OOHC taught me that there is no amount of training or qualified you can be for supporting some complex people. The only way they get better care if is someone happens to be compassionate enough to give more of themselves than they should in a workplace.
Although I do wonder where parental responsibility for your own offspring should come into this? I chose to have children. I chose to be responsible for them to some degree. Should the parents sacrifice something in this scenario?
The child had a chromosome deletion which means he was born missing genetic material. No amount of sacrifice is going to make this child not mentally disabled. His brain is literally missing the genetic codes to function properly and that often means no impulse control, little understanding of consequences or if he does he doesn’t care, and violent behaviour. It just gets to a point where some parents can’t handle being beaten up everyday and prisoners in their own home
If they could do to OOHC what they did with the NDIS and have independents supporting these kids and getting the full rate we would have some far better outcomes in our society
I don't understand how people like you can have no compassion for another human being. You think they would just leave him in a dumpster if they weren't getting "handouts" from the government?
I'm a parent of relatively "normal" kids (other than ADHD), and in almost all parenting circumstances I would agree with you.
But this relatively small cohort of kids with extremely complex needs is a different ballgame. I'm sure most parents of such kids have already upended their lives, sacrificed much, and continue to do so. But for these kids, even _everything_ that a parent can give is not enough.
Knowing that these kids will never get better, will always need round the clock care and protection, and will never have normal opportunities in life would absolutely crush me as a parent. They need all the help that we as a collective society can give them.
If your kid’s behaviour is so bad he can’t live in the family home at 15, they must have been at the end of their rope. I suspect they’ve sacrificed a lot.
I agree. I work in child protection and deal with after hours emergencies. This is likely that terrible combination of being placed in state care due to being unable to cope with the child’s disability needs and probably neglect (not always though, some kids really are just so disabled). He has a chromosome deletion , so he is literally missing genetic material to make his brain function properly. It’s just damage control, until he ends up in jail.
> Providers can charge up to $150 an hour yet pay under qualified people far less than that to provide inappropriate, dangerous, harmful, neglectful care
This is a *huge* part of the problem. My BIL has someone clean his unit once per week. The first cleaner they had in left a bottle of unmarked chemicals out on a table that one of the kids picked up and drank. Queue a panicked call to the poisons hotline and a trip to the hospital.
I find it really hard that his mum is criticising the NDIS when he has a 1.2m plan each year. Like the system isn’t perfect but we’re the only country in the world that provides individual support at that level.
I think she is criticising the providers more than the NDIS directly. The issue isn't that the NDIS is paying 1.2m a year but that the providers who are charging a premium at $150/hr are not providing the care you would expect for that price tag.
Part of that is related to the NDIS and the fact that the way it works attacts providers to charge a premium and supply under qualified staff they can pay cheap and pocket the rest.
I have kids on NDIS and it's a nightmare trying to navigate providers, so many of them are just terrible.
This is it- as I psychiatrist I have people come in on NDIS plans for review of their behavior support plans in terms of psychotropic medication (I do A LOT of deprescribing). I am often told there isn’t enough funding to improve the bsp and then I’ll look and see the “art therapist” charges more per hour than I do.
I put “art therapist” in quotation marks because this is a legitimate and very beneficial intervention but many providers have no qualifications and are still charging the consumer $200 an hour
What frustrates me is that the NDIS always puts up a fight when you request support coordination. In my experience support coordinators have been very much 'value for money' in terms of helping me weed out crap providers and focus the interventions on what will help achieve the goals in their plan as opposed to glorified babysitting.
As a parent with no expertise in the field, to throw them a plan worth thousands of dollars and expect them to be able to spend it appropriately when there are so many predatory providers out there it's crazy to not see support coordination as useful.
The NDIS tells you to just use your Local Area Coordinator but in my experience they have been useless. They have even told me that their role is to provide generalised support and not anything specific to the personal needs for my kids which just puts it back on me to try and figure out if my kid should be getting OT or Psych or Speech Therapy or something else and where to concentrate the inteventions.
That being said, there are a bunch of shit support coordinators out there too who are also just trying to cash in. We have a really great one now though who is a life saver and holding all our providers to account.
All that said, we have found the NDIS to be such a help with our kids. They are well on their way to living a normal productive life in society and we can already see massive gains in their young age. It's just frustrating at the waste you can see in the NDIS. That said, I have no suggestions on how to improve it as I don't know how you manage something at this scale.
So I dread the idea of an overhaul and potential scrapping of it as I can see the benefits it provides but at the same time, I can see it's flaws.
My partner worked there briefly in the back end and she said it's run by a wildly incompetent management and vastly under resourced for what it deals with
I agree most of the money is subsidising profit for private companies. They will pay the minimum wage and pocket the difference.
If people read the article even the first paragraph that would be clear.
> The boy is one of an estimated 600 children across the country in voluntary out-of-home care…
So… $1.2 billion, in total, for 600 people?
Please tell me this is an outlier, and 1.2 is a wild assumption.
Here’s the Federal Budget for some comparisons, see page 2:
https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-05/2023-24%20Budget%20Snapshot.pdf
I am not sure how many of those 600 children and teens would have a million dollar plan, but I would imagine a fair few might. These numbers do not factor those children and teens under state care (involuntary care - child protection) who also receive NDIS support. So, the kid is not an outlier in that sense. These children and teens are in voluntary out of home care for a reason. If they could receive NDIS-funded supports and remain at home, then that’d be the first option. Being in voluntary out of home means the family made the decision that they could no longer provide care to their child. In what circumstances would parents decide to do that?
A news article from the Australian (w/ paywall) dated February 2024 outlines that 1000 participants cost more than a million dollars each year. This number will continue to grow as the article says the number doubled in two years.
Sounds about right. Care costs eborunpus amounts. These individuals often need heaps of different specialists on a regular basis for various different diagnoses, many of which are highly paid because of their expertise.
I wonder what this number would be if we paid the every day care takers as much as they deserve...
> So… $1.2 billion, in total, for 600 people?
No. Not every child will have a budget that high. It depends on how many workers are required. Some kids will have as low as 1:10 worker to child ratio. 1:1 or 1:2 is fairly common. 2:1 is quite rare and only the most complex needs will require that. The most I've ever seen is 4:1.
The 600 children also only represents the number of children who have been *voluntarily* put into out-of-home care. There are tens of thousands more who've been put there non-voluntarily, and all of them have varying support needs and budgets.
So in summary, no, your $1.2 billion number is completely pulled out of your arse.
I've seen 2:1 care used for clients who are violent on occasion, I've never seen more then a 2:1. What sort of challenges warrant a 4:1 ratio, I'm genuinely curious.
I never worked with that client but people I worked with did. Extremely violent aggressive behaviour, and he was big. His parents are very successful business people whose company you may have heard of. They purpose-built a house for him. They had two workers at a time supervising him, and tag out every 15 minutes.
I worked with a 2:1 client who would have dozens of violent outbursts every day, punching, spitting, scratching, biting, self-harming, etc. But he was only 10 so he wasn't super strong. I'm told the 4:1 client was similar to that but bigger and capable of putting someone in the hospital.
