Adults With Intellectual Disability Moving out of the Family Home Using the National Disability Insurance Scheme: Family Members' Planning Experiences

For adults with intellectual disability and their families, future planning and moving out of the family home in Australia will increasingly occur within the context of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). As a market-based, individualised funding system its impact on this transition remains largely unknown. This paper reports on a qualitative study involving 17 family members who supported an adult with intellectual disability to move out of the family home using the NDIS. For many families, the NDIS provided increased funding opportunities and greater flexibility in housing and living supports than were previously available. However, they also described how navigating the Scheme and achieving desired housing and living goals had a significant impact on their well-being. More research is needed to more fully understand the mental and emotional toll of engaging with the NDIS for significant life course transitions specifically. Additionally, while initiatives such as the Australian Government's proposed ‘Navigator’ service demonstrate growing recognition of the need to bolster the quality and availability of formal support for those using the Scheme, our results would indicate that this does not yet go far enough in addressing the complex and sometimes long-lasting impact of engaging with such complex bureaucratic processes.