Kelly Vincent – 5RPH Interview on the Increase of Children Eligible for the NDIS
29/07/2015
On 29th July 2015, Dignity for Disability MLC Kelly Vincent was interviewed on radio station 5RPH to discuss the large number of children and young people eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and in particular the increase of children with autism registered for the NDIS. Here is the audio and transcript from the interview.
Pam Green: Time now to welcome to 5RPH, Dignity for Disability MLC Kelly Vincent. Hi Kelly.
Kelly Vincent: Hi Pam.
Pam Green: Well look there’s been a lot of discussion the last couple of weeks about the large number of children and young people eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme or the NDIS in South Australia. In fact double the number originally predicted by the state government. What’s going on here, and why aren’t the eligible older children and young people aged between 10 and 14 being rolled into NDIS plans?
Kelly Vincent: Well the crux of the issue here Pam is that there are 10,000 children eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme trial here in South Australia as opposed to the original number of 5,000 eligible children. And there are a couple of reasons for that, but the main reason is there have been come conditions included in the eligibility that weren’t originally included when that original figure of 5,000 was reached. And they include things like non-specific global developmental delay. And so I think the number of children eligible for the trial of the scheme, which is double as you said from what was originally estimated, clearly indicates the level at which this community has been under resourced for many years. And so I think really it’s got less to do with the number of conditions eligible and more to do with the fact that the government has been so under supporting and resourcing this sector for such a long time that we’re now seeing people come out and try to get more support. Now that it is becoming slowly available.
Pam Green: Why are there so many children with autism registering for the NDIS? It’s currently at 46 percent of participants registered for the NDIA plans.
Kelly Vincent: That’s right. 46 percent of children and young people currently are receiving services under the South Australian trial of the NDIS do have an autism diagnosis and I think there are probably a number of reasons for this. One is that the South Australian trial obviously focuses on children and young people here in South Australia and nowadays people do tend to be diagnosed with autism or being on the autism spectrum at a younger age. So I think that has a lot to do with it. The second thing is that we are learning more about autism and the autism spectrum and what it looks like so we’re more able to readily diagnose people with autism or being somewhere on the autism spectrum when previously we may have diagnosed them with something like intellectual disability or some other condition. So I think it’s got to do with the age that the South Australian trial is servicing but also the fact that slowly we are learning more about autism. We have more diagnostic tools and therefore we are able to diagnose it earlier. So I have been disappointed in recent days to hear government representatives going on radio and talking about these children with autism coming out of the woodwork when these children have always existed and they’ve always had a right to access services. It’s just that the level of support wasn’t there for them.
Pam Green: So what needs to happen then to fix this mess by the time the trial finishes here in South Australia on what is it June 30th 2016?
Kelly Vincent: Yes well despite what the government would have you believe according to what has been said on radio in recent days. The problem is not the number of children with autism coming out of the woodwork, because as I said these children have always existed. The problem is that the Commonwealth Government needs to meet its obligation of the bilateral agreement for the scheme and put more money into the scheme to fund this level of children eligible. Because we do have a bilateral agreement which says the Commonwealth Government will fund to support for any children eligible under the scheme now that the scheme has seen a greater influx of participants, up to 10,000. So the Commonwealth Government does need to support these participants and also the State and Commonwealth Governments need to come together and fund more planners for the National Disability Insurance Agency. So the planners are the people who help families and individuals, find out what they’re eligible for, find out what supports would best suit them and make a plan that makes sure they get eligibility for those services. So we need more planners available to take on this caseload of now 10,000 children in South Australia, to ensure that everybody can get a plan and then those planners can then move on to support other people who are waiting for a plan. Because I’m hearing from a lot of people who are technically eligible for a plan, but then they wait for months on end for an initial planning meeting to work out what their plan might look like. So there is most definitely a need for more planners working in this area to support individuals and families to get a plan in place.
Pam Green: As always Kelly thanks for taking the time to talk to us again today. Dignity for Disability MLC, Kelly Vincent.