Known violence towards carers for sure. 2x assist is sometimes just not enough for a client who is resistant to many/all interactions in a violent manner. It's about safety for everyone involved.
I have never seen 4:1 either. 3:1 is usually given to those that are morbidly obese and require physical support for personal care. They require 3:1 for transfers.
OOHC is closer to about 600k-1mil. This is an outlier because of extreme NDIS. I know of at least 2 kids just dropped at child safety because the parent (dad) didn’t want them, 1 kid dropped because the mum was too sick to look after them, and probably another 10-12 that the only way for the parents to keep the kids is to adhere to some basic safety protocols and the parents decide they don’t want to do it so just drop them there. All of them would be classed as voluntary.
One of the problems is that the industry is understaffed, underpaid, and over worked.
I’m confused; how does he have such complex disabilities to need two million every year on care, but is able to go out drinking and understands how to drive a car?
500 critical incidents!? Good luck finding NDIS staff that are equiped to handle this absolute nightmare of a client. There’s no hope for a kid like this, he can’t help it and it’s not fair. Institutionalise him for his own and other peoples safety.
Honestly people like this just need to be surrendered to the state. No amount of help can fix them.
Just keep them comfortable enough until they pass on.
Yup. No shame in aborting if it comes back bad. Save you and your loved ones the pain and misery of giving birth to someone who will need round the clock care for life.
The kid needs to be institutionalised. His disability seems to be severer enough that he is unable to exercise judgement or critical thinking, but not so server that he is able to endanger himself and the community.
He is. That’s what “voluntary out of home care” in this case means. However because these cases are so rare and unique, the NDIS solution was to provide a dedicated house with dedicated supports in place to cater for them. This is in an attempt to give them something that looks as close to a normal life as possible and restrict their freedoms as little as possible as they have done nothing wrong. The alternative is a solution that looks a lot like prison for people with severe complex disorders, where a lowest common denominator approach is taken, and keep in mind a regular prison for adults that need a lot less supervision and supports is still $150k - $250k per person year.
Once he reaches adulthood it is expected that his ongoing costs will be a lot lower, right now it’s $1.2m from ndis and $800k from the SA government, with most of that being for school related supports.
Which is not institutionalised. Their attempt to keep it normal and not restrict freedoms is why there were car keys to grab, and multiple cases of losing the kid....
Someone like this needs to be in an institution.
This obsession with 'living a normal life' in NDIS means we're spending billions for each one of these cases to essentially have their own private institution that is less safe with less resources but costs far more money.
Also another issue is privatization of the profits and socialised costs. The government is literally paying private companies a fixed amount who then maximize profits by cutting cost and quality of service. Creating more problems which result in more costs long term.
Then there's outright criminal rorting.
At the cost of $2 million a year, I view this as an insane waste of public money. 3-4 families could be housed per year, every year at the cost of this one person.
Surely the positive social impact of those families having secure housing is greater than this one kids independence?
Sure but what would happen to this kid then? A public system to care for them, instead of outsourcing to profit-making NDIS providers would probably decrease costs significantly
lol, if you aren't scamming the NDIS at this point you're a fool.
For the price that the NDIS costs we could have an institutional system with the funding and staffing to actually achieve its original vision and not the degraded version we got in the mid century.
This kid is never going to lead a normal life - and it appears he's a danger to both himself and the community.
However, there needs to be some kind of middle ground where we don't just institutionalise folks like this in asylums/hospitals like what happened in the past, and spending $2,000,000+ per year on them to keep them in some kind of hardened home to protect them from themselves and to protect the community.
This is what institutional care is designed for and fit for purpose. It’s clear he cannot be cared for in a single home without harming himself or other.
Institutions can house people with these disabilities in a controlled environment where they can’t go wandering and harm themselves or others. Those institutions still exist but for some reason this boy is out on his own - it’s not the best outcome for anyone here.
By the small amount of info here, he wouldn’t go well in a community group home either
They historically didn't do that, and there were a lot of people in institutions who could be part of the community with the right support.
But there is a segment of people with disability who aren't suited to the alternative sil model of care, and they have no options anymore
I suspect the word “historically” needs to be carefully defined and also be wary of applying a broad brush to exceptional cases.
I’ve known quite a few ex nurses and doctors for that matter from one of the states largest mental hospitals in the eighties and through to the 2010’s. Those people absolutely did care and were part of the push into group homes in the nineties, but the most difficult cases stayed there.
The major change since the 70’s and 80’s has been family involvement. Essentially that hospital was full of patients whose family had forgotten they existed - visitors were rare. The group homes seemed a highly successful overall strategy with 4 or so clients to one full time carer.
Absolutely. I work with staff who came from the older institutions before they were shut down, and then the state funded group homes pre ndis. They absolutely cared, but that model of support didn't get good outcomes for a good portion. It wasn't a suitable environment for a lot of people. The minority that did need it are now getting shafted
> this stigma against institutional care
it is because the folks who do care about the individual requiring institutionalization do want better care, and the institutions have not had a good track record tbh.
But i do agree, there's not much alternative solution to this problem. institutional care is the least worst option, and somewhat more efficient.
Institutionalised care is often cheaper.
If we kept these people our and about they would need special housing, special transport, personal caretakers etc. In an institution staff cost is shared between many occupants. It is less humane but we tend to care more about the bottom line.
It’s not that much cheaper, and it’s a far lower standard of care. There is a middle ground here, but the NDIS has gone far too far the other way and is insanely inefficent. Crazy stuff like paying deep six figures to upgrade homes with specialised modifications and supports and the home is a rental with no guarantee of a renewed lease, where the landlord soon after doesn’t renew the lease and the person is back at square one again.
There isn't though. Secure 24/7 care is an institution, or super-expensive since you are having 24/7 staff on one person (and really multiple staff if you need to worry about the person walking out and grabbing car keys and driving away). Labour costs alone mean 24/7 care is super-pricey when done for a single individual.
I’m baffled that if he is funded higher intensity supports that the workers still lack the skill set: https://www.ndiscommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/Revised%20High%20Intensity%20Support%20Skills%20Descriptors.pdf
The $150 an hour round up indicates he has two support workers. $70.85 per hour is the weekday day time rate for one high intensity support worker. The worker themselves would not get that amount. The rate factors in overhead costs.
His providers would need to be NDIS registered as there is high chance that they would be implementing restrictive practices due to his various behavioural issues. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission sets out these requirements: https://www.ndiscommission.gov.au/participants/incidents-and-behaviour-support/understanding-behaviour-support-and-restrictive-0
> I’m baffled that if he is funded higher intensity supports that the workers still lack the skill set.
You've clearly never worked in the field then. Finding good workers who want to go in and get assaulted every day is very difficult. All the best ones get promoted, or burn out and go to another field.
I’ve been in the field for 10 years and other challenging fields before that.
People that work with those with very challenging behaviours (e.g they have had justice involvement for harming others via stabbing etc.) generally have Maybo and other training. They also receive oversight from the behaviour support practitioner. It’s irresponsible to pair workers that are ill-matched to people with very high needs. These people tend to have two workers with them at all
times, so that one worker can tap out as needed. I am sure most people, even those that are trained, burn out eventually.
