ASSESSMENT COVER SHEET

Family Name: Given Name(s):

Choudhary Rohit

Student ID: Course:

1042406 Bachelors of Community Services.

Unit Code: Unit Name:

SAP203 Developing Social Policy

Lecturer: Assessment Number/Title:

Tatjana Klein Assignment 3

Semester/Trimester and Year: Word Count:

3 2269
Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................3

Background of the Policy Issue....................................................................................3

Overview of the Organisation....................................................................................3

Defining the Issue.....................................................................................................4

Current Policy Position..............................................................................................5

Target and Impact of Current Policy.........................................................................6

Challenges and Success of the Current Policy............................................................7

Comparisons with Policy Options in Other Countries..................................................7

Recommendations........................................................................................................8

Conclusion..................................................................................................................10

References.................................................................................................................12
 Introduction

A significant number of Australians live with some form of disability. The total

number of Australians living with disability is estimated to be around 4.3 million.

National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) aims to provide assistance to those

living with lifelong disabilities with help they need, in order to do perform their day to

day tasks more easily and live a more normal life. For that purpose, NDIS aims to

provide an assistance of $22 billion in terms of funding while helping half a million

Australians living with significant and permanent disability in the next five years.

NDIS provides an opportunity to the people with disability to get the support and

assistance to live their lives the way they choose. NDIS provides support to people

who have psychosocial, cognitive, sensory, physical, and intellectual disabilities

("What is the NDIS? | NDIS", 2019).

While the organization provides support to people in all of these domains,

there is still room for improvement. The organization needs to do better in providing

support to individuals with psychosocial disability. The policy change that needs to

happen in NDIS is that the organization should dedicate more funds for people with

psychosocial disability so that more people with such disabilities can be helped. The

purpose of this report is to recommend an increased funding for psychosocial

disability by NDIS and an increase in coverage for people with such disabilities. This

report will be submitted by NDIS as a way to recommend the change in policy and

make an argument for increased funding.

Background of the Policy Issue

Overview of the Organisation

 National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is an independent statutory

agency that provides support to individuals living with lifelong and significant

disability. NDIS is progressively providing its services in all territories and states of

Australia. They provide support to individuals who are eligible for their services and

have sensory, physical, intellectual, psychosocial, and cognitive disability. The help

provided to the eligible people is aimed at providing support to people with

disabilities in a way that improves their independence and skills over time. The

organisation is a significant part of efforts to provide support to individuals with

disabilities. Policy changes in NDIS can be important towards achieving better

coverage for hundreds of thousands of people all across Australia. This is why the

government should be paying close attention to the policy recommendations

Defining the Issue

According to recent estimates, 3.7 million Australians experience mental

illness. Among these people, 690,000 people are the ones who can be described as

living with severe illness. Furthermore, the government estimates that one third of

those with severe mental health issues require ongoing support in their daily life.

One third of 690,000 amounts to 230,000 people who required some sort of help in

order to complete their day to day due to their mental health issues (Smith-Merry,

2018). Psychosocial disability can be defined as follows:

Psychosocial disability is a term which describes social and economic

challenges or consequences which can be associated with one's mental

health condition, affecting a person's ability to participate fully in society, such

as being involved in work or education, engaging in interpersonal relations

and social activities. (Griffiths et al., 2018, p. 140)

As per the estimates of National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), when NDIS will

be working at the full roll out, the total number of people with psychosocial disability

covered under the scheme would 64,000. That amounts to 13.9 percent of the total

people NDIS estimates to cover with any disability. That means that even as per

NDIA’s estimates, a large number of people with psychosocial disability who need

ongoing help would not receive any by NDIS even at its full roll out. Furthermore,

NDIS data suggests that 6.4 percent of all participants of NDIS have psychosocial

disability which means that the numbers of participants of NDIS participants are even

less than half of what even NDIA estimated. This clearly shows that participation for

individuals with psychosocial disability is much lower than it should be (Smith-Merry,

2018).

Another thing that is important to note here is that the slow rollout of NDIS

ended up saving $1.6 billion in NDIS budget for the year 2019-2020 (Davies, 2019).

The fact that there is money left untouched while the funds are not being used to

provide support to people with psychosocial disability shows that there needs to be a

change in current policy of NDIS towards how it approaches the provision of

services. This money can be spent to help the people who have psychosocial

disability (McInerney & Marks, 2019).

