‘Softly, softly’ NDIS plan slammed

The agency­ running the $22bn NDIS has released a six-page plan slammed as ‘a watered­-down, softly, softly approach­’.

After years of behind-the-scenes work, angst from early intervention advocates and concerns about cost blowouts and fudging of support for vulnerable children, the agency­ running the $22 billion National Disability ­Insurance Scheme has released a six-page plan slammed as “a watered­-down, softly, softly approach­’’.

The agency’s “Early Childhood Intervention Approach” contains no detail about how many hours of therapy it ­believes is required for children with ­autism or other developmental delays, describe­s no mechanism by which children will be separated in the “two speed” system and contains no figures on ­funding.

One of the key planks of the “approach” will be to make families do most of the work by giving them “tips” on what to do with their children, “emotional support” and referrals to mainstream services not funded by the NDIS.

The agency also released its 90-page research report, ­revealed by The Australian, which recommends a gold standard of 20 hours a week early intervention for children who have been diag­nosed with autism.

Evidence-based therapies will be ­accepted, but others such as ­animal and shock therapies will likely be banned.

According to Centrelink data, there are more than 73,000 children aged up to 15 diagnosed with autism. The NDIS believes it will have 106,000 children aged from birth to six with any type of ­disability in 2019-20, but only 47,000 who would be eligible for the early intervention.

The early intervention ­approach was meant to be the final say in the agency’s response to the complex challenges, but deputy chief executive officer Louise Glanville was unable to say when that work might be completed. “That will be our ­public pitch trying to explain what this is,” she said.

“I imagine over time we want to really get out and talk about it much more thoroughly, as much as possible.

“Like everything we do, we will be evaluating it along the way, seeing if there is any need to tinker with it.”

Ms Glanville said the agency had created a “very wide gateway” of children who would be included in the early intervention phase of the scheme, recommended by the Productivity Com­mission to save money down the track.

Autism Awareness Australia chief executive officer Nicole Rogerson said that she was ­“absolutely appalled” by the ­report, which she said “cherry picks ­research, glosses over what is widely considered as inter­national best practice and lands in a wishy-washy world of ­watered-down options­ for fam­ilies with children with autism”.