April 2021 Newsletter
Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh
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Newsletter Editor Notes Hi everyone and welcome to April 2021. With the team moving into their new building at 170 East Street there have been a number of challengers that have presented and overcome. As this is an old building, the electrical wiring and in particular the power boards were out of date and required urgent modernising. Our friends at Ergon Energy did not turn up when booked as they had lost the job booking? This caused a flow on effect in that we couldn’t have the air-conditioning connected which stalled the connection of the computers and electrical equipment. But we are getting there. The outside of the building is being restored back to the original heritage colours and the old painted signs and party lights have been taken down. The external doors are being replaced with glass doors allowing for better natural light and appeal. Watch this space for an official opening date. This is a reminder that you are all kindly invited to share your story with us and our community. Your story is a compelling and positive way to share what it’s like to live with a disability or support a person with disability. It can help us feel connected and learn from each other’s experiences.
The story doesn’t need to be uplifting or inspirational. It just needs to be your story. And, it can be kept anonymous if you prefer. Please contact one of our administration team if you have a story you would like to share.
In This Issue 2 Editor Notes 3 Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh 4 Queensland Updates 5 Assistive Technology 6 Sponsorships 7 Partnerships 8 NDIS Updates 9 NGO Training Infographic 10 Toowoomba Community 11 Rockhampton Community 12 Safety Updates 13 Staff Updates 14 What’s happening in April
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Prince Philip
In memory
When the British battleship HMS Ramillies sailed into Sydney Harbour on March 14, 1940, the crew included an 18-year-old midshipman known as Philip, Prince of Greece. In early April, the ship made its way to Melbourne, and Philip took advantage of another brief furlough to spend a week at a sheep station, which he described years later as the best holiday he'd ever spent: "perfectly natural life; no frills and no fads". In the years that followed, Prince Philip saw active service in the Mediterranean (present in the Battle of Crete, the Battle of Cape Matapan and the Allied invasion of Sicily) and then in the Pacific. He was in Tokyo Bay, as first lieutenant on the HMS Whelp, when the Japanese signed the instrument of surrender in September 1945. The Whelp then sailed on to Sydney in November. Prince Phillp visited Australia 32 times over 72 years and included the silver jubilee tour of 1977, the Brisbane Commonwealth Games in 1982 and the Bicentennial in 1988 and in 1954
to Toowoomba. Public holidays were declared, and buildings were painted, decorated and illuminated for the visit by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. I extend my deepest sympathies and condolences to Queen Elizabeth on the death of the Duke at age 99.
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Queensland Productivity
Commission
Inquiry into Queensland NDIS market
The regulatory and policy framework:
The NDIS has led to a range of positive outcomes...
• is large and overly complex
The NDIS began in Queensland in 2016. It now has nearly 79,000 Queensland participants and over 5,000 active registered providers.
• is insufficiently flexible and, in some cases, creates inequitable outcomes and inconsistent incentives
There is widespread support for the NDIS amongst stakeholders. The NDIS has substantially increased the funding for disability services in Queensland, and provided participants with greater choice and control over their lives. Participants now choose who provides them with the disability services they receive. The scheme is also improving participants’ daily lives, relationships and social participation. However, the scheme is still developing, and some areas—such as employment, learning and accommodation—may need more time and a stronger focus to produce better outcomes for participants. The NDIS tries to balance many objectives— on the one hand, to provide choice and control and build participant capacity, while, on the other, to provide consumer protections, limit supports to those that are reasonable and necessary and maintain the financial sustainability of the scheme. This has led to an extensive regulatory and policy framework. The NDIS is governed by over 1,400 pages of legislation, regulation, operational guidelines and policies, administered by two specialist agencies with over 4,000 staff and oversight by a council of Australian, state and territory government ministers.
• is cumbersome and can be slow to respond
• creates a large and sometimes disproportionate regulatory burden • introduces high policy and regulatory risk for providers • provides insufficient information and constrains market mechanisms. This reduces the ability of the NDIS to reach its full potential and achieve better outcomes for participants. The process for planning, goal setting and procuring supports is challenging—over 40 per cent of Queensland participants use less than half of their plan budgets. Proposed Reform Actions Realign participant, provider and agency incentives to deliver market outcomes consistent with scheme objectives Increase the availability of information and, if necessary, supports to allow better decisionmaking
Simplify processes and reduce compliance burden to decrease costs and inefficiencies Provide greater flexibility, remove restrictions to allow participants, providers, agencies to operate more effectively and efficiently Improve the governance of the scheme to support oversight of performance monitoring and the focus on scheme objectives https://www.qpc.qld.gov.au/inquiries/ndis/
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Assistive
Technology
Grid Player Over 12,000 Widget Symbols Grid Player is an Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) App that helps people who cannot speak or who have unclear speech to communicate. Sentences that you create are spoken out loud. Pictures that talk Grid Player is suitable for a wide range of people with communication difficulties, including those who only use symbols. Please note that you need a Online Grids account to use Grid Player. You can create an account for free within the Grid Player app, or sign in to an existing account. This is a great tool to assist you in communicating with your participants.
