If you are a person living with a disability, you need to make the most of the existing National Disability Insurance Scheme for the Disabled Population to your own advantage. New opportunities are opening up for PLWD communities. Find out more.
About National Disability Insurance Scheme
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a scheme of the Australian Government that finances costs associated with disability. The scheme was legislated in 2013 and went into full function in 2020.
The scheme is championed by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and overseen by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (NDIS Commission). Bill Shorten delivers ministerial oversight as Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The NDIS works to determine the support needed by the disabled to achieve goals in many aspects of their lives. This may include independence, involvement in your community, education, employment, and health and well-being. It provides greater choice and control over how and when they receive their support and ensures they receive the support they need while still alive.
What is the Most Important Purpose of the National Disability Insurance Scheme?
What are the Principles of the National Disability Insurance Scheme?
Since the NDIS was created as a world-first approach to disability support, it places people with disability at the center of decision-making, through the principles of reasonable and necessary support and individual choice and control. As an insurance-based scheme, it takes a lifetime approach to a participant’s support needs.
NDIS however aims to support people to live their life. This factors in independence, involvement in the community, education, employment, and health and well-being of these individuals. It also gives people more choice and control over how, when, and where support is provided. NDIS is tailored to give certainty over the support somebody receives over their lifetime.
However, this assistance from the NDIS is not means-tested and has no impact on income support, such as the disability support pension and carers allowance.
Anyone with a disability can ask for information and referrals, including families and carers of people with a disability. This can include better access to information about the most effective support options, links to local support groups, clubs, and programmes, or referrals to relevant community services and supports.
NDIS works with families and caregivers to ensure the support they give can be sustainable. The caregiver’s role is considered when developing plans with participants including the support they provide, other responsibilities, and their own life plans. Some folks with disabilities may want the support of family and carers to make informed decisions.
Support is also available to help the disabled and their families to implement their plan where required – either through a Local Area Coordinator or where more complex, as a funded support in their plan.
What are the 7 Elements of the NDIS Code of Conduct?
This guide will help you, as a person who works with people with a disability, to become familiar with the appropriate and ethical conduct expected under the Code of Conduct.
This Code of Conduct requires consideration of values and beliefs relating to culture, faith, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexuality, age, and disability in line with the NDIS Code of Conduct that has been introduced for workers under the National Disability
Insurance Scheme to ensure the safety and well-being of people with a disability.
- Act with respect for individual rights to freedom of expression, self-determination, and decision-making in accordance with applicable laws and conventions. This is because all individuals with a disability have full and equal human rights to make their own decisions, live how they choose, and receive the support they need.
- Respect the privacy of people with a disability because they bear the right not to have their personal information disclosed to others without their informed consent – unless mandatory reporting is required.
- All workers under the NDIS are expected to deliver support and services in a safe and competent manner, with care and skill. You must hold and maintain the required qualifications and skills.
- Operate with integrity, honesty, and transparency. Integrity and honesty are essential to developing trust between you and people with a disability, so you must be transparent about your qualification and any limits on your competencies.
- Promptly take steps to raise and act on concerns about matters that may affect the quality and safety of support and services provided to people with disability.
- Take all reasonable steps to eliminate and respond to all forms of violence against, and exploitation, neglect, and abuse of, people with a disability. You should work with your NDIS provider to decrease and eliminate restrictive practices. This includes behaviour that has to do with seclusion, chemical, mechanical, physical, or environmental restraint.
- Take all reasonable measures to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct. People with a disability have a right to sexual expression and to nurture and maintain sexual relationships. However, they are at an increased risk of all kinds of sexual violence and sexual misconduct.
What NGO Supports the Disabled in Nigeria?
The key NGOs that back people with disabilities in Nigeria include the National Association of the Blind, Nigeria National Association of the Deaf, National Association of Persons with Physical Disabilities, National Association of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities, and Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD), etc.
Going further, JONAPWD is an umbrella establishment for persons with disability established in Nigeria to promote the rights and development of Nigerians with disabilities.
The organization represents the interests of the teeming population of persons with disabilities at the local and international levels. JONAPWD is a full-fledged fellow of the International body called Disabled People’s International (DPI). It serves as a connection between Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) in Nigeria and the international community.
JONAPWD is presently comprised of six disabled groups which are the Blind, the physically disabled, the deaf, the intellectually impaired, those with spinal cord injuries, and leprosy victims.
Which States in Nigeria have Disability Laws?
Impressively Nigeria has some states that have enacted disability laws and they include Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Ogun, Osun, Katsina, Kebbi, Gombe, Rivers, Taraba, and Yobe.
Nonetheless, the CCD called on other State governments to follow the lead of the above-mentioned states and take appropriate measures to protect their citizens with disabilities through the adoption of the Disability Act as insurance for the health and concerns of people living with disabilities in their states.
Take Home
The NDIS is a welcome development that needs to be embraced worldwide since it provides financial support to eligible people with disability or to volunteer in their community and improved their quality of livelihood. Take advantage of the NDIS if you are living with a disability.
