Page 401 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 18 March 2014
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receive funding for reasonable and necessary supports under the NDIS. To further ensure equitable access to the NDIS, I can say that in January this year we appointed a gender adviser to the NDIS task force whose role it is to address any institutional or systemic bias which might inadvertently lead to inequitable outcomes.
Using a gender lens, we can explore issues for women, men and transgender-intersex people, and identify ways in which improvements can be made to promote gender equity and to ensure equality of access to the NDIS. The effort and time that people put into their enhanced service offer application was also important preparation for the NDIS. This is information that the National Disability Insurance Agency will need when it meets with the people to develop their NDIS plans.
It is reassuring that we have received much positive feedback from the people who were not actually offered a grant. One woman rang to say that through the application process she had met some people in her neighbourhood who had similar interests to herself and that they have formed an informal art network. Through her new network she has been able to obtain the items she requested funding for.
The enhanced service offer is not the only investment we are making to prepare the community for the NDIS. When I last spoke in this place about the NDIS, I gave some other examples of our investment in initiatives which assist people with disabilities and their families. These initiatives will continue, like the supported decision-making workshops; the self and peer advocacy training, and networks and facilitated community conversations.
We continue to support our community service providers to provide for the launch of the NDIS in other ways as well. We have negotiated with the commonwealth a new $2.1 million package of strategic investment into our local providers and $1.9 million to assist government providers prepare for the NDIS. We have purchased 60 places for community providers to use the NDIS self-assessment toolkit developed by the National Disability Service, the NDS, which is the disability services peak body. This toolkit will assist providers to understand the extent to which they are prepared for the NDIS reform.
An amount of $800,000 is being invested in 40 packages valued at $20,000 each for community providers who need financial and business expertise to build their viability, their governance and their service model to be better positioned for the NDIS. A further $500,000 will be invested in 10 providers that would benefit from complex business advice and mentoring to implement major strategic or structural reform related to the NDIS transition.
Madam Speaker, we are investing an initial $600,000 to ensure that we engage every worker who has direct contact with people with disability, or their families, in a conversation with the NDIS. This includes teachers, community nurses, therapists, people with information and referral roles as well as those who are direct support workers.
This is the start of our work to support the cultural change and capability development that is needed across the sector to position the ACT well for the NDIS. In addition to
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