For Kylie Edwards the National Insurance Disability Scheme (NDIS) will be an important part of her efforts to find full-time employment and increase her overall independence.
Legally blind after a stroke three years ago, 34 year-old Kylie is currently waiting to receive her finalised NDIS plan.
A Vision Australia client prior to the NDIS process, Kylie worked with her employment consultant and a Vision Australia service engagement consultant to structure her plan after an NDIS information session left her confused about how the process works.
“For the last couple of years that I’ve been involved with Vision Australia the service has been amazing, everyone’s bent over backwards to help me where they can and it was the same with Heidi and Gonzalo during the planning process,” she said.
“I was working with people that had an idea about my situation and could relate to me and what I wanted to achieve. During the planning process they had so many suggestions about things I had forgotten to put in or hadn’t even thought about including.”
Besides helping Kylie with the pre-planning stage and the structure of her plan, Heidi, Kylie’s Vision Australia employment consultant, also sat in on her interview with the NDIS local area coordinator.
“There were some things where the local area coordinator didn’t have a full understanding of my situation or how something might assist me and having Heidi there meant she could give some more background when those things came up and help me explain them.”
While she may still be waiting to receive her finalised NDIS plan, Kylie will waste little time in putting it into action, with her involvement in with Vision Australia also helping her to develop some specific goals the plan will assist her to achieve.
“The biggest thing is probably JAWS (Job Access With Speech), getting the software installed on my computer and getting the training to become competent with it. My goal is to find full time employment and that’s something we think will really help,” she said.
“I’ve just moved as well, so I’m hoping to get some support with orientation and mobility so I can get around by myself. My new house is a different environment, so the other thing we’ve started looking into is getting an idea of what things we can put in place to help me with that.”