Launchpad

Here is a story from Cate who is the mum of a young son with ASD. The family has been part of the Adelaide NDIS trial site. We hope readers will find this useful.

Koebi is our 12 year old who is severely autistic and has severe intellectual disabilities.  

We moved to Adelaide in 2014 after Koebi was diagnosed with some other severe health issues, so we could be closer to specialists etc.

It was at this time we were put in contact with an advocate who worked on our behalf long and hard to have him accepted into the St Marys NDIS trial site.

He was accepted into the scheme but we were really unsure as to what this all meant for us as a family.

What we were soon to find out was that we were entitled to so much help and support both funding wise and service wise, it was going to change the way our family survived from day to day.

We finally received supports for him that we have had to pay for ourselves over the prior seven years.

Koebi, when he was younger

Koebi receives funding for:

• Nappies and wipes/waterproof bed covers and chair pads
• Transdisciplinary Package to cover OT and speech therapy service
• Funding to help pay for some respite hours so that we may function as a family, although at this stage we are only funded for 3 hours a week which really doesnt give us much flexibility
• NDIS funded a disability stroller for Koebi, weight rated to 90+kg so that we can take him places and be part of the family on outings etc, as he can’t walk long distances and tires easily
• They have also funded an iPad with a “Koebi-proof case”
• We also have in the pipeline funding to help provide all in one suits for him, to help keep his nappy in place and for hygiene reasons
• Speech therapist and OT are also looking at either buying a second iPad for him to use as a communication device at school and home.

We only received our package in July 2015 so we are new to the process as well, but so far have found it to be straight forward, except for the fact that your planner can change without warning and usually you aren’t informed until you try to make an enquiry.

This can be quite frustrating as you have to then go through and explain everything all over again to a complete stranger.