Current Policy Position

Currently, NDIS is helping thousands of people with psychosocial disability,

there is a huge gap in the potential of NDIS and the actual service provision to those

with the disability. The organisation can do much more to help the people that either

do not apply for the services or get their application rejected by the authorities. The

fact that lesser number of people have access to psychosocial disability services
than should be, as discussed in the previous section, is due to lack of appropriate

amount of funds for psychosocial disability. There might not be a direct relationship

between the two but research has shown that the lack of funds means that NDIS

staff is often not fully equipped to correctly. That is why a lot of applications are

rejected and a significant amount of people do not even think to seek out help for

their psychosocial disability through NDIS. Currently, less than needed funds are

dedicated for hiring and training staff that is aware and educated about psychosocial

disabilities and to help people with psychosocial disability to guide them through

complicated application process (Smith-Merry et al., 2018, p. 5-6). This policy came

into being because NDIS is still a fairly new organisation and it is still expanding with

funding from other disability programs is progressively being shifted to NDIS. The

flaws in the current policy are becoming more apparent with the passage of time.

Target and Impact of Current Policy

The current policy targets the people with psychosocial disability but the way

the current policy handles the application policy is the same for the people of all

disabilities including psychosocial disability. The fact is that approaching the people

with this disability the same as everyone else in the application process might be a

problem. The fact is that psychosocial disability is not readily apparent as some of

the other physical disabilities. Identifying this disability requires more training. Other

than that, psychosocial disability also hinders the affected individuals to go through a

rigorous and complicated application process so the number of people who apply for

help is already lower than the other services under NDIS. The result is that even

those who can be considered “perfect candidate” for NDIS support for psychosocial
disability ends up not getting the help because of the poor quality assessments

(Smith-Merry, 2018, p. 21-22).

Challenges and Success of the Current Policy

Under the current policy, thousands of individuals with psychosocial disability

are getting help for their disability. People with psychosocial disability receiving help

through NDIS stood at 6.4 percent in the year 2017 (Smit-Merry, 2018, p. 8). This

means that the current policy has been successful in provision of services to a

considerable portion of those with the lifelong disability.

However, the current policy of NDIS regarding psychosocial disability is just

not working because a lot less people are applying for NDIS support for psychosocial

disability than even the organisation’s own estimates. NDIS estimates that a little

less than 14 percent of total recipients of disability help should be from psychosocial

disability category. The fact that this percentage stands at 6.4 percent shows that

there is something wrong with the current policy. Furthermore, the approval rate of

those applying for psychosocial disability is significantly lower than people with any

other disability. For intellectual disability, the approval rate stands at 97 percent of all

those who apply for the help while the number stands at 81.4 percent for those

applying for psychosocial disability are approved (Australia. Parliament. Joint

Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, & Andrews,

2017). The differences between the two number shows that the current policy of

NDIS is not working out.

Comparisons with Policy Options in Other Countries

 The issue of psychosocial disability or disabilities related to mental health is

universal and different countries deal with this issue differently. In the United

Kingdom, a mental health condition is considered a disability if it impairs the day to

day activities of a person for a long-term ("When a mental health condition becomes

a disability", 2012). This disability is afforded the same benefit as other disabilities in

the United Kingdom and the benefits to the receiver include universal credit,

disability living allowance, attendance allowance, and employment and support

allowance ("Financial help if you're disabled", 2020). This approach is different from

the one taken by Australia. In Australia, the help provided to people with

psychosocial disability is not available in the form of any allowance or credit.

Psychosocial disability is not defined separately in the United Kingdom as it is

considered under the mental health disability coverage.

Australia’s approach towards psychosocial disability is better because it

provides those with disability the help they need as per the extent of their disability.

Also, by outlining psychosocial disability separately under NDIS, instead of dealing

with it with other disabilities, the approach opens doors for special considerations

that may be needed as this disability is different from the other disabilities, just like

discussed in the previous sections of this report.

Recommendations

In order to improve the role of NDIS in providing disability support for people

with psychosocial disabilities, it is recommended that a higher funding is allocated for

provision of services to individuals suffering from this disability. Key

recommendations for improvements are discussed in this section.

1. Funding should be used in order to train the staff of NDIS to better

identify the needs of those suffering from psychosocial disability.

