Your child has just been identified as having Autism, and you don’t know what to do next. You are likely feeling a combination of lost, confused, anger, and/or grief, among many other different emotions. You can’t quite sort yourself out to figure out the next step to take. We’ve provided some information below on 6 steps you can take next!
1. Look up info on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
It’s estimated that 4.3 million Australians have a disability. The NDIS is used to support people with a disability by providing individualised funding plans to help people with a disability meet their needs and goals. You’ll want to consider accessing the NDIS for funding your child’s intervention. If your child is over the age of 7, you can go straight to the NDIS to apply for funding or you may want to contact your Local Area Coordinator (LAC – more on them below) to assist you.
2. Consider accessing a Mental Health Care Plan (MHCP)
Sometimes NDIS funding can take longer than anticipated to come through. In the interim, you may want to consider going to your GP and requesting a MHCP for your child. This plan will grant your child 6 sessions with a psychologist, social worker or occupational therapist, and your allied health worker can request more sessions if needed. This can be a great way to get started while you wait for your child's NDIS funding to come through.
3. Be aware of what plan type you’d like
There are 3 different types of plans from the NDIS: agency managed, plan-managed, and self-managed. You can mix-and-match your child’s plan to have different parts of the plan managed by the different types, or you can choose to have your child’s whole plan in its’ entirety managed in one of the ways listed above. You will need to tell the NDIS how you would like to manage your child’s plan when you are creating it.
Agency managed means that the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) manages your child’s plan by book-keeping and keeping records of your spending. It also allows you to access NDIS registered providers, but you are not able to use unregistered providers. The providers used will claim funds electronically, and you can use the myplace portal to view claims that have been made and your child’s total budget.
In a plan-managed fund your child will be provided additional funds within their plan to pay a Plan Manager, who is a person that is a registered NDIS provider, that pays your providers for you. They also keep track of funds and financial reporting. You will need to keep track of when you need reports from your providers. With plan-managed funds, you can use both unregistered or registered providers.
A self-managed plan, as the name implies, is managed by you. You are responsible for tracking your child’s budget, keeping records, making payments to the providers and getting the providers to provide reports that show how your supports helped you reach your plan goals. Self-Managed funds can be used with unregistered or registered providers.
4. Decide whether you’d like a Support Coordinator
A Support Coordinator is a person who is funded by the NDIS to help connect you to local service providers, so if you think you’ll want one for your child, be sure to ask for it when you’re creating the plan. They will have companies, community, NDIS funded or informal services to recommend you try or can help you find the type of company that you are looking for. The Support Coordinator may help you understand your plan and how to use it while monitoring the budgets and the supports effectiveness with you.
5. Figure out who you need to talk to based off of your child’s age
There are several support services that are free to help you build a plan and access funding to support your child. If your child is 0-6 years old, then you should speak to an Early Childhood Partner. Your Early Childhood Partner will help you build your first plan and then help you to implement it; they will continue to support your journey along the way. The goals you create will be short term goals that are meant to be achieved within a year, though they can range to broader goals. The Early Childhood Partner changes based on where you live, for Brisbane, you can contact the Benevolent Society, and for Sunshine Coast, the partner is BUSHKids. Details are below:
If your child is 7+, they will be placed in the full NDIS scheme. In this case you should seek a Local Area Coordinator (LAC) to assist you with plan creation, implementation and the review of your NDIS plan; they can also help understand the plan and connect you to providers. For Queensland, the LAC is “Carer’s Queensland.”
If your child is between 6-7 years old, then you can contact either the Early Childhood Partner or the LAC. They can both provide you support or give you direction on where to go.
Here is contact information for the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane area:
6. Take care of yourself
This doesn’t need to be step 6 and can (and maybe should!) be done at any stage! There are a range of changes that either have happened or will happen from an identification of Autism for both you and your child. You will need to find support for yourself in whatever way that you can. Think about informal supports, like friends or family, that can help you with the emotional journey. More formal supports, such as psychologists or counsellors, would also be helpful considering the big changes ahead of you. With a Mental Health Care Plan, psychologists are Medicare rebatable. These providers can help you navigate strong emotions, develop solid action plans or even just be there for YOU. Simply put, if you are not functioning, you are not able to support your child when they need you most.
We hope these steps are easy to follow and helpful for everyone! If you need help on your journey, reach out to us via email admin@kindredkids.com.au or phone call 07 5406 2044 to ask us questions.
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