Submission on General Foundational Supports

Submission on General Foundational Supports

5 December, 2024

Executive summary

Foundational Supports are described as “supports that offer people with disability a foundation to live a good life, and to be included in the community, regardless of whether they are in the NDIS or not”.1 In the absence of a government response to the NDIS Review or a formal Foundational Supports strategy, this submission outlines the supports we believe are essential to improve inclusion of all Australians with disability.

In this submission, Down Syndrome Australia, its partners and consortium members define General Foundational Supports as:

• Information, advice and referrals;
• individual and family capacity building;
• community capacity building;
• peer support;
• self-advocacy, and
• Support for decision-making.The DSA Consortium hopes that this consultation is just the first step in engaging with the disability community to design effective Foundational Supports and expects to be able to provide further input as General Foundational Supports are designed and developed.

Key themes from this submission include:

Inclusion of people with disability:

It is extremely important we get Foundational Supports right, which can only be achieved if there is genuine co-design with people with disability and their representative organisations. Foundational Supports must be values-based and support inclusion in mainstream settings as much as possible.

A transitional approach to implementation:

The introduction of Foundational Supports must be staged in order to ensure that coverage of supports is provided while the disability ecosystem changes.

Successful delivery of supports through specialisation and expertise:

Foundational Supports should be delivered by organisations that are connected to their community and can support people with disability and families according to their individualised needs.

Specialisation and expertise will be vital to the successful delivery of Foundational Supports. The DSA consortium are the experts in disabilities caused by chromosomal variations, and supporting children and families, from pre-natal support to transitioning from school to adulthood. State and Territory Members of DSA have existed for many decades and engage people with Down syndrome as employees and on our board and employ people with lived experience in a range of roles from CEO to frontline service delivery.