Funds for Mental Health Providers To Transition to NDIS
31 October 2016 at 1:14 pm
The federal government is providing a $3 million assistance package to support mental health providers transition to the NDIS.
Mental health service providers will be offered additional one-off funding of $15,000 through the Sector Development Fund to improve their NDIS-readiness to help people engage with the NDIS.
Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services Jane Prentice said providers of programs such as PHaMS (Personal Helpers and Mentors Program) and MHRCS (Mental Health Respite Carer Support Program) would be able to use the funds to identify opportunities to expand their current services.
“The NDIS will bring increased demand to the region. Organisations will need to grow existing services while also identifying opportunities to expand the types of service they provide,” Prentice said.
“Improved marketing will also help broaden their target group.”
Prentice said the additional funding would enable providers to undertake further activity to ensure they, and their clients, were best placed to transition to the NDIS.
The government said organisations would be contacted shortly to ascertain their interest in this new grant offer.
The NDIS Sector Development Fund was established by the government to assist the disability sector to transition to new arrangements under the NDIS. To date, 50 projects have been funded.
In October the government announced a new Innovative Workforce Fund with $1 million allocated towards researching and developing different workforce models that can be applied to the disability sector and $4 million available for innovative workforce related projects over the next two years.
