I recently became concerned about plans for Targeted Foundational Supports. This is not a new concern (I’ve outlined things in the past), just a more specific one.
This concern was mainly raised through the application form for this focus group, because I read this as implying that Targeted Foundational Supports may be ONLY Thriving Kids.
Image description: a yellow box with text reading: The focus groups are going to be talking about two different topics. Please select which topic you would like to focus on, if you are selected. You can select more than one: General foundational supports – supports for people with disability outside of the NDIS. Targeted foundational supports – supports for children and families with disability outside of the NDIS.
If you’re a person with a disability who receives no supports, like me (despite my efforts and efforts), and you know how few disabled people in Australia actually get NDIS (not a large number), then you’ll understand why I’m getting concerned. I need supports. Targeted supports are pretty much the only hope I have left.
I emailed the people running the focus group. I applied to be on both groups because while I don’t believe general supports will be of value to me, if targeted supports are going to be only Thriving Kids, then that’s of zero use to me. More importantly, others who are directly impacted by/who will use that service should be part of that focus group (unlike what happened with QLD consultation). I asked the focus group organisation if the government has changed the scope of targeted supports. That was about ten days ago as I write this. I never heard back.
So I collected this information, my concerns, tried to fight the brain fog, the fatigue and headache from painsomnia, the stress I’m under right now due to the hospital requesting unsafe tests that also have challenging accessibility, and I sent it to two organisations who have a focus on systemic advocacy. I hope what I wrote to the orgs makes sense. I hope this post makes sense. But if it doesn’t, oh well, this is the best I can do right now with the capacity I have.
The main thing for me is that right now, when the states and federal have not agreed on hospital and disability funding, we have a window… you see, if targeted supports are going to be ONLY Thriving Kids, and if we don’t really know this formally, “out loud”, then the budgets states receive will be set to only cover Thriving Kids. We should use this window of not-yet-agreed funding to make sure that targeted supports will be more than just Thriving Kids, because I think it’d be easier to fix this situation now rather than beg for scraps later.
I’d love to be completely in the wrong about this and feel confident that Thriving Kids is just an initial focus, and that Targeted Supports will help the tons of people like me who are currently abandoned by both NDIS and state governments.
I really do mean it when I say I want to be wrong, by the way. That is not hyperbole. I’m happy to be wrong. I’d be fucking delighted to be wrong, in fact. But my faith in supports has been ruined over the past few years of survival and I’d rather be wrong than silent and correct, and miss an opportunity to raise something before it becomes a problem.
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