It is already very difficult for parents with intellectual disability to access the supports they need both within and outside the NDIS to support their parenting and keep their families together. Many face complex barriers that prevent them from having their support needs acknowledged and met in a timely, coordinated and rights-based way. These barriers have led to widespread breaches of human rights, including the often permanent separation of children from their parents, disproportionate surveillance and intervention from child protection systems, and a near-total absence of coordinated, early intervention support. Despite an established body of evidence on what works, the NDIS has so far failed to deliver appropriate and equitable support for parents with intellectual disability.
In this context, the recent decision to explicitly exclude parenting supports from the list of supports that are NDIS supports represents a serious and deeply concerning development. Based on the NAC’s significant collective lived and professional experience, we believe this decision will exacerbate the very issues that parents and advocates have spent years trying to overcome and cause significant harm to families and communities. Far from clarifying roles or improving access, this exclusion will further entrench discrimination, fracture service delivery, and deny parents with intellectual disability the supports they need to live an ordinary life. It also stands in direct contradiction to Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD); the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the objects and principles of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, including to “enable people with disability to exercise choice and control in pursuit of their goals”.
Without urgent changes to the NDIS Supports Rule to explicitly include parenting supports, these harmful outcomes will continue and worsen, despite decades of evidence and repeated calls for reform.
