Finding childcare is difficult at the best of times but when your child has a neurodevelopmental condition it's almost impossible.
One centre that specialises in kids with autism is achieving incredible results with its early intervention program.
Parents were happy and their kids were achieving things they never thought possible but now this special place is being threatened by funding cuts.
Finding childcare is difficult at the best of times but when your child has a neurodevelopmental condition it's almost impossible. One centre that specialises in kids with autism is achieving incredible results with its early intervention program. (A Current Affair)
Statement from the National Disability Insurance Agency
The National Disability Insurance Agency's priority remains ensuring every participant, including young children receiving support through the Early Childhood Approach, has access to the disability-related support they need.
There has been no change to what is and is not covered under the NDIS.
The Scheme does not and has never funded childcare.
The NDIS funds specialist supports for children with developmental delay and disability and their families that addresses the significant functional impacts of the delay or disability so the child can participate in family and community life.
The Government recently introduced a list of approved NDIS supports lists.
These lists are reflective of previous practice, and aim to make it clearer for participants and providers how NDIS funding can be used.
The NDIS does not fund programs or providers; it provides funding to individuals based on their specific needs.
The NDIA is not systematically reducing or cutting funding for early childhood early intervention or therapy supports in children's plans, or dropping support for intensive evidence-based supports, and it would be wrong to suggest this.
Average payments to participants with autism under 18 for the year ending 30 September 2024 increased by 6% from $22,600, to $24,000.
Children with high and complex support needs can receive significantly higher levels of funding than this average, reflecting the range of supports that they need to participate in family and community life.
When considering whether to fund specific supports, including therapies, the Agency makes decisions in accordance with the NDIS Act, and based on the individual circumstances and evidence provided about the child and their specific impairments.
The NDIA has met regularly with AEIOU executives including to discuss their obligations to ensure responsible delivery of supports in line with individual plan budgets for participants.
AEIOU regularly requests that the Agency review individual plans of children that they support with a view to having funding levels increased, so families can pay for the AEIOU program.
The Agency will review a plan where it has the consent of the family. Families are advised of their review rights and are given a MyNDIS contact, as well as a contact point with a NDIA Partner in the community to discuss any issues they may have with their child's plan.
Following previous concerns raised by AEIOU with the Agency and through the media, the NDIA undertook a review of participant records referred by AEIOU, with family consent, to determine if AEIOU's suggestions about risks to participant wellbeing were correct.
The review found original planning decisions provided an appropriate amount of capacity building budget in the vast majority of cases.
In a small number of cases, circumstances of the child had changed and so a review was undertaken.
A small number of families were involved in formal review processes. No issues of safety and wellbeing were identified.
However payment claims against many children's plans by AEIOU were identified to be at an unsustainable levels with the risk of funding being exhausted.
The Agency welcomes AEIOU's decision to offer their program for children part-time, to access supports with their available NDIS funding.
Families are able to select the providers to deliver the supports specified in their child's plan.
The NDIA does not make those decisions for families, however they are required to send in accordance with their child's plans.
Editorial: The issue here is severely autistic children accessing early intervention, not childcare. The NDIS's failure understand the difference shown in their response raises serious concerns about the organisation's competence.
When families are prepared to ask the AAT/ART to review their child's NDIS plan, the vast majority of plans have their funding increased. The NDIA relies to people's unwillingness to contest NDIS decisions, to go against a government agency, in a legal system owned and run by the government. Australia's treatment of severely autistic children is not fair or just.