My Ability Pathway's General Manager Charlotte Williams recently attended the National NDIS Transformation Summit 2023 in Melbourne. Here she shares her experience and insights from the day.
Last month I, along with about 400 other people, attended the National NDIS Transformation Summit in Melbourne. The agenda was full of people with experience, knowledge, heart and a willingness to listen and change.
The keynote speech was delivered by Tracey Mackey, Commissioner NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. She spoke about the development of the NDIS over the last decade and how proud the Commission is of how far the country has come and especially how Australia is leading the way internationally by supporting people with disability to live fulfilling lives. Yet she was candid about the need for NDIS evolution.
This gave the platform for the rest of the day.
Much of the discussion centered around inclusivity. It was essentially preaching to the converted with a room full of NDIS workers, but it reminded me yet again to keep the discussion of inclusivity at the front of our minds. Housing, accessible houses should not need to be distinguished from our mainstream community. One crowd comment stood out “every house from now on should be built to be accessible so that people with a disability can choose wherever they want to live.” How simple is that?
The representations from people with lived experience was at times overwhelming – they were raw, real and inspiring. One quote from Karenza Louis-Smith, Chief Executive Officer at ERMHA, “Depression is a lot more paralysing than a Spinal Cord injury” as she spoke about how to Transform Participant Outcomes. This quote was backed by panel member Dr Dinesh Palipana, Advocate for Doctors with Disabilities, who himself has a spinal cord injury and has suffered depression. The conversations enabled lateral thinking and demanded flexibility for participants and improving how to change their Plans structure when the participant’s needs change. Choice and control.
The day affirmed to me that My Ability Pathway’s determined and persistent approach in striving for excellence aligns with the desire of the industry. We believe in a participant’s ability to contribute to their community’s economic cycle benefits everyone involved, so the organisations that support the participant, and the NDIS, need to be agile enough to make that happen. Each one of us has a responsibility to enable inclusion.
A final comment on the day was that “People won’t remember what I do, but they will remember how I make them feel” that strongly reflected with the values and objectives of My Ability Pathway; people are and always will be our priority.