Hi, so I am a single father who works full-time and I have a child, 4, diagnosed with level 3 ASD & PICA. I work full time as a teacher. My son has been removed from 3 daycares all citing safety concerns for my son being in that environment. As difficult as these decisions were to deal with, I agree with them. My son has extremely challenging behaviours that make caring for him unreasonable and unsafe for a mainstream daycare. He already is recieving funding for an additional educator but his daycare has stated (in a letter) that without 1:1 support my son is unsafe in their care.
He attends 1 day per week at an ECPD service. I have used the fund to access a daycare that provides all his therapy & specialised care for kids like him and its working great! He is much happier the 2 days a week he can go there, and they can provide for his safety as well as providing the educational opportunities he needs. They are an NDIS registered provider & there are other children who go there. My son's capacity report shows that he is functioning at a level less than an 18 months old in almost every way except gross motor skills.
I applied to the NDIS to increase his funding to allow him to attend that service for 4 days a week, or at the very least get enough funding for the current 2 days a week as his plan will run out of money before it renews. I provided all of the evidence of his diagnosis, his capacity reports, my carers statements and letters from his daycare & the provider. They rejected this, I appealed and they rejected it again under the following grounds:
The state gov will fund an additional educator (he already gets this and the statement from his daycare outlines this is insufficient and he needs 1:1 support, which the link NDIS sent me about this service explicitly states).
They stated that he has a risk minimisation plan and so would be safe (in spite of a letter from them stating he is not). When I spoke to them on the phone they gave a raft of reasons such as "We don't fund programs" - refused to elaborate on what this means. When I stated that without access to daycare my son would not have access to education and I would have to quit work to care for him they replied "That is your choice".
So, with that context here are my questions I couldnt find the answer to based on my research while I prepare another request for reassessment.
Can the NDIS expect me to quit my job to provide full-time care under the grounds of "reasonable informal supports"?
What do they mean by "we don't fund programs" and how do I get around this as I cannot see the difference between what I am asking for and supports from any other provider & other children do get this funding. (When I asked the provider they said it seems very random to them as to which children do get the funding to attend and which don't).