traffic accident and [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] ADHD, amongst other issues. His plan ran out of funds [several months ago] and he is still on the streets.’
Larry said his support service had no money to help the teenager.
‘We have no clue when the NDIS will respond to this urgent situation. We have no review date, no response from anyone at all.’
A third of Larry’s NDIS participants are in prison.
‘I met with a prisoner last week who is a shell of a person.’
Larry said the man had little access to mental health services in prison.
‘Once in prison, NDIS plans are stopped until they are released. … If a person is released, as they often are, on a Friday, we find out between 3 and 4 pm. Our office is closed so we have no services available and service delivery takes a few weeks to get organised in any event.’
If his support service is told of the release before 3 pm on a Friday, the service tries to contact someone in the NDIS to restore the funding.
‘Then we have to find accommodation and more. Simply put, it is not realistic.’
Larry said without a place to stay, an ex-prisoner with disability ‘quickly becomes a prisoner again’ to avoid becoming homeless.
‘So while Corrections try hard, and the case managers do, too, they struggle with the lack of support or interest from NDIS.’
Larry said the NDIS is ‘bureaucratically out of control’.
‘Why isn't the NDIS involved with prisoners before they get out of prison? All the supports they need, they can't materialise on a whim at 4 pm on a Friday afternoon.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.