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Sponsorships Central Queensland Capras James enjoyed attending the Capras game in Rockhampton It was especially sweet being that he watched the game from the corporate box with Suz, Simone and Steven.
The Capras led for most of the game against the North Queensland Pride but were worn down by a bigger group of players who kept the Capras defence under constant bombardment. With only a minute to play and the score tied at 16 all, the Capras were awarded a penalty some 40 metres from goal and decided to take the penalty kick in an attempt to break the tie. As the siren sounded, the ball was airborne and fell just short of the goal posts leaving the game all tied. A great effort by the young Capras against touch opposition.
Nice to see our logo on the media board on WIN NEWS. During the interview with Amanda Ohl, the coach of the Capras Women’s Team
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Community
Partnerships
Thomas Coyne Politicians and community members across Queensland have expressed their shock and sadness at the sudden death of former Greens candidate and activist Thomas Coyne. The 21-year-old was the only victim of a horror car crash near Allora early on Monday morning. Known for his passionate support of marriage equality, climate action and progressive politics, Mr Coyne ran for the Greens in Toowoomba South at last year’s state election. Federal Queensland Labor Senator Nita Green led a chorus of tributes for Mr Coyne from across the political spectrum. “You don’t meet people like Thomas very often. They leave an indelible mark on you,” she wrote on Twitter. “He was brave, bold and bright. This is just so very sad.” Toowoomba Councillor Megan O’Hara Sullivan said Mr Coyne was an “activist in every sense of the word”. “One of my first requests as an elected official was from Thomas — he wanted council to recognise International Day Against Homophobia,” she wrote on Facebook.
Mar/Apr Magazine
“We lit up the Victoria Street bridge in rainbow colours.” .”Former Toowoomba North Greens candidate and disability advocate Alyce Nelligan was one of the first to pay tribute to her close friend. “Thomas was a bright light in this world — he was relentlessly committed to doing good.”
To obtain a copy of WhatsUp in Disability magazine or to be a sponsor, please contact WhatsUp via: Office
11-15 Alexander Street, Toowoomba
admin@whatsupindisability.org
Online
www.whatsupindisability.org
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Updates Media Releases New NDIS Minister On Tuesday 30 March 2021, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds CSC was sworn in as Minister for Government Services and Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
More robust integrations will also make it easier for application developers to create new services. One such example is Weejah, which is an app that seeks to create an Uber-like experience for customers of the NDIS. According to a spokesperson for Services Australia, the NDIA issued a Request for Quote (RFQ) for an eInvoice solution on Friday 12 February, which closed on Friday 5 March. Responses have been received from potential Access Point partners providing their quotes. Evaluation and selection process has now commenced. Once the tender was settled the government would move to rapidly implement the capability and will then seek to legislate this as part of its legislative reform package.
Transformation Program will enable Services Australia to pay all NDIS invoices Digitalisation at Services Australia will enable the Federal Government to pay all NDIS invoices in the future, streamlining a system that currently requires hundreds of thousands of Australians to track and invoice the agency, then pay providers themselves. The new approach will be made possible through investments in systems integration, along with a digital invoicing system, which will also plug into a new Salesforce CRM. It will also help the government better track and understand how the program is meeting participant needs. 8
Currently about 50% of participants in the NDIS self-manage. This means they are provided with a plan for a certain monetary value, they then book the services, and invoice the NDIS. The NDIS then pays them the invoice and they, in turn, pay the service provider. “Importantly the agency doesn’t have any visibility on where the money’s flowing to, how much has been paid, what debt exists, and it’s an encumbrance upon self-manage participants,” said Robert. Once the new system is in place the NDIA will pay 100% of all invoices. “So, if you’re a participant you will still book the supports or services. If you’re self-managed, you will have choice and control, an invoice will be raised in the CRM. And then the agency will pay. That’s the big difference.”
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Infographics
Training
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Toowoomba Community You can check out what we are doing in April by going to our website and downloading the events calendar for the month
https://bigdogsupport.com.au/whats-on/ calendar/
Sharon
Upgrades to Alexander Street It has been a long time coming, but the fundraising activities by the staff and participants at the Day Service have raised sufficient funds so that the front area of the Paul Myatt Community Centre can be covered with astro-turf.
