The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has released data relating to the outcomes for participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities.
Chief Executive of NDIA, Martin Hoffman (pictured) said that while the data showed several positive outcomes for both cohorts of participants — particularly in areas relating to community support and involvement —more needed to be done to improve access and understanding of the NDIS, especially when language was a barrier.
“The NDIS represents a significant opportunity to tackle the challenges facing people with disability and provide enduring solutions — and there are such opportunities in CALD and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities where barriers to participation are historic, going back generations in many instances,” Mr Hoffman said.
“Work continues to build stronger connections between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and CALD communities and the NDIS to ensure these communities are receiving the full benefits of this world-leading Scheme,” he said.
Mr Hoffman said a new Community Connectors program would be a key tool in finding new ways to reach people living in remote areas.
“What we are seeing is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and CALD participants are doing better the longer they are in the Scheme,” he said.
“In particular, community and social participation for CALD participants aged between 15 and 24 increased 18 per cent in the second year.
“We want to ensure more people have the same opportunity to succeed this way, and by releasing this data we can include all other areas of the community in the conversation about how best to do that.”
Mr Hoffman said that at 30 June 2019 there were 16,417 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants and 24,023 CALD participants in the Scheme.
By 30 September 2019, these figures had grown to 18,252 and 27,030 respectively.
He said the data were the third such release by the NDIA as part of the NDIS Public Data Sharing Approach that aimed to increase community understanding of the Scheme’s operation.
The data reports can be accessed at this PS News link.
