How to prepare for your NDIS planning meeting

Your NDIS planning meeting is a big part of ensuring the NDIS works for you, so it’s important you feel well-prepared. To help you on your way, here are some tips to get ready.

Your supports now

The first thing to think about is what support you have in your life right now. What do you need to follow your routine, and who are the people and organisations that make this possible?

We know this is a huge task! To start with, look at an average day, week, and month in your life, and note down all the supports you need for each activity. Note down

what’s working well and what you’d like to change. Whether it’s support you get from your family and friends or from the community and disability support service providers, it is important to include all of it.

Another helpful activity is writing down is what a ‘bad day’ looks like.

What does this mean? Well, think of one of those days where everything that could possibly go wrong, does! This will help you include supports you don’t always need but are very important.

It’s hard to plan for the worst but being well prepared goes a long way.

Tip: Don’t forget to include mainstream supports like public transport.

All about goals

Now that you’ve got an idea of what supports you need in your life, it’s time to figure out what your goals are. These are things you would like to achieve, both big and small, in all areas of your life and the supports you’d need. In your planning meeting, your Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) Coordinator, Local Area Coordinator (LAC) or National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) planner will ask about your goals as part of your NDIS plan.

Knowing your NDIS goals is an important part of the planning meeting. Any supports you receive in your plan will be associated with these goals.

Here are some examples to get you thinking:

• I would like to develop friendships outside of school and to be able to join a group that I am interested in
• I want to attend cooking classes to learn how to cook my own food
• I want to be able to speak clearly to my friends and teachers so they can understand me
• I want to learn how to use public transport to travel independently.
• I would like to develop my self-care and self-management skills so that he can be more independent in the home and community.

Try to be as specific as you can with your goals. This will help the NDIA understand what services and supports you will need for you to have the future you choose.

Supporting documents

Start gathering supporting evidence and information about your condition. This could be from your doctor, therapist, or other health professional. Bring along any reports or assessments that could help the NDIS understand how your condition affects you.

Who to bring?

Whose support would you like during your planning meeting? You can bring more than one person – it’s up to you.

Would having family, friends, an advocate, support worker, or therapist there be helpful? They might think of the details you’ve missed.

Remember, this is all about getting a plan that’s just right for you, so it’s important you feel comfortable.

Would you benefit from being funded for a support coordinator?

Support Coordination is a capacity building support which helps you to:

• Understand and use you NDIS plan to pursue your goals.
• Connect you with NDIS providers, community, mainstream and other government services.
• Build your confidence and skills to use and coordinate your supports.

Your NDIS funding is based on what is ‘reasonable and necessary’ to pursue your goals.

Where reasonable and necessary, support coordination will be included in the Capacity Building budget. This is a fixed amount for a support coordinator to help you use your plan.

If you think this support is right for you, remember to ask for it in your planning meeting.