Goals play an essential role in your customers' NDIS funding.
However, their NDIS funding is not directly tied to their personal goals. Instead, the funding is intended to provide the necessary support for their disability. These supports aim to increase your customer's independence and help them work towards their goals. Besides NDIS funding, you can also assist your customer to pursue and receive assistance from informal sources like family, friends, and mainstream or other community services.
It's central to understand that just because your customer sets a goal in their plan doesn't automatically mean they will receive funding to pursue it. Similarly, having more grand goals doesn't necessarily result in receiving more financial support.
The NDIS funding is intended to help participants overcome any barriers related to their disability that may hinder their pursuit of goals.*
During this post, we will use John as our case study. John has a primary disability of psychosocial and a secondary of other physical.
Case Study
Due to John's psychosocial disability, he frequently struggles to stay on track. He often finds working towards his NDIS and personal goals challenging. Despite his enthusiasm and efforts, he has trouble maintaining focus, leading to concerns about not meeting his NDIS obligations. This worry then spirals into a continuous cycle where he feels stuck and unproductive.
Furthermore, John's physical disability makes it difficult for him to move around effectively on bad days, and this affects his mood and mental well-being. This ongoing cycle of physical and mental challenges can hinder his progress, preventing him from achieving his goals.
However, there are times when John starts feeling better, and his momentum shifts. With the support of his daily support, he gains the freedom to resume pursuing his goals once again.
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Reporting these fluctuations assists the NDIS in formulating the funded supports to help your customers in the short-term and long-term with their goals.
GOALS – OLD vs NEW
During the period of your customer's plan, they might have accomplished one of their goals. You can acknowledge this as a positive outcome and celebrate this. Remember they may still be working towards their goals. Additionally, the customer may express a desire to include another goal in preparation for the review, or they might want to adjust their existing goals.
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When your customer attends their first NDIS planning meeting, they may feel overwhelmed by the goals they need to set. As a result, the written goals in the plan might end up being incorrect or not adequately focused. Additionally, the customer might have experienced plan roll-overs during the Covid pandemic, leading to potentially understated and meaningless goals in their current plan. To address this, it is advisable to carefully review the customer's current goals, discuss what is working or not working for them, and give them an opportunity to add anything they wish to include.
Case Study
In his initial medium to long-term plan, John aimed to enhance his mobility within the community. With the funding secured in his third plan, he successfully achieved this goal by acquiring a trike bike. Moreover, he discovered a club comprising individuals who share similar interests in his community. They meet regularly throughout the week, riding their trikes together to a predetermined destination, where they enjoy a coffee session afterwards.
Now, with his previous goal accomplished, John intends to include a new objective in his upcoming plan.
Case Study:
How can we assist John in defining a new goal?
Points for discussion:
• John's current life situation
• His existing plans and dreams for the future
• What John wants to accomplish
John expresses his strong wish to travel abroad, but he's unsure about how to make it happen due to his mental health and physical disability. He feels overwhelmed by the many obstacles in his way. However, after discussing the matter further, John realises that travelling is a significant goal in his life. With some support, he considers the possibility of taking a shorter trip within the country (interstate) to visit family he hasn't seen in years, which he finds exciting. He decides to add this as a long-term goal, potentially paving the way for his overseas travel dream.
Constructing the new goal:
Using John’s desire to travel, we could simply put:
“I would like to travel more, visit family interstate and eventually go overseas.”
The above statement is very narrow, and we should try to encompass a broader target.
So how can we rework this goal?
“I would like the necessary support to help me learn more about keeping a budget, how to build my confidence when travelling, how to research options for accessibility on transport and learn how to increase my independence away from home.”
This goal covers access (OT and Physio can be involved), support from his support work team in talking through the different options available, researching on the internet and learning how to confidently budget for a trip (Community run workshops and courses)
The goal clearly expresses what your customer wants to achieve, with a focus on outcomes related to their disability. The goal is broad in scope, result-focused, and directly connected to their everyday life activities.
In the end, the goal is not just a statement on paper; it can become a source of empowerment. Through their NDIS journey, you have assisted your customer to construct a well-defined goal that can have positive outcomes for their future.
The Lama Care Team
* Source - NDIS Website
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