One of the biggest barriers in bringing the number of recipients of

psychosocial disability support at par with the estimates of NDIS is that a

large number of people do not get approval for support. As mentioned before,

the approval rate is a little above 81 percent for this type of disability while it is

above 97 percent for those applying for intellectual disability. It is important to

ensure that the staff of NDIS is equipped to identify and deal with the

psychosocial disability because there is a lack of understanding of the

disability in the NDIS staff. Changing that would require hiring new staff to

deal with the increased demand and to train the current staff to identify

psychosocial disability. The episodic nature of this disability, along with the

fact that it is less visible in terms of physical signs, can be a factor that makes

it difficult to be identified among individuals.

2. Funds should also be directed towards helping people with

psychosocial disability while they are in the process of applying for

help.

In order to get more people to get help through NDIS, support throughout the

application process should be provided to people who require it. That would

require funds towards training and hiring staff that can help those with

cognitive issues and other people struggling with application to speed the

process and provide a more complete picture to NDIS. It would help improve

the number of people applying for help under NDIS psychosocial disability

support.
 3. There is also a need of expanding the number of people receiving

psychosocial disability support from NDIS by making it more accessible

for people with Aboriginal background.

Culturally sensitive staff for people with Aboriginal backgrounds can be helpful

in improving the representation of Aboriginal groups in this program. This

would also require skilled staff and training such staff would require more

funds for psychosocial disability support.

4. Diverting the unused funds of NDIS towards psychosocial disability

support.

While extra funding for psychosocial disability may not seem plausible, the

fact that there was $1.6 billion of unused funds in a single year by NDIS

shows that funding can be achieved relatively easily (Davies, 2019). By

expanding the budget of service provision of this disability, coverage of more

people would be made possible. It would allow more people to access a wider

range of services, thus affecting their quality of life in a more positive way.

Conclusion

In conclusion, psychosocial disability is an underrepresented and overlooked

disability and NDIS needs to provide more funding and make some structural

changes in how it approaches this disability as a whole. This report outlines the

reason for an increase in funding for this type of disability. The report shows that the

current policy of NDIS is harmful for those living with psychosocial disability because

of lack of training of NDIS staff and the fact that the application process can be too

complicated and taxing for people with such disabilities. The fact that the current

numbers of individuals with this type of disability are less than NDIS estimates and
the acceptance rate of applicants is also lower as compared to people with other

disabilities shows that there is a lot of room for improvement. It is recommended that

the extra funding should be secured for psychosocial disability and this funding

should be used to train NDIS staff in identifying and dealing with this sort of disability.

Other than that, the extra funds should also be used in order to provide help to

individuals with their application process as it can be intimidating and complex,

especially for someone with cognitive disability.

 References

Australia. Parliament. Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance

Scheme, & Andrews, K. (2017). Provision of services under the NDIS for

people with psychosocial disabilities related to a mental health condition. Joint

Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Davies, A. (2019). Slow rollout of NDIS and automated welfare system to save

budget billions. the Guardian. Retrieved 3 December 2020, from

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/02/slow-rollout-of-ndis-

and-automated-welfare-system-to-save-budget-billions.

Financial help if you're disabled. GOV.UK. (2020). Retrieved 3 December 2020, from

https://www.gov.uk/financial-help-disabled.

Griffiths, S., Wood, S., & Birchwood, M. (2018). Vulnerability to psychosocial

disability in psychosis. Epidemiology And Psychiatric Sciences, 28(2), 140-

145. https://doi.org/10.1017/s2045796018000495

McInerney, M., & Marks, E. (2019). Time to spend those unspent NDIS funds & to

address psychosocial disability. Croakey. Retrieved 5 December 2020, from

https://www.croakey.org/time-to-spend-those-unspent-ndis-funds-to-address-

psychosocial-disability/.

Smith-Merry, J., Hancock, N., Bresnan, A., Yen, I., Gilroy, J., & Llewellyn, G. (2018).

Mind the gap: the National Disability Insurance Scheme and psychosocial

disability. Final report: stakeholder identified gaps and solutions. Sydney: The

University of Sydney.
What is the NDIS? | NDIS. Ndis.gov.au. (2019). Retrieved 3 December 2020, from

https://www.ndis.gov.au/understanding/what-ndis.

When a mental health condition becomes a disability. GOV.UK. (2012). Retrieved 3

December 2020, from https://www.gov.uk/when-mental-health-condition-

becomes-disability.