In most cases, the person or persons who have parental responsibility for a child will be the child representative. If you are the child’s parent or parents, this will be you.
You will automatically be the child representative if your child is receiving early connections or community connections. And if you apply for access to the NDIS for your child you are automatically your child’s representative. You won’t need to apply to be a child representative. This is because those persons with parental responsibility will be the child representative for the purposes of the NDIS. We don’t need to make a decision about it.
Learn more about what a child representative is and what do they do.
But we will ask you some questions to make sure you have parental responsibility for your child. For example, we will check if your child has a legal guardian. We will also need to check that you are who you say you are. For more information about this, see our Your privacy and information guideline.
If you are the child’s guardian you will usually be the child representative. Guardians are appointed under Commonwealth, state, or territory law to do things and make decisions on a child’s behalf. You will need to provide documents confirming you are the guardian and proof of your identity.
In particular cases, we may decide to change a child representative.
In some cases, a participant under 18 can make decisions for themselves. Learn more about when a child can represent themselves.