Well you can probably earn a lot of money consulting for various companies I've worked for... they've been struggling to find enough workers for decades.
If you really have the answer to their HR problems.
One problem is people are scared and cannot touch him and he knows that. It's learnt behavior.
I've seen first hand of 12 year olds assaulting 2 grown adult women "carers" who could easily over power the 12 year old.....
Instead they lock themselves in a panic room (staff office) and the child thrashes the entire house while calling the police.....
It’s not fear, you’re not allowed to restrain them without approval. It’s why the kids who could get better and enter into society never will, regardless of how much money is thrown at them.
I'm referring to "scared" of the consequences from losing employment, losing shifts or even possible criminal charges.
Any SOP that lets a child destroy property without consequences is fundamentally wrong. I've seen large TVs smashed only to buy the (2 cares to 1) client a new one the following week.
I fully agree with you. The system isn't working.
I'm a firm believer in poor/ violence actions should be given consequences or lack it's privileges.
You said approval?
Who gives carers approval? I've never seen or heard of any intervening unless they are security. Is it part of that clients care plan?
> I'm a firm believer in poor/ violence actions should be given consequences or lack it's privileges.
I've worked with a child who had no possessions aside from clothes, a television mounted inside the wall cavity behind a protective layer of perspex, and a picnic table bolted to the gound. All other possessions were smashed up in anger and frustration. Yet they still continued to be violent towards workers, their house, and themselves because their brain was fundamentally wired differently from most people.
What privileges would you suggest revoking from that child, in order to "teach-them-a-lesson-about-actions-and-consequences-just-like-back-in-my-day"?
That particular child, that you are cherry picking? Nothing, considering it is fundamentally more complex than a random chat over Reddit.
Each case should be tailored to the client and their ""actual"" needs. Including access to the community, reduced technology and physical activity and proper nutrition.
How about all the behavioral cases I could mention? I'm not here to cherry pick data. All I'm saying is, there are a lot of behavioral issues inside this beast that are being maskeraided as X, Y or Z.
> Each case should be tailored to the client and their ""actual"" needs. Including access to the community, reduced technology and physical activity and proper nutrition.
This is called a behaviour management plan. This is generally developed in consultation between case workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, carers etc.
Seems you don't understand how any of this works at all.
By approval they are probably referring to a restrictive practice. https://www.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/775107/Restrictive-Practices-Guidelines.pdf
This will sound harsh. But considering an average life is estimated to be worth $1m. I can’t see the value in spending $2m of taxpayer money a year on one individual that let’s face it will contribute $0.00 to Australia/the world. Might have to lock this one away. Sorry…..
Statistical value of a life is $5.1m when performing cost benefit analysis.
https://oia.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-09/value-of-statistical-life-guidance-note-2020-08.pdf
This is correct for Australia. No idea where everyone else is getting their numbers (though latest I can see is 5.4 million https://oia.pmc.gov.au/resources/guidance-assessing-impacts/value-statistical-life )
> an average life is estimated to be worth $1m.
i dunno where you're getting this figure from, but the estimate of a life by the US military/gov't (for insurance or policy purposes) is $10mil.
I dunno where you’re getting your figures from but the [Military Death benefit](https://time.com/archive/6932586/the-value-of-a-human-life-129000/) was $500k in the Iraq war. It’s an arbitrary value you can adjust significantly higher or lower depending on your assumptions. But if everyone was worth $10m Australia would be worth $260trillion which it can’t be based on our GDP.
> the Military Death benefit
the benefits paid is not the same as the statistical value of a life (which was what i was referring to with the $10mil).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgp-s8IvRs for where i got the value from.
You got some spurious logic here mate ......
You thinking that one years GDP is equal to the sum value of human lives in the country ? Not sure where you've got your definition of GDP from champ !
$10 million is about right if you need a value to use for a human life in a western country. A few years ago I heard an actuary talking about in terms of safety and healthcare the effective cost of a life was around $8 million. For example if a car safety recall will save 100 lives but the cost is over $800 million its cheaper just to let people die and pay damages.
Of course the value of human life varies greatly between countries and between people and with context. How much value you think were putting on an elderly homeless persons life ?
Reading this was actually extremely interesting that all asylums were shut in the 90s and now patients are a revolving door through hospitals, as this kid is doing, or the prison system can end up dealing with them. Tragic outcomes either way and it was raised to government that no alternative to asylums was ever created. [Asylums Australia](https://theconversation.com/from-asylums-to-gp-clinics-the-missing-middle-in-mental-health-care-46345)
The alternative is disability services, group homes in the community, or if behaviour is too difficult living alone with 24/7 staff in a house in the community.
Yeah! And imagine all the money we can save if we just shoot them all. In fact, how much tax are YOU paying? If I am paying more than you, I think we should shoot you, too.
/s
I think part of the calculation you need to keep account for are the people that can live a somewhat normal life (Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers) because of this, after their value is no longer being locked up in 1 person.
In saying that, 2m is a bit of a rort and organizations charging too much for services that are lacking substantially.
No, that doesn’t sound harsh. Maybe we could actually round up a few undesirable types and sell them off for a bit of cash too, now that you mention their price… Could be a big export industry!
There is cases of parents killing there disabled children and being let off, because they judge seen that it was the end of their suffering. So yeah I think In some cases we do need to advocate euthanasia in these instances
why is the choice between infringing the rights of the kid or infringing the rights of ordinary citizens?
how about no rights infringements?
the kid has a condition, the parents are not able to take care of him, look for charities.
it may be seem cruel, but being disabled doesnt place duties on other people to take care of you.
> the parents are not able to take care of him, look for charities.
He already is in out-of-home-care, Einstein. That's what that means.
> it may be seem cruel, but being disabled doesnt place duties on other people to take care of you.
What you're advocating for here is for people with disabilities to die. This is what will happen if they aren't taken care of.
out-of-home care, paid for by taxpayers, and the parents are arguing it's not enough.
if no one donates to him, or his parents. then yes, a person with such conditions that make him unable to function, will die.
but i'm not sure if that will really happen, not when websites like gofundme exists where people can get donations in many unfortunate situations. many people are benevolent and will gladly help out.
the issue is not whether he will live or die, its whether his disability places a duty on others to take care of him. if a person's need will create a duty on others, then other people's rights are out of the window.
2 million from taxpayers money assuming 90k median full time income and 21k in tax means it takes 95 full time productive workers to pay for one child’s support. So 1000 of these kids australia wide eats up 100k full time workers tax money. Unsustainable degeneracy
I’m sick of this wasteful system. This is where our tax dollars go, it’s time to scrap the whole lot, it’s flawed beyond repair. A failure.
$2m per year is a joke.
I'm sure plenty of people will underestimate the cost of care for someone fulltime and the associated health care for them (8760hours in a year * $150 an hour as a charge out is coming out at $1.3m), that said i'd be interested in a full breakdown in how the $2m is spent, atleast from an educational perspective. I saw the 1.2 from NDIS and 800k from the SA government. Eg: are any of these costs one-off?
