Welcome to our Participant First Engagement Initiative newsletter.
2022 - 2023 - The year that was
Your participation in our engagement opportunities in the last financial year has been valuable and appreciated. Participant First members have been involved in more than 3,300 hours to help shape and improve many of our products and processes, including the following:
Supported Decisions-Making policy
Participant Safeguarding policy
Self-Management policy
Plan implementation directory on the website
Several new and updated guidelines
Updated Participant booklets
Refreshed guides for understanding support
Self-Management guides and resources
Improvement to digital products like the My NDIS mobile application and NDIS portal
In this newsletter
We have an opportunity to be part of a Discussion board to share your thoughts on some changes we are making to the planning process.
Thank you to all members who provided feedback via three surveys we included in our last newsletter. We are pleased to let you know the Participant First Engagement Initiative quarterly survey, and the Guide for understanding supports survey, have been extended to allow everyone more time to complete them.
Thank you for your ongoing support for the Participant First Engagement Initiative.
Take care.
Participant First Team
(Angela, Annabelle, Belinda, Debbie and Nina)
Expressions of interest close Sunday, 6 August 2023
Discussion board purpose:
The NDIA is making some changes to the planning process, focusing on providing more opportunities for customer interaction. We would love to hear your thoughts on these changes and get your opinions and suggestions, to make sure we meet your needs effectively.
These research activities provide a platform for you to share your experiences, give input and have constructive discussions with other participants.
We will be asking you about your experience with accessing the NDIS through the planning stages and interaction with our staff and partners. We want to know how best to talk to you about the Scheme and changes to our processes.
We are looking for 24 NDIS participants, family members, carers or nominees to be involved in our online discussion boards. A discussion board is a private online chat room so you can chat with moderators and other group participants live. This style of research allows you to:
take your time and prepare your responses at your own pace
join for as long or as little as you like each day
We will post questions to the discussion board each day for you to answer and comment on. We ask that you log in to the discussion board at least once a day over the three days the discussion board will be open.
When:
Thursday, 17 August to Saturday, 19 August 2023
Number of participants:
24
Duration:
Each participant will be paid for 2 hours
How:
A unique link to join the online discussion board and further instructions will be sent to those who are selected to take part.
Opportunity 2: Reminder
Quarterly survey - Participant First Engagement Initiative
This survey now closes Sunday, 13 August 2023
Thank you to everyone who completed our Quarterly survey from our last newsletter. There is still time to share your feedback about our Participant First Engagement Initiative by completing this survey.
As you know, we send out the Participant First Engagement Initiative email to let you know about feedback opportunities and updates on the work we are doing. We then connect you to the feedback opportunities including surveys, focus groups, interviews or working groups.
Your feedback helps us to provide the best service possible, and many of you will notice the significant improvements we have made since our last quarterly survey.
We want to keep improving and would like to hear from you about how we are doing in the Participant First Engagement Initiative.
Opportunity 3: Reminder
Guide for understanding supports survey
The survey now closes Sunday, 20 August 2023
We are very grateful to everyone who has provided feedback so far. If you would like to tell us about your experience looking for information about disability supports, this survey closing date has now been extended.
The National Disability Insurance Agency would like to invite people who are aged 18 years and over, and who have looked for information about disability support in the last three months, to complete a short online survey. You could have looked for this information for yourself or someone else.
The survey takes between 10 and 20 minutes to do, and includes questions like:
What topics you were looking for information about, and
Whether you were able to find all the information you needed
You can choose what to tell us about your experience. You do not have to share anything you are not comfortable sharing. The survey is anonymous.
If you have any questions about this survey, you can contact us at [email protected].
Our Guideline - Younger People in Residential Aged Care (YPIRAC OG)
Thank you to everyone who took part in the focus groups in March. We have updated Our Guideline – Younger People in Residential Aged Care (opens in new window) to better reflect our commitment that no participant under 65 years needs to live in residential aged care unless there are exceptional circumstances.
We only need you to send your information form once, and nothing else.
If you need help with the form, or you have any questions, please email us or call or text us on 0436 649 469 or 0439 406 141.
Friendly reminder:
When completing the Participant First information form please make sure you press the Submit Button once only to end the session.
A box will appear at the top of the screen with Submission Completed. If you press the Submit Form a second time it will create an error message, however your form has been completed and you can now close your browser.
Invite a family member, carer or friend
If you know anyone you think might be interested in taking part in any of the opportunities or joining the Participant First Engagement Initiative, please let them know they can do so by completing the Participant First Information form (opens in new window).
General feedback and enquiries
We know sometimes you may have important general feedback or enquiries about the NDIS which does not relate to the Participant First Engagement Initiative. We'd like to remind you that you are able to submit your queries to the email addresses below: