Our values

Living our values

We have 4 values at the NDIA that reflect our core beliefs. We live these values every day to help us make better decisions and deliver on the purpose of the NDIS.

These values are:

We value people.
We grow together.
We aim higher.
We take care.

We value people

We put participants at the heart of everything we do.

We:

work to understand and address our stakeholder’s needs
deliver on our promises
empower and invest in our people
are proud of our workplace and the work we do.

We grow together

We work together to deliver quality outcomes.

We:

collaborate to work as one for better outcomes
build inclusive and respectful relationships
communicate honestly, clearly, proactively and consistently
acknowledge and celebrate our successes.

We aim higher

We are resilient and always have the courage to do better.

We:

look for solutions and are determined to improve
commit to setting and achieving measurable goals
proactively look for, reflect and act on feedback
speak up when corrective action is needed.

We take care

We own what we do and we do the right thing.

We:

take responsibility for what we do and how we behave
look after the safety, health and well-being of ourselves and others
anticipate and raise risks and take appropriate action
deliver our work to a high standard.

Better together

We’re making a real difference in the lives of Australians.

We help people with disability have greater choice and control over how they want to live their life. We put the participant at the centre of everything we do.

Our goal is to make sure the Scheme offers a consistent and great experience for all participants.

It takes the work of many brilliant people working together to make that happen.

Everyone has a part to play

No matter who you are, where you work, or what your job asks of you. You are part of significant change, and we want to support you to do the best job possible.

We work as one team

We are accepting, diverse and driven. We take a shared approach to making progress. We welcome and support each other and encourage different ideas, insights and opinions.

We empower and enable each other to be our best

Collaborating, connecting and creating a workplace that we can all be proud of. And while we're based far and wide across the country, we make sure nobody feels they're out on their own.

Our promise to participants

Our Participant Service Charter (Service Charter) explains what participants can expect when they deal with us and our NDIS partners.

The Service Charter includes information about:

the principles and standards we want to achieve
how we’re improving the way we serve participants
the timeframes we’ll meet as part of the Participant Service Guarantee (PSG).

The Service Charter is based on 5 principles. They guide us in how we work with participants, their families and carers.

We’re committed to offering service that’s:

transparent
responsive
respectful
empowering

Life at the NDIA

Everyone at the NDIA makes a difference in the lives of Australians. Find out from our people what it’s like to work here.

In this video, Kellie Maloney talks about her role as a planner working directly with participants.

Planner, Kellie Malonie

Hi. My name's Kellie. I've worked with the NDIA for six years in a number of roles in service delivery.

Today I'll share some information with you about the role of the planner at the NDIA. A planner is a delegate who acts on behalf of the CEO to make plan funding decisions for participants.

Those plan funds assist participants to get the supports that they need to contribute towards living and enjoying their life. Planners can work directly with participants to gather information and develop plans. They can also work with local area coordinators and early childhood partners, who support our participants to gather important information so that a reasonable and necessary plan can be developed.

The key skills of a planner are communication, bringing together information and making thorough decisions. Planners need to simplify a lot of agency jargon, including legislation, to communicate plan outcomes to participants. This requires planners to know how to tailor their language to different audiences and to communicate sensitively, professionally and clearly.

Planners need to bring together a large amount of information about a participant to make decisions. This information can come directly from the participant and their family, their treating clinicians or providers.

Planners need to take into consideration all of this information and the supports that are available through mainstream services and the community when developing a plan for a participant. Planners are also required to understand how to interpret the legislation and ensure that it's followed when making a plan decision.

There are a number of other resources, such as operational guidelines and standard operating procedures, which also need to be used. Building a plan starts with looking at any information that we might already have on our system that tells us what supports a participant has had over a period of time, what goals they have achieved or haven't achieved, and any recommendations that their clinicians might have put forward.