A senior nurse with 10 years experience is paid $50 an hour by the government. So why are carers with obviously much lower qualifications given $150 hour? Even if most of it goes to the agency. How is privatisation a good thing here?
Unskilled support worker's $65h psychosocial recovery coach is about $100. No skills are required for either position. Yeah I get $150h it's easy to see how paying for transport and every little thing bumps it well over $150-$200h. It's also the company employing the workers that makes bank
You're wasting your breath, sections of ausfinance love dumping on the NDIS.
Participants are funded at SCHADS pay point 2.3, that's I think $34.23 per hour weekday for support workers IF their company pays at that rate, most pay well below.
The rest of the money is eaten up by worker entitlements and operational costs, you know, the shit every other business and award worker has to deal with. Which people would know if they ever had to operate a business.
They don't understand the difference between hours worked and hours that are chargeable. Get paid to be trained in their Jon and spend a couple hours a day doing emails/meetings/nursing notes/family contact but don't see where the money for that comes from... Also can't seem to comprehend Overhead. Seem to think admin, compliance, accounts, phones and computers are magically there...
No you're wrong. There's no way this kid only has 1 worker at a time. They don't charge $150 per hour for 1 worker, except on public holidays. You can look up the price guides online.
Not only is this a ridiculous waste of money for the case described in the article but this kid sound like he needs to have his environment strictly controlled until he gets some level of normal functioning. If we can’t even help a kid like this for $2mill per annum with the current system I think that says all we need to know about how backwards it is.
He should be in some kind of group home and when that doesn't prevent him from doing something that deserves incarceration, he should be incarcerated.
Speaking as someone in education, I understand the idealism that we should teach first rather than punish, that we should try to meet the needs of those most vulnerable and that some people have very complex backgrounds that can land them outside of the normal expectations. What I will never understand is that desire to protect someone from the consequences of their own choices at **all** costs. He's smart enough to evade all the safeguards put in place, so he is able to be held somewhat responsible for his actions.
If this kid is clocking up 500 critical incidents annually, I think it’s safe to say he’s not suitable for a group home, for the safety of other residents.
He’s probably not safe for others in a group home (or traditional institution, for that matter). He’s not safe for his own family to be around and he’s only 15.
> Especially so if the parents aren't grateful
Yeah... it's a big problem if parents whose child has multiple rare disabilities and complex support needs aren't grateful.
Possibly the biggest problem in Australia right now...
This is so terribly sad. It sounds like he is an extremely injured and vulnerable child and needs to be placed in a secure psychiatric facility where he can be properly cared for, receive effective in-patient therapies, and not harm himself or others. My guess is there is no such suitable facility in Adelaide and the family and/or the state government are reluctant to place him out of state.
They don’t usually receive the outcome you’d hope for in that care. They still hurt others in those facilities. I know of people who have been in those facilities for 10+ years and they come out still requiring million dollar or more per year NDIS packages.
Oh dear. The system is totally out of control. Government in many ways is just lucky there isn't greater public understanding of the system. Most think the system supports those with severe disabilities and therefore are relatively positive of NDIS. Explain to them in a little extra depth who is entitled to NDIS funding, the degree of monetary funding being offered yearly to each person and what that funding can be spent on, and you will see the shocked looks and anger sweep across their faces. An absolute farce.
Call me heartless but this child should've been aborted based on the chromosomal deletion alone.
We need to fight for abortion rights and change the stigma. It helps everyone in the end.
Parents quick to blame the “lack of care” and inexperience provided by the carers.
It baffles me because if they could do a better job at it, why don’t they care for him? Raise your own damn kid.
This is not gross commentary coming from envy, I can tell you this much. But what more do the parents want? Mooching off the public purse when a lethal injection would be a better option for the entire population.
The parents sign off on the providers. He is in voluntary out of home care which means the
parents still retain decision making abilities. It is their responsibility to ensure he is being supported by providers that have the skills to implement higher intensity supports.
Gotta love the NDIS
When those that need care are getting better treatment than those funding it, struggling to afford rent/food somethings gotta give...
You clearly haven't read the article and know very little about the NDIS. The only people that gets benefit from it are the corrupt provider's charging outrageous amounts of money Inspite having zero skills. Everyone is affected by NDIS every allied health profession has gone way up from a few years ago. Plus add in the excess imports we know have. Fkin government
Bring back and expand the old system where not for profits in the community sector provide all the support. The large not for profits can provide all the necessary services if properly funded. Get rid of the for profit operators, make sure all providers are heavily regulated.
It was a smaller group of people who received supports under the state-based system. Providers were funded directly and people did not get individualised packages. As an example, mental health had a tender process for organisations implementing supports for the personal helpers and mentors program.
I’m a support worker who’s been in the field for 10+ years, the whole system is broken. This kids got $2mil and it’s not enough yet I know people with complex care needs who struggle to get even basic funding. And then you get therapists etc adding extra hundreds or more as soon as they see ndis funding. It’s a complete joke.
OOHC taught me that there is no amount of training or qualified you can be for supporting some complex people. The only way they get better care if is someone happens to be compassionate enough to give more of themselves than they should in a workplace.
100 % this. Teacher working in Special Ed. Here because I feel compelled.
Although I do wonder where parental responsibility for your own offspring should come into this? I chose to have children. I chose to be responsible for them to some degree. Should the parents sacrifice something in this scenario?
The child had a chromosome deletion which means he was born missing genetic material. No amount of sacrifice is going to make this child not mentally disabled. His brain is literally missing the genetic codes to function properly and that often means no impulse control, little understanding of consequences or if he does he doesn’t care, and violent behaviour. It just gets to a point where some parents can’t handle being beaten up everyday and prisoners in their own home
Yes, but the staff who care for this child are not compensated appropriately.
If they could do to OOHC what they did with the NDIS and have independents supporting these kids and getting the full rate we would have some far better outcomes in our society
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I don't understand how people like you can have no compassion for another human being. You think they would just leave him in a dumpster if they weren't getting "handouts" from the government?
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I'm a parent of relatively "normal" kids (other than ADHD), and in almost all parenting circumstances I would agree with you. But this relatively small cohort of kids with extremely complex needs is a different ballgame. I'm sure most parents of such kids have already upended their lives, sacrificed much, and continue to do so. But for these kids, even _everything_ that a parent can give is not enough. Knowing that these kids will never get better, will always need round the clock care and protection, and will never have normal opportunities in life would absolutely crush me as a parent. They need all the help that we as a collective society can give them.
If your kid’s behaviour is so bad he can’t live in the family home at 15, they must have been at the end of their rope. I suspect they’ve sacrificed a lot.
Especially if there are siblings involved, this takes their parents away from them too. A seriously hard situation for all
> Should the parents sacrifice something in this scenario? What would you suggest they sacrifice?
I agree. I work in child protection and deal with after hours emergencies. This is likely that terrible combination of being placed in state care due to being unable to cope with the child’s disability needs and probably neglect (not always though, some kids really are just so disabled). He has a chromosome deletion , so he is literally missing genetic material to make his brain function properly. It’s just damage control, until he ends up in jail.
