NDIS Digital Platform
Putting Personal Agency and Social
Connection at the Centre of NDIS
The NDIS Co-op
Innovation 200 is developing a digital platform for NDIS participants, support workers and support co-ordinators to maximise the personal agency of people with disabilities, with as much social connection and mutual support as possible.
This should have been done in NDIS from the start. Instead, the design and implementation of NDIS was wrongly directed towards top-down service delivery in the conventional mould, rather than horizontal, mutually beneficial interactions between people with disabilities, their support workers, and support co-ordinators and plan managers.
Horizontal interactions with colleagues are the only way that people with disabilities can develop personal agency and social networks – the two essentials in achieving ‘greater independence, community participation, employment and a better quality of life’, which are the stated goals of NDIS.
Expressions of Interest are invited from recipients of support packages in NDIS, mental health and aged care; support workers; support co-ordinators and plan managers; and companies and investors interested in partnering with us in transforming social services.
Our aim is to create a digital platform that can also be applied in aged care and mental health.
The Project
We aim to build a digital and market platform through which 100,000 Australians in disability, aged care and mental health will self-direct their supports by 2028 without relying on a service provider to ‘deliver’ services to them.
The goals of our NDIS Digital Platform are to:
- enable people with disabilities (participants) to build up their personal agency (making decisions for themselves) with as much social connection and mutual support as possible;
- enable support workers and co-ordinators to work with participants in ways that are compatible with greater personal agency and social connection; and
- serve as a filtering and quality mechanism by which participants, workers and co-ordinators can be assured that all users respect and uphold the goals of building personal agency and social connection.
It will be structured as a trading co-operative, a corporate structure which enables members to make transactions with each other, linking membership fees and benefits to the volume of their business conducted through the co-operative.
The Purpose
The Co-op will operate as:
- a coaching and training tool in self-direction for members;
- a quality assurance mechanism in self-direction (regulating quality through admission of members and internal transparency rather than external compliance);
- a real-time digital platform that enables participants to manage their budgets, automate payments, track outcomes, and provide instant compliance data, while giving individuals and families full transparency and control over their data and their supports.
- a marketing arm of the members (enabling large-scale competition with corporate service providers);
- an innovation and development tool for members.
Timing – Why Now?
- Successive governments since 2013 have failed in understanding the concepts of personal agency, self-directed support and person-centred systems. They’ve proven to be incapable of reforming NDIS from outside, so it will have to be done from inside.
- External quality and standards mechanisms have failed abysmally in preventing or responding adequately to waste, inefficiency and corruption in NDIS.
- Service providers have (mostly) failed in developing a culture of personal agency and self-direction amongst NDIS participants. Many have imposed provider-centred systems instead of person-centred systems.
- Reform in aged care and mental health requires a good model of self-direction to avoid the mistakes made in NDIS.
Membership-Based Governance
We envisage a membership-based ownership and governance model, with three categories of members:
- Participants – individuals and families in receipt of support packages;
- Workers – support workers who are committed to building the personal agency of Participants and growing their social networks;
- Agents – support coordination and plan managers (not service providers) who are committed to building the personal agency of Participants and growing their social networks.
Members must demonstrate an understanding of and commitment to this philosophy.
The Project Model
We envisage a collaborative process involving individuals and families, support organisations and support workers, in association with tech companies, finance companies, individual digital workers and investors.
NDIS recipients, support organisations and workers:
We invite Expressions of Interest from current participants in NDIS who want to be involved in the design and development of the co-operative.
Tech companies and digital workers:
We invite Expressions of Interest from tech companies interested in partnering with Innovation 200, and from digital workers with experience or expertise in the design and development of systems in the social services.
Investors:
We invite Expressions of Interest from investors and philanthropists interested in partnering with us.
How to Start
Complete the form below to Express your Interest in partnering with us. We will then have a conversation.
Contact:
Vern Hughes
vern.hughes@innovation200.org
0425 722 890
The Project Convenor
Vern Hughes was Convenor of the National Steering Group on Self-Directed Services and Personal Budgets from 2005 to 2016, which began with family innovators in the disability field who participated in innovation trials in self-directing their support packages. When NDIS was first proposed in 2010, the group feared a top-down bureaucratised model of disability support would eventuate that would harm the emerging movement for self-direction. Those fears proved to be well-founded. After 12 years in which disappointment and frustration with NDIS has steadily grown, the time is now right for change.
