NDIS

Perspectives Newsletter - May/June 2015.The development of the National Disability Insurance Scheme ( NDIS ) is overwhelmingly a positive direction for healthcare in Australia. It has great potential to improve the lives of people with psychosocial disability associated with mental illness. However, if we are to meet the needs of these people it is absolutely crucial that we take action now to get the broad architecture of the scheme right.

In this update, read about a recent Mental Health Australia NDIS Consumer and Carer Advisory Group Meeting; mental health papers published by the National Disability Insurance Agency ( NDIA ); the National Disability Services ( NDS ) Innovation and High Performance Workshop; the NDS NDIS Provider Toolkit and measures relating to the NDIS in the Commonwealth Budget.

Mental Health Australia calls for more supported decision making for people with psychosocial disabilities, as part of the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework.

In this update we discuss the NMHC ’s Review of Mental Health Programmes and Services, outcomes from a Consumer and Carer Workshop on Capacity Building for the NDIS , a communique from the latest NDIA Mental Health Sector Reference Group meeting, training opportunities for psychosocial disability service providers and a new website intended to become an Australian Disability Service Directory.

In this update, read about consultation on the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework, Mental Health Australia’s submission to DSS on the NDIS Information, Linkages and Capacity Building Framework and a recent publication by Hunter Partners in Recovery.

This brief for members of Mental Health Australia highlights the key points of a consultation paper recently released by DSS on the proposed NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework. Further information is available at https://engage.dss.gov.au/ndis-qsf/ . Submissions can be made online by 5pm on 30 April 2015.

Mental Health Australia raises significant concerns about the NDIS ‘Information, Linkages and Co-ordination’ (Tier 2). Significant more information is required before stakeholders can form a proper view.

Mental Health Australia today welcomed the release of the McClure Review of Australia’s Welfare System - A New System for Better Employment and Social Outcomes. “This much awaited report brings welcome attention to some of the systems that support Australians with mental illness,” Mental Health Australia CEO Frank Quinlan said today. “But as Patrick McClure has said before, we cannot consider the welfare system without consideration of the system that provides recovery support.”

In this update, read about the first meeting of the NDIA Mental Health Sector Reference Group, the scope of a new project to design individual supports for people with psychosocial disability and two important and urgent consultation opportunities on the NDIS Tier 2 Framework and the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework.

Australians living with mental illness, and those who care for them, are resting easier today knowing the community based mental health services they rely on have been provided greater funding certainty. This certainty comes following the announcement by the Assistant Minister for Social Services, the Hon Mitch Fifield, regarding mental health programs supported by the Department of Social Security. “With the welcome, but complex reforms associated with the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and as we await the National Mental Health Commission’s Review of Mental Health Services and Programmes, any certainty that can be provided to people who participate in these programs is a very positive development,” Mental Health Australia CEO Frank Quinlan said today.