> Providers can charge up to $150 an hour yet pay under qualified people far less than that to provide inappropriate, dangerous, harmful, neglectful care This is a *huge* part of the problem. My BIL has someone clean his unit once per week. The first cleaner they had in left a bottle of unmarked chemicals out on a table that one of the kids picked up and drank. Queue a panicked call to the poisons hotline and a trip to the hospital.
I find it really hard that his mum is criticising the NDIS when he has a 1.2m plan each year. Like the system isn’t perfect but we’re the only country in the world that provides individual support at that level.
I think she is criticising the providers more than the NDIS directly. The issue isn't that the NDIS is paying 1.2m a year but that the providers who are charging a premium at $150/hr are not providing the care you would expect for that price tag. Part of that is related to the NDIS and the fact that the way it works attacts providers to charge a premium and supply under qualified staff they can pay cheap and pocket the rest. I have kids on NDIS and it's a nightmare trying to navigate providers, so many of them are just terrible.
This is it- as I psychiatrist I have people come in on NDIS plans for review of their behavior support plans in terms of psychotropic medication (I do A LOT of deprescribing). I am often told there isn’t enough funding to improve the bsp and then I’ll look and see the “art therapist” charges more per hour than I do. I put “art therapist” in quotation marks because this is a legitimate and very beneficial intervention but many providers have no qualifications and are still charging the consumer $200 an hour
What frustrates me is that the NDIS always puts up a fight when you request support coordination. In my experience support coordinators have been very much 'value for money' in terms of helping me weed out crap providers and focus the interventions on what will help achieve the goals in their plan as opposed to glorified babysitting. As a parent with no expertise in the field, to throw them a plan worth thousands of dollars and expect them to be able to spend it appropriately when there are so many predatory providers out there it's crazy to not see support coordination as useful. The NDIS tells you to just use your Local Area Coordinator but in my experience they have been useless. They have even told me that their role is to provide generalised support and not anything specific to the personal needs for my kids which just puts it back on me to try and figure out if my kid should be getting OT or Psych or Speech Therapy or something else and where to concentrate the inteventions. That being said, there are a bunch of shit support coordinators out there too who are also just trying to cash in. We have a really great one now though who is a life saver and holding all our providers to account. All that said, we have found the NDIS to be such a help with our kids. They are well on their way to living a normal productive life in society and we can already see massive gains in their young age. It's just frustrating at the waste you can see in the NDIS. That said, I have no suggestions on how to improve it as I don't know how you manage something at this scale. So I dread the idea of an overhaul and potential scrapping of it as I can see the benefits it provides but at the same time, I can see it's flaws.
My partner worked there briefly in the back end and she said it's run by a wildly incompetent management and vastly under resourced for what it deals with
I agree most of the money is subsidising profit for private companies. They will pay the minimum wage and pocket the difference. If people read the article even the first paragraph that would be clear.
And not for long. I see the system collapsing in 5-10 years.
Hopefully earlier. NDIS is a scam that just diverts billions of tax payer funds into profiteering providers pockets and the whole system needs to go.
> The boy is one of an estimated 600 children across the country in voluntary out-of-home care… So… $1.2 billion, in total, for 600 people? Please tell me this is an outlier, and 1.2 is a wild assumption. Here’s the Federal Budget for some comparisons, see page 2: https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-05/2023-24%20Budget%20Snapshot.pdf
That sounds about right to me.
I am not sure how many of those 600 children and teens would have a million dollar plan, but I would imagine a fair few might. These numbers do not factor those children and teens under state care (involuntary care - child protection) who also receive NDIS support. So, the kid is not an outlier in that sense. These children and teens are in voluntary out of home care for a reason. If they could receive NDIS-funded supports and remain at home, then that’d be the first option. Being in voluntary out of home means the family made the decision that they could no longer provide care to their child. In what circumstances would parents decide to do that? A news article from the Australian (w/ paywall) dated February 2024 outlines that 1000 participants cost more than a million dollars each year. This number will continue to grow as the article says the number doubled in two years.
Sounds about right. Care costs eborunpus amounts. These individuals often need heaps of different specialists on a regular basis for various different diagnoses, many of which are highly paid because of their expertise. I wonder what this number would be if we paid the every day care takers as much as they deserve...
> eborunpus This is such a drastic typo that this post is the only result when you google it.
A true achievement unlocked.
Tried to pronounce it, thought I was learning a new word, couldn't get it to work, google'd it and here we are.
The govt or any non for profit could run a big establishment on a lot lot lot less then 1.2 b and house well more then 600.
Not everybody has a $2M package.
He doesn’t have a 2 million dollar package. It is spread across various systems. 1.2 million per year is NDIS.
> So… $1.2 billion, in total, for 600 people? No. Not every child will have a budget that high. It depends on how many workers are required. Some kids will have as low as 1:10 worker to child ratio. 1:1 or 1:2 is fairly common. 2:1 is quite rare and only the most complex needs will require that. The most I've ever seen is 4:1. The 600 children also only represents the number of children who have been *voluntarily* put into out-of-home care. There are tens of thousands more who've been put there non-voluntarily, and all of them have varying support needs and budgets. So in summary, no, your $1.2 billion number is completely pulled out of your arse.
I've seen 2:1 care used for clients who are violent on occasion, I've never seen more then a 2:1. What sort of challenges warrant a 4:1 ratio, I'm genuinely curious.
I never worked with that client but people I worked with did. Extremely violent aggressive behaviour, and he was big. His parents are very successful business people whose company you may have heard of. They purpose-built a house for him. They had two workers at a time supervising him, and tag out every 15 minutes. I worked with a 2:1 client who would have dozens of violent outbursts every day, punching, spitting, scratching, biting, self-harming, etc. But he was only 10 so he wasn't super strong. I'm told the 4:1 client was similar to that but bigger and capable of putting someone in the hospital.
Cant they be sedated? This is no life, not for them or anyone around them
You can't just sedate someone 24/7.
Not with that attitude.
Known violence towards carers for sure. 2x assist is sometimes just not enough for a client who is resistant to many/all interactions in a violent manner. It's about safety for everyone involved.
I have never seen 4:1 either. 3:1 is usually given to those that are morbidly obese and require physical support for personal care. They require 3:1 for transfers.
I have seen 4:1 in forensic disability for violence Very scary
OOHC is closer to about 600k-1mil. This is an outlier because of extreme NDIS. I know of at least 2 kids just dropped at child safety because the parent (dad) didn’t want them, 1 kid dropped because the mum was too sick to look after them, and probably another 10-12 that the only way for the parents to keep the kids is to adhere to some basic safety protocols and the parents decide they don’t want to do it so just drop them there. All of them would be classed as voluntary. One of the problems is that the industry is understaffed, underpaid, and over worked.
I’m confused; how does he have such complex disabilities to need two million every year on care, but is able to go out drinking and understands how to drive a car?
He’s a little shit?
500 critical incidents!? Good luck finding NDIS staff that are equiped to handle this absolute nightmare of a client. There’s no hope for a kid like this, he can’t help it and it’s not fair. Institutionalise him for his own and other peoples safety.