This is a lovely tree shaded area but because it is in shade most of the day, the grass wouldn’t grow here and after rain it became muddy and unusable. The work has now begun in earnest and will soon be evergreen and usable all year round. The front area will also be fully fenced and gates installed for safety and to match the fences that we installed late last year. What next? A fountain, waterfall, water feature or something else. Let’s start fundraising!
BigDog Day Service Toowoomba Paul Myatt Community Centre 11-15 Alexander Street North Toowoomba 4350 Coordinator Sharon Price Phone: 4512 6020 dayservice@bigdogsupport.com.au
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Rockhampton Community
SARAH
I hope everyone had a lovely little break over Easter. For those that have missed our exciting news, we have now moved into our new building making the move at the end of last month. The building is looking amazing with new renovations and air-conditioning, there is so much space to move around which means more and exciting things coming to day centre soon, so stay posted! We are now located at 170 east street. As everyone is aware, the weather has been cooler of a morning which is making our Tuesday swimming days a little chilly in the pool some weeks. In the next few weeks when the weather starts cooling on a regular basis Day Centre will start a fishing program in place of swimming. If you have any unwanted fishing equipment laying around at home and have no idea what to do with it and would like to donate it to the centre your donations would be very welcomed and appreciated by all participants.
BigDog Day Service Rockhampton BigDog Community Centre 170 East Street Rockhampton 4700 Coordinator Sarah Dillon The new colour scheme for East Street is white with a medium grey base and dark grey trims and window sills. The front is still in the old colours to see the comparison.
Phone: 4573 4611 rockhampton@bigdogsupport.com.au
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Safety Updates
Steve
Support Workers In an interesting exercise we looked at the ages of our support workers and calculated the average age as well as grouping them into age brackets. Our average age is 33 compared to the national average age of 47 with 56% of these over the age of 45 where we have 20%. 54% of our support workers are under the age of 30.
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Staff Updates
Ann
Portable Long Service Queensland Community Services Industry The Queensland Government has passed legislation to establish a new portable long service leave scheme available for community services workers. The Community Services Industry (Portable Long Service Leave) Act 2020 provides a fair and efficient system of portable long service leave for workers in Queensland's community services industry commencing 1 January 2021. Under the Act, workers are entitled to long service leave payments based on their service to the industry, rather than continuous service with one employer. Workers, who are employed by the same employer for ten or more continuous years, may be entitled to long service leave paid by the employer under the Industrial Relations Act 2016.
Under the scheme, employers in the community services industry will be required to register their business or organisation with QLeave.
Staff Birthdays
April 2021 2nd 3rd 7th 14h 17th 20th 26th 30th
Ammaron Ginger Tracey J Riley Michael N Chisato Ella Mitchell Sharon P Tungane
Have a great day!
Each quarter, employers must complete an employer return detailing the ordinary wages paid to their workers during the return period. The days worked and wages received by each worker is recorded by QLeave and results in service credits accruing towards a long service leave benefit. Once a worker has 7 years of service recorded, they're entitled to 6.1 weeks of long service leave paid by QLeave.
The levy rate will commence at 1.35% of ordinary wages. This rate is determined by an actuary who undertakes an investigation using specific formulae. This is based on an industry study that includes identification of the number of employers, the number of workers, ordinary wages, how many workers might be eligible to claim a long service leave entitlement, and other factors. So the Queensland Government keeps the money for anyone who moves on to a different industry? Editor 13
What’s happening in
April
ANZAC Day
Sunday 25 April 2021 Toowoomba and Rockhampton Regional Councils have confirmed ANZAC Day commemorations will return this year, following the cancellation of ceremonies across the State last April due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dawn Service 5:30 am—6:15 am •
Mother’s Memorial East Creek Park, Margaret Street Toowoomba
•
Sean McCarthy Way Highfields
Mid Morning Service 10:00 am—Noon Parades and Dawn Services will operate under a COVID-19 safe plan social distancing.
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Justice of the Peace This service is available at the Paul Myatt Community Centre 11-15 Alexander Street Toowoomba (please call first to make an appointment) The JPs in the Community Program is also available through major shopping centres, libraries, court houses and hospitals.
Contact Us BigDog Support Services 232 Ruthven Street Toowoomba QLD 4350 PO Box 234 Harlaxton QLD 4350
(07) 4632 9559 1800 22 44 32 0427 408 698 (On Call) www.bigdogsupport.com.au 15
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