Submission to the National Disability Insurance Agency Draft Consultation Paper: Support for Decision Making Consultation

30 September 2021

Submissions

The National Disability Insurance Agency called for submissions on the Draft Consultation Paper: Support for Decision Making.

The National Mental Health Consumer & Carer Forum (NMHCCF) submitted a response to the call for submissions in August 2021.

Reason for the submission

The issue of Supported Decision Making is very important for people with psychosocial disability. The NMHCCF supported the goals of the Decision Making Policy as it aimed to:

Increase the opportunity for participants to be actively involved in making decisions about their lives and to exercise real choice and control.
Support development of participants’ capacity in making decisions (and helping participants to explore and make those decisions).
Build the capacity of decision supporters, agency staff and partners to recognise and enable the will and preference of participants.
Strengthen a support for decision making approach in the appointment of nominees.

The NMHCCF’s submission focused on the following key points:

National Disability Insurance Scheme’s (NDIS) narrative on supported decision making could be improved by acknowledging some of the unique experiences of specific disability groups, such as people with psychosocial disability.
The impact of the episodic nature of psychosocial disability and its impact on decision making needs to be understood.
Training on supported decision making is required.
The development of an ‘advanced decision-making directives’ like an ‘advanced care directive’ is supported so that a person with psychosocial disability can articulate their desires for supported decision making at different times and situations, when they are well or not, and not just at different life stages.