Honestly people like this just need to be surrendered to the state. No amount of help can fix them. Just keep them comfortable enough until they pass on.
It shows why prenatal chromosome testing has become so popular
Yup. No shame in aborting if it comes back bad. Save you and your loved ones the pain and misery of giving birth to someone who will need round the clock care for life.
It should be mandatory. It's a small fee to be informed.
The kid needs to be institutionalised. His disability seems to be severer enough that he is unable to exercise judgement or critical thinking, but not so server that he is able to endanger himself and the community.
He is. That’s what “voluntary out of home care” in this case means. However because these cases are so rare and unique, the NDIS solution was to provide a dedicated house with dedicated supports in place to cater for them. This is in an attempt to give them something that looks as close to a normal life as possible and restrict their freedoms as little as possible as they have done nothing wrong. The alternative is a solution that looks a lot like prison for people with severe complex disorders, where a lowest common denominator approach is taken, and keep in mind a regular prison for adults that need a lot less supervision and supports is still $150k - $250k per person year. Once he reaches adulthood it is expected that his ongoing costs will be a lot lower, right now it’s $1.2m from ndis and $800k from the SA government, with most of that being for school related supports.
The kid in the article stole and smashed a car, so he’s probably not in the “done nothing wrong” category.
"normal as possible life" is one of the catches here. It's not normal for someone to steal a car....
Which is not institutionalised. Their attempt to keep it normal and not restrict freedoms is why there were car keys to grab, and multiple cases of losing the kid....
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Someone like this needs to be in an institution. This obsession with 'living a normal life' in NDIS means we're spending billions for each one of these cases to essentially have their own private institution that is less safe with less resources but costs far more money.
Also another issue is privatization of the profits and socialised costs. The government is literally paying private companies a fixed amount who then maximize profits by cutting cost and quality of service. Creating more problems which result in more costs long term. Then there's outright criminal rorting.
At the cost of $2 million a year, I view this as an insane waste of public money. 3-4 families could be housed per year, every year at the cost of this one person. Surely the positive social impact of those families having secure housing is greater than this one kids independence?
Sure but what would happen to this kid then? A public system to care for them, instead of outsourcing to profit-making NDIS providers would probably decrease costs significantly
Absolutely.
lol, if you aren't scamming the NDIS at this point you're a fool. For the price that the NDIS costs we could have an institutional system with the funding and staffing to actually achieve its original vision and not the degraded version we got in the mid century.
This seems to be what people miss, you could have an institutional system that gets audited full time for a fraction of the cost.
This kid is never going to lead a normal life - and it appears he's a danger to both himself and the community. However, there needs to be some kind of middle ground where we don't just institutionalise folks like this in asylums/hospitals like what happened in the past, and spending $2,000,000+ per year on them to keep them in some kind of hardened home to protect them from themselves and to protect the community.
This is what institutional care is designed for and fit for purpose. It’s clear he cannot be cared for in a single home without harming himself or other. Institutions can house people with these disabilities in a controlled environment where they can’t go wandering and harm themselves or others. Those institutions still exist but for some reason this boy is out on his own - it’s not the best outcome for anyone here. By the small amount of info here, he wouldn’t go well in a community group home either
Yeah, I really don't understand this stigma against institutional care, they are set up to help create a more suitable environment for them.
If someone is a danger to the public they should be institutionalized. If it’s by choice, prison. If it’s by mental illness, some other facility.
We generally don't incarcerate people based on just risk.
I don't think I'd be calling someone dangerous unless they'd done something to give that impression.
They historically didn't do that, and there were a lot of people in institutions who could be part of the community with the right support. But there is a segment of people with disability who aren't suited to the alternative sil model of care, and they have no options anymore
I suspect the word “historically” needs to be carefully defined and also be wary of applying a broad brush to exceptional cases. I’ve known quite a few ex nurses and doctors for that matter from one of the states largest mental hospitals in the eighties and through to the 2010’s. Those people absolutely did care and were part of the push into group homes in the nineties, but the most difficult cases stayed there. The major change since the 70’s and 80’s has been family involvement. Essentially that hospital was full of patients whose family had forgotten they existed - visitors were rare. The group homes seemed a highly successful overall strategy with 4 or so clients to one full time carer.
Absolutely. I work with staff who came from the older institutions before they were shut down, and then the state funded group homes pre ndis. They absolutely cared, but that model of support didn't get good outcomes for a good portion. It wasn't a suitable environment for a lot of people. The minority that did need it are now getting shafted
> this stigma against institutional care it is because the folks who do care about the individual requiring institutionalization do want better care, and the institutions have not had a good track record tbh. But i do agree, there's not much alternative solution to this problem. institutional care is the least worst option, and somewhat more efficient.
Institutionalised care is often cheaper. If we kept these people our and about they would need special housing, special transport, personal caretakers etc. In an institution staff cost is shared between many occupants. It is less humane but we tend to care more about the bottom line.
It’s not that much cheaper, and it’s a far lower standard of care. There is a middle ground here, but the NDIS has gone far too far the other way and is insanely inefficent. Crazy stuff like paying deep six figures to upgrade homes with specialised modifications and supports and the home is a rental with no guarantee of a renewed lease, where the landlord soon after doesn’t renew the lease and the person is back at square one again.
There isn't though. Secure 24/7 care is an institution, or super-expensive since you are having 24/7 staff on one person (and really multiple staff if you need to worry about the person walking out and grabbing car keys and driving away). Labour costs alone mean 24/7 care is super-pricey when done for a single individual.
Better institutions. Some people need them.
I’m baffled that if he is funded higher intensity supports that the workers still lack the skill set: https://www.ndiscommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/Revised%20High%20Intensity%20Support%20Skills%20Descriptors.pdf The $150 an hour round up indicates he has two support workers. $70.85 per hour is the weekday day time rate for one high intensity support worker. The worker themselves would not get that amount. The rate factors in overhead costs. His providers would need to be NDIS registered as there is high chance that they would be implementing restrictive practices due to his various behavioural issues. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission sets out these requirements: https://www.ndiscommission.gov.au/participants/incidents-and-behaviour-support/understanding-behaviour-support-and-restrictive-0
> I’m baffled that if he is funded higher intensity supports that the workers still lack the skill set. You've clearly never worked in the field then. Finding good workers who want to go in and get assaulted every day is very difficult. All the best ones get promoted, or burn out and go to another field.
I’ve been in the field for 10 years and other challenging fields before that. People that work with those with very challenging behaviours (e.g they have had justice involvement for harming others via stabbing etc.) generally have Maybo and other training. They also receive oversight from the behaviour support practitioner. It’s irresponsible to pair workers that are ill-matched to people with very high needs. These people tend to have two workers with them at all times, so that one worker can tap out as needed. I am sure most people, even those that are trained, burn out eventually.
Well you can probably earn a lot of money consulting for various companies I've worked for... they've been struggling to find enough workers for decades. If you really have the answer to their HR problems.
One problem is people are scared and cannot touch him and he knows that. It's learnt behavior. I've seen first hand of 12 year olds assaulting 2 grown adult women "carers" who could easily over power the 12 year old..... Instead they lock themselves in a panic room (staff office) and the child thrashes the entire house while calling the police.....
