NDIS growth gives state surprise lift
MORE Tasmanians will soon be able to access the National Disability Insurance Scheme, with its extension to include people aged 29 to 34 from Monday.
And the state is benefiting in other unexpected ways, with a kind of disability tourism opening up new options for interstate NDIS clients, say providers.
About 10,600 Tasmanians are expected to be participating in the NDIS by mid-2019 once all age groups have been rolled into the scheme.
The State Government ex- pects about 1750 jobs to be created in the disability services sector.
Tasmania first signed a heads of agreement on the NDIS in 2013 and conducted a trial among 15 to 24-year-olds, with an agreement on implementation signed in 2015.
The NDIS will roll out further support to those aged 29 to 34 from January 1 and those aged 0 to 3 and 35 to 49 will transition from July 1.
Finally, people aged 50 to 64 will transition from January 1, 2019.
Independent support worker Kim Wellspring said she had met a number of families who had moved from interstate to Tasmania to take advantage of the often more advanced scheme on offer.
“Once they hear about people like myself, they want to come down and spend their money here because they don’t have the same options at home,” she said.
“It’s a really good unexpected benefit to the state. Sometimes I’ll have a client come down and the whole family will come and spend their money on a holiday and go home and tell the rest of the community what a great time they had.”
Over the holiday period, Ms Wellspring has been support- ing 20-year-old Annalise Haigh from the Blue Mountains in NSW who has Down syndrome, but is on a path to independent living.
She has travelled to Tasmania with her mother to learn vital life skills while getting a taste for independence.
“This is a way to access support so Annalise is able to go and do her own things away from family like any other 20year-old would,” mum Helen said.
“Her two principal goals are to live independently and to find and keep a job — having an ordinary life like everybody tries to have.”