If you’re 18 or older we:
- assume that you’re able to make decisions about your life and your business with the NDIS
- believe you’re the best person to make decisions that affect your life
- want to help you build your skills in making decisions
- want you to have every opportunity to act on your own behalf, with or without support
- believe you should be involved in any decision-making that affects you, and wherever possible make decisions for yourself
- believe you have the right to have choice and control and be at least an equal partner in decisions that will affect your life.
There are different ways you can get help to make decisions about your business with the NDIS. You might want a support person like a family member, friend or an advocate to attend NDIS meetings with you. Or you may like to give express consent so that we can discuss and share information about your business with the NDIS with other people.
Express consent is different to a nominee because your support person can’t make decisions for you like a nominee can. You can give express consent by using an NDIS consent form , or you can tell us verbally, in writing, or in some other way that you communicate.
You can talk to us about how to get support for decision making at any time.
If you’re applying to the NDIS, you can have a guardian or support person help you make decisions, instead of a nominee. We can only appoint a nominee when you become a participant in the NDIS.
What decisions do you need to make about the NDIS?
There are lots of decisions you’ll need to make about your business with the NDIS. These include:
- what goals you want to pursue
- how you’ll pursue your goals
- which service providers you want to get your NDIS funded supports from
- when and how you get your funded supports
- how your family, friends and people in your community support you
- how you can get support from mainstream and community services
- how you want your NDIS funding managed
- how your NDIS supports are working for you.
What if I can’t or don’t want to make my own decisions?
As a last resort, if you can’t, or don’t want to make your own decisions about your business with the NDIS, even with support, you can ask us to appoint someone to make these decisions for you. We call this representative decision-making, and we call this person a nominee. That is, someone represents you by doing things and making decisions on your behalf.
Under the laws for the NDIS, there are important rules about when it’s appropriate for us to appoint a nominee, who can be your nominee and what their duties are. We only appoint a nominee for you when it’s not possible to support you to make your own decisions or you choose not to make your own decisions.
If you’re not sure whether you need a nominee, check whether the statements below apply to you.
You might need a nominee if:
- it’s very difficult or impossible for you to make important decisions that affect your life
- you need a lot of help from someone else to work with us on making decisions about your business with the NDIS
- you need other people to work out what’s best for you
- you need a lot of help from someone else to develop, understand or manage your plan
- you find it hard to work out or think about the information you need when making decisions
- you can’t tell us what you think is best for you.
In rare situations, we may decide to appoint someone to make decisions on your behalf even if you don’t ask us to. We would only do this if there was no other way for decisions to be made about you and the NDIS.
Learn more about what we consider when appointing a nominee.