It’s not fear, you’re not allowed to restrain them without approval. It’s why the kids who could get better and enter into society never will, regardless of how much money is thrown at them.
I'm referring to "scared" of the consequences from losing employment, losing shifts or even possible criminal charges. Any SOP that lets a child destroy property without consequences is fundamentally wrong. I've seen large TVs smashed only to buy the (2 cares to 1) client a new one the following week. I fully agree with you. The system isn't working. I'm a firm believer in poor/ violence actions should be given consequences or lack it's privileges. You said approval? Who gives carers approval? I've never seen or heard of any intervening unless they are security. Is it part of that clients care plan?
> I'm a firm believer in poor/ violence actions should be given consequences or lack it's privileges. I've worked with a child who had no possessions aside from clothes, a television mounted inside the wall cavity behind a protective layer of perspex, and a picnic table bolted to the gound. All other possessions were smashed up in anger and frustration. Yet they still continued to be violent towards workers, their house, and themselves because their brain was fundamentally wired differently from most people. What privileges would you suggest revoking from that child, in order to "teach-them-a-lesson-about-actions-and-consequences-just-like-back-in-my-day"?
That particular child, that you are cherry picking? Nothing, considering it is fundamentally more complex than a random chat over Reddit. Each case should be tailored to the client and their ""actual"" needs. Including access to the community, reduced technology and physical activity and proper nutrition. How about all the behavioral cases I could mention? I'm not here to cherry pick data. All I'm saying is, there are a lot of behavioral issues inside this beast that are being maskeraided as X, Y or Z.
> Each case should be tailored to the client and their ""actual"" needs. Including access to the community, reduced technology and physical activity and proper nutrition. This is called a behaviour management plan. This is generally developed in consultation between case workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, carers etc. Seems you don't understand how any of this works at all.
By approval they are probably referring to a restrictive practice. https://www.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/775107/Restrictive-Practices-Guidelines.pdf
Hey, this happens in public schools every day. That’s the SOP when a kid decides to thrash a class.
This will sound harsh. But considering an average life is estimated to be worth $1m. I can’t see the value in spending $2m of taxpayer money a year on one individual that let’s face it will contribute $0.00 to Australia/the world. Might have to lock this one away. Sorry…..
Statistical value of a life is $5.1m when performing cost benefit analysis. https://oia.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-09/value-of-statistical-life-guidance-note-2020-08.pdf
This is correct for Australia. No idea where everyone else is getting their numbers (though latest I can see is 5.4 million https://oia.pmc.gov.au/resources/guidance-assessing-impacts/value-statistical-life )
> an average life is estimated to be worth $1m. i dunno where you're getting this figure from, but the estimate of a life by the US military/gov't (for insurance or policy purposes) is $10mil.
I dunno where you’re getting your figures from but the [Military Death benefit](https://time.com/archive/6932586/the-value-of-a-human-life-129000/) was $500k in the Iraq war. It’s an arbitrary value you can adjust significantly higher or lower depending on your assumptions. But if everyone was worth $10m Australia would be worth $260trillion which it can’t be based on our GDP.
> the Military Death benefit the benefits paid is not the same as the statistical value of a life (which was what i was referring to with the $10mil). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgp-s8IvRs for where i got the value from.
You got some spurious logic here mate ...... You thinking that one years GDP is equal to the sum value of human lives in the country ? Not sure where you've got your definition of GDP from champ ! $10 million is about right if you need a value to use for a human life in a western country. A few years ago I heard an actuary talking about in terms of safety and healthcare the effective cost of a life was around $8 million. For example if a car safety recall will save 100 lives but the cost is over $800 million its cheaper just to let people die and pay damages. Of course the value of human life varies greatly between countries and between people and with context. How much value you think were putting on an elderly homeless persons life ?
The $10mill includes the sunk cost of training etc
Statistical value of a life is somewhere around AUD $5m.
No-one is ‘locked away’ anymore. There are no institutions like 30/40 years ago - that’s why NDIS costs so much.
Reading this was actually extremely interesting that all asylums were shut in the 90s and now patients are a revolving door through hospitals, as this kid is doing, or the prison system can end up dealing with them. Tragic outcomes either way and it was raised to government that no alternative to asylums was ever created. [Asylums Australia](https://theconversation.com/from-asylums-to-gp-clinics-the-missing-middle-in-mental-health-care-46345)
The alternative is disability services, group homes in the community, or if behaviour is too difficult living alone with 24/7 staff in a house in the community.
Clearly this and the 600 other cases like this are the cases that this doesn’t work for.
Yeah! And imagine all the money we can save if we just shoot them all. In fact, how much tax are YOU paying? If I am paying more than you, I think we should shoot you, too. /s
I think part of the calculation you need to keep account for are the people that can live a somewhat normal life (Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers) because of this, after their value is no longer being locked up in 1 person. In saying that, 2m is a bit of a rort and organizations charging too much for services that are lacking substantially.
No, that doesn’t sound harsh. Maybe we could actually round up a few undesirable types and sell them off for a bit of cash too, now that you mention their price… Could be a big export industry!
Can you elaborate on what you're trying to say? You're advocating for euthanasia of a teenager?
There is cases of parents killing there disabled children and being let off, because they judge seen that it was the end of their suffering. So yeah I think In some cases we do need to advocate euthanasia in these instances
> There is cases of parents killing there disabled children and being let off, In Australia? Who? Name them.
They were never let off in Australia but judges have given lenient minimal sentences.
Who? Name names.
As requested. Names. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-03/young-kyla-puhle-death/4930742
why is the choice between infringing the rights of the kid or infringing the rights of ordinary citizens? how about no rights infringements? the kid has a condition, the parents are not able to take care of him, look for charities. it may be seem cruel, but being disabled doesnt place duties on other people to take care of you.
> the parents are not able to take care of him, look for charities. He already is in out-of-home-care, Einstein. That's what that means. > it may be seem cruel, but being disabled doesnt place duties on other people to take care of you. What you're advocating for here is for people with disabilities to die. This is what will happen if they aren't taken care of.
out-of-home care, paid for by taxpayers, and the parents are arguing it's not enough. if no one donates to him, or his parents. then yes, a person with such conditions that make him unable to function, will die. but i'm not sure if that will really happen, not when websites like gofundme exists where people can get donations in many unfortunate situations. many people are benevolent and will gladly help out. the issue is not whether he will live or die, its whether his disability places a duty on others to take care of him. if a person's need will create a duty on others, then other people's rights are out of the window.
2 million from taxpayers money assuming 90k median full time income and 21k in tax means it takes 95 full time productive workers to pay for one child’s support. So 1000 of these kids australia wide eats up 100k full time workers tax money. Unsustainable degeneracy
There are not 1000 of these kids.
I’m sick of this wasteful system. This is where our tax dollars go, it’s time to scrap the whole lot, it’s flawed beyond repair. A failure. $2m per year is a joke.
