You have the right to decide what you do each day and to make your own life choices. For all of us, our choices come with some risks. We all make our own choices about how much risk we want to take in our lives.
You should also be able to choose how much risk you want to take in your life.
We’ll work with you to understand areas of risk in your life and things that may increase risk of harm to you.
This includes being aware of your individual situation, the transitions in your life and recognising your own experience.
In our discussions with you about risks and safeguards, we’ll check in on your safety and wellbeing.
When we create your plan, we’ll help you think about supports which help you live your life the way you want to.
We balance your right to take reasonable risks in pursuing your goals, with your safety and the safety of other people.
When we create your plan we’ll talk with you about how we can help you reduce risks where we can.
There are a few things we could do to reduce risk, and make sure your plan meets your needs. For example, we could:
- check in with you regularly about how your plan is meeting your disability support needs and if you need any changes
- fund supports to help you build your support network, for example to help you make friends or build relationships in your community
- set up regular chats with your My NDIS contact
- make sure any providers using restrictive practices are NDIS registered and follow the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission requirements
- let you know about how you can make a complaint about your service providers or about our service if there are any issues
- include supports, to help build your skills so you can manage the funding in your plan.
The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission also manage NDIS worker screenings to check if a worker is safe for you to use.
If you self-manage your funding, you can check if workers you employ are already cleared with an NDIS worker screening check.
You can also ask providers, employees or contractors providing you with supports to do an NDIS worker screening check.
If you’re using registered providers, workers should already have NDIS worker screening checks.
We’ll support you to make your own choices wherever possible. But we can’t fund supports that are likely to risk harming you or someone else.
Some of these risks might affect what we can fund in your plan, or who manages your NDIS funding.
For example, there might be risks to your personal safety, your personal money, or your NDIS funding.
We think about if there are any risks with your current support arrangements.
For example, there might be risks to your family or friends’ health if they keep supporting you when they get older. If so, we could look at including NDIS funded supports to reduce these risks.
We also consider any risks around your safety and wellbeing.
For example, there could be risks if you’re socially isolated, or rely only on providers for support. Or there could be risks of physical injury to you or the people who support you.