The Self-Management Advisory Group met on 15 October 2025 for the sixth meeting of the year. The meeting was held online.
Focus of the meeting
The focus of the October meeting was:
- Self-Management Participant Journey
- New Framework Plan Budget
- Participant and community education.
Self-Management Advisory Participant Journey
The NDIA shared a presentation of the self-management focused participant planning journey. The presentation used examples of 3 different personas going through the new planning journey.
Member feedback included:
- It would be beneficial to have additional personas such as a participant with a cognitive disability or with a degenerative condition to consider the complexity of these cases and examine how, in these circumstances participants may choose to manage their funds.
- It would also be beneficial to have a persona or a set of personas that have a nominee to reflect how they are involved in the self-management process.
- Raised the idea of a matrix, to identify the risks and the benefits of each type of fund management to determine why a participant would choose one method over another.
- The NDIA needs to clarify the difference between the management of the funding as opposed to making decisions about how funding is used or who supports the person.
New Framework Plan Budget
The NDIA gave an update of the new participant plan that will help deliver a new way of planning as part of NDIS changes happening over the next 5 years.
This was an opportunity to hear from the Group about how the NDIA can make these plans as easy to understand as possible.
The NDIS also sought feedback on the updated NDIS plan document and plan approval letters.
Participant and community education
The NDIA sought feedback and advice from the Self-Management Advisory Group about how the NDIA can best support self-managers to understand and prepare for changes to the NDIS.
Member feedback included:
- It is important to identify cohorts who might be missing information, such as participants who live in rural and remote areas. There could be organisations around the country that could help link with those communities, to leverage on where there may be gaps.
- Suggestions for the Agency to utilise social media following to publish reels where people talk about self-management and include a lived experience perspective with a NDIS participant who also is an employee of the Agency.
The NDIA responded that there are plans to do more in the digital channels to showcase participant stories.
SMAG next meeting
The Self-Management Advisory Group’s next meeting is on 20 November 2025.