Politics

The unpleasant contradictions and complications that many participants of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are forced to navigate through when discussing with their planning managers on the exact amount of funding that gets allocated into their plan each year can take an additional emotional, psychological and mental health toll, not just for the disabled person involved but also for families, guardians, carers, friends and support workers.

That is something Purple Orange‘s Manager of Policy and Projects, Belle Owen, who is short-statured and uses a motorised wheelchair cannot escape from herself. Having been grandfathered onto the scheme a few years ago, Owen has fought with her planning manager numerous times over how much money she can use from her own plan to purchase essential services and products, including adaptive clothing that is manufactured and altered accordingly to fit her smaller body frame.

Owen also opens up candidly to De-Stigmatised‘s Jarad McLoughlin on what the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) can do to make the entire planning review process more “participant centred and participant focused”, thereby shifting their whole approach and helping the Minister for the NDIS, Bill Shorten and other federal politicians to regain the trustworthiness of the scheme’s viability and sustainability from within the disability community itself.

Produced by Jarad McLoughlin

Photo supplied by Belle Owen