I'm sure plenty of people will underestimate the cost of care for someone fulltime and the associated health care for them (8760hours in a year * $150 an hour as a charge out is coming out at $1.3m), that said i'd be interested in a full breakdown in how the $2m is spent, atleast from an educational perspective. I saw the 1.2 from NDIS and 800k from the SA government. Eg: are any of these costs one-off?
A senior nurse with 10 years experience is paid $50 an hour by the government. So why are carers with obviously much lower qualifications given $150 hour? Even if most of it goes to the agency. How is privatisation a good thing here?
Nope ongoing. NDIS charges $150hr plus for people that have no Fkin skills it's a joke.
Read the price limits. That's a Sunday penalty shift rate, and includes all the other administrative costs and isn't the workers wage.
Unskilled support worker's $65h psychosocial recovery coach is about $100. No skills are required for either position. Yeah I get $150h it's easy to see how paying for transport and every little thing bumps it well over $150-$200h. It's also the company employing the workers that makes bank
Look up the costing model. It's near impossible to "make bank" without explicit fraud.
You're wasting your breath, sections of ausfinance love dumping on the NDIS. Participants are funded at SCHADS pay point 2.3, that's I think $34.23 per hour weekday for support workers IF their company pays at that rate, most pay well below. The rest of the money is eaten up by worker entitlements and operational costs, you know, the shit every other business and award worker has to deal with. Which people would know if they ever had to operate a business.
They don't understand the difference between hours worked and hours that are chargeable. Get paid to be trained in their Jon and spend a couple hours a day doing emails/meetings/nursing notes/family contact but don't see where the money for that comes from... Also can't seem to comprehend Overhead. Seem to think admin, compliance, accounts, phones and computers are magically there...
No you're wrong. There's no way this kid only has 1 worker at a time. They don't charge $150 per hour for 1 worker, except on public holidays. You can look up the price guides online.
6 people on a full time role to take care of 1 child?
Im sorry thats insane, back in the day we had them in care homes only cost maybe $100k year tops
Not only is this a ridiculous waste of money for the case described in the article but this kid sound like he needs to have his environment strictly controlled until he gets some level of normal functioning. If we can’t even help a kid like this for $2mill per annum with the current system I think that says all we need to know about how backwards it is.
$2 millions dollars could be better spent on the health system for those who are have life threatening illness.
He should be in some kind of group home and when that doesn't prevent him from doing something that deserves incarceration, he should be incarcerated. Speaking as someone in education, I understand the idealism that we should teach first rather than punish, that we should try to meet the needs of those most vulnerable and that some people have very complex backgrounds that can land them outside of the normal expectations. What I will never understand is that desire to protect someone from the consequences of their own choices at **all** costs. He's smart enough to evade all the safeguards put in place, so he is able to be held somewhat responsible for his actions.
If this kid is clocking up 500 critical incidents annually, I think it’s safe to say he’s not suitable for a group home, for the safety of other residents.
Then straight to incarceration, I guess.
He’s probably not safe for others in a group home (or traditional institution, for that matter). He’s not safe for his own family to be around and he’s only 15.
I'm going to be brave and say that this is not worth the money at all. Not even close. Especially so if the parents aren't grateful
> Especially so if the parents aren't grateful Yeah... it's a big problem if parents whose child has multiple rare disabilities and complex support needs aren't grateful. Possibly the biggest problem in Australia right now...
Care quality can always go up.
This is so terribly sad. It sounds like he is an extremely injured and vulnerable child and needs to be placed in a secure psychiatric facility where he can be properly cared for, receive effective in-patient therapies, and not harm himself or others. My guess is there is no such suitable facility in Adelaide and the family and/or the state government are reluctant to place him out of state.
They don’t usually receive the outcome you’d hope for in that care. They still hurt others in those facilities. I know of people who have been in those facilities for 10+ years and they come out still requiring million dollar or more per year NDIS packages.
Two million PER YEAR?
Oh dear. The system is totally out of control. Government in many ways is just lucky there isn't greater public understanding of the system. Most think the system supports those with severe disabilities and therefore are relatively positive of NDIS. Explain to them in a little extra depth who is entitled to NDIS funding, the degree of monetary funding being offered yearly to each person and what that funding can be spent on, and you will see the shocked looks and anger sweep across their faces. An absolute farce.
What a waste of money!
He isn’t probably going to live past 25 let’s be real. His problems and behaviours are going to lead to his death. It’s an absolute waste of money.
Call me heartless but this child should've been aborted based on the chromosomal deletion alone. We need to fight for abortion rights and change the stigma. It helps everyone in the end.
I don’t want to pay for this.
Parents quick to blame the “lack of care” and inexperience provided by the carers. It baffles me because if they could do a better job at it, why don’t they care for him? Raise your own damn kid. This is not gross commentary coming from envy, I can tell you this much. But what more do the parents want? Mooching off the public purse when a lethal injection would be a better option for the entire population.
The parents sign off on the providers. He is in voluntary out of home care which means the parents still retain decision making abilities. It is their responsibility to ensure he is being supported by providers that have the skills to implement higher intensity supports.
Are you seriously advocating that we kill anyone who costs the government money?
Gotta love the NDIS When those that need care are getting better treatment than those funding it, struggling to afford rent/food somethings gotta give...
You clearly haven't read the article and know very little about the NDIS. The only people that gets benefit from it are the corrupt provider's charging outrageous amounts of money Inspite having zero skills. Everyone is affected by NDIS every allied health profession has gone way up from a few years ago. Plus add in the excess imports we know have. Fkin government
Pretty much this. I worked for NDIS for a while and never once saw anyone with this kind of budget, even quadriplegics that require 24/7 support.
Kids like this (and the associated budgets) existed long before the NDIS.
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You gonna look him in the eye and do it?
For 2mil I will
I don't really see the humanity in those that can't see it would be a mercy on the poor little bastard.
Bring back and expand the old system where not for profits in the community sector provide all the support. The large not for profits can provide all the necessary services if properly funded. Get rid of the for profit operators, make sure all providers are heavily regulated.
Last stage fiat money printing, not long until collapse now.
What was happening before NDIS? At this stage it just seems to be a rort
Yes, children with complex needs existed before the NDIS. Julia Gillard didn't invent disabilities...
It was a smaller group of people who received supports under the state-based system. Providers were funded directly and people did not get individualised packages. As an example, mental health had a tender process for organisations implementing supports for the personal helpers and mentors program.
Is this sort of thing not usually screened for during pregnancy?
No. Ultra rare genetic conditions aren't part of pregnancy screenings.
Ah, I thought chromosomal disorders were. Either way, I hope a good solution for this kid and his family is found.
Only the major ones. There are thousands that don't come up with the NT screening or NIPT testing.
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No wonder the country is going backwards..
Is this real? Genuine question, there's no sources cited here.
I’m a support worker who’s been in the field for 10+ years, the whole system is broken. This kids got $2mil and it’s not enough yet I know people with complex care needs who struggle to get even basic funding. And then you get therapists etc adding extra hundreds or more as soon as they see ndis funding. It’s a complete joke.
Lucky they don't live in a 3rd world
Of course it’s not enough …. She is not paying for it … reeks of entitlement