With an initial view in mind, it's important to meet with the participant and hear from them or their carer or nominee to ensure that you have the whole picture, including where they might be receiving supports from mainstream services or the community. Once you've considered all of this information, building the plan is based around the supports that the participants need that are reasonable and necessary, which means that they meet the criteria of the legislation.

The agency is responsible for providing funding that meets the reasonable and necessary criteria of the NDIS Act.

There are a lot of other supports that are available to participants through health, education and community organisations that are just as important to building inclusion as funded supports. It is important that planners ensure that participants are linked or can receive assistance to be linked with non-funded supports in the community in addition to the funded supports in their plan.

Sometimes a plan is approved that doesn't include the funding that the participant expected. If this is an error, which sometimes happens, it can be fixed quite quickly. If the funding isn't included because it doesn't meet the criteria in the legislation, this should be a part of the planning conversation with the participant.

The participant then has an option of submitting a request for review to provide additional information if they don't believe the plan will meet their needs or if they experience a change of circumstances.

When a participant requests a review of their plan, a new delegate will determine if there is additional information that allows the current plan to be reviewed. Sometimes the plan is modified, and other times it's determined that the current plan is suitable under the legislation.

As planners, it's important to remember that participants are the experts in their own lives. Participants will come with a wealth of knowledge about themselves and also have treating professionals, providers and other supports who know a lot about them and contribute towards them achieving their life goals.

The job of a planner is to take all of the information provided and not scrutinise whether it's right or wrong, but to make decisions in line with the NDIS Act.

The NDIS is a scheme that is reforming the way that disability-related supports are funded in Australia. It is fast-paced and often changing, so keeping up to date with the information on the intranet and through training modules is incredibly important. Team leaders and senior planners are available to help new planners navigate these changes as they occur. And remember, no question is too simple.

There is a participant who would prefer for you to get the information right and their plan right rather than guessing and having to change something after it's been approved.

Niki Lea Williams from participant to staff member

In this video, Niki Lea Williams shares her experiences as a community engagement officer in the NDIA.

Hi, my name is Niki Lea.

I'm from Newcastle, New South Wales. I'm a below knee amputee from a motor vehicle accident when I was 19 years old. As a female, you can imagine cosmetically, mentally, you know, it's a big change.

You know, when a girl is 19, you know, you just getting out there in the world. And fast forward a few more years, and here I am working for the NDIS.

My role in the agency is a community engagement officer. So part of our role is that we go out to expos. We, you know, do a lot of targeted engagement. I knew I would fit in because of having lived experience.

One of the main things I do is resource people and help participants navigate the scheme. We're there for participants, so the more awareness we can raise around fraud and the fraud fusion task force and the participants knowing their rights in that space, the better. One of the other big ticket items is questions around legislation.

Some of the work I'm very proud of is doing some collaborations with the remote and very remote team. Helping community and building community’s capacity while we were out there engaging is so rewarding.

My brother and I went to a few Lady Gaga concerts, and the thing was, you had to meet her. She picked people out of the audience. So we were like, how are we going to get picked out? My brother looked at me and he said, “You know, you've got to bling one of your legs.” And I was like, “Aw okay”, because I'm very creative. And I was like, this is easy. I got this. So yeah, I managed to get picked out of the audience and met Lady Gaga and she signed my leg, and I've got a couple of photos with her and a couple of autographs, and I know she knows Niki Lea from Australia definitely. My little fangirl moment, and my claim to fame.

I'm proud that I've made my family proud, of you know, getting through, such a traumatic time in my life. I've met fantastic people. I've been put into some spaces and events that I never thought I would be in, met people I never thought I would’ve met. I can mentor people. I can guide people. I can give them my first hand experience. I can just be that person to say, hey, I've been through that. You know? It's tough. I myself haven't met many people like me. But, you know, like, it's just you get on and you get on with things. And I suppose that's what I'm most proud of.

But, yeah, I've definitely landed the best role in the agency, according to me in community engagement. And it's so rewarding and always exciting and never a dull moment.

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