Creating NDIS Goals for Your Child That Work: The Method of Goal-Setting The NDIS Doesn't Want You to Know
(image description): Brooke and her son Xavier playing with a guitar that’s lying on the floor
Hello and welcome to another edition of the RippleFamily Survival Guide! Pour yourself another hot or cold beverage and let’s get stuck into one of the most important aspects of your child’s NDIS plan: goal setting for your child's future. Whether your child is just starting on their NDIS journey or is already well into their plan, goal setting is an essential part of the process. It's the foundation upon which your child's support plan is built, and it's the key to unlocking the funding they need to live a fulfilling life.
As anyone whose ever tried to goal set knows, it ain’t easy! It's hard to know where to start, and it's even harder to know what's possible for your child. And to make matters worse, the NDIS has an annoying tendency of sending you down the garden path of "not-the best” information (you’ll probably be told to “identify your child’s strengths” and “use SMART goals”; we’ll discuss why this isn’t so good toward the end of the blog). So in this week’s entry, I’m breaking down RippleAbility’s goal-setting process to help you create a clearer vision for your child's future that's tailored to their unique needs and abilities. By the end of this blog, you should have a sound idea of how to set goals in your child’s NDIS plan that actually work for you! And, I will provide you with a good NDIS goal example!
1. Identify Your Daily Frustrations
The best place to start your child’s NDIS goal-setting is with this simple question:
“What are your biggest frustrations as a parent of a child with a disability”.
This can include anything from:
Difficulties with functional abilities (like communication, mobility, self-care, and socialisation).
The need for respite from certain aspects of your life that you can no longer budget the time for.
Challenges when it comes to meal time (getting kids settles and eating safely).
Managing appointments and coordinating your child’s supports so they work together.
Your child’s relationship with their siblings and potential conflicts that may occur.
So let’s get started! Grab yourself a piece of paper or open a note on your phone and list out these frustrations until you feel you’ve got it all out on the table. It's important to think about how these challenges manifest in your child's daily life, and how they impact your family's routines and activities.
We start our goal setting by focusing on our frustrations because these are the quickest and easiest to identify pain points and if you can alleviate the frustrations in you and your child’s life, this frees up your headspace for the important tasks.
To help illustrate the process of goal-setting, we’re going to start with an example to walk us through these steps. In this case, let’s pick the daily frustration: “My child needs constant assistance moving around the house and fulfilling their basic needs”.
2. Categorise these Frustrations under the NDIS Support Categories
Once you have identified your daily frustrations, it’s time to play matchmaker and categorise your frustrations under each of the 15 support categories outlined by the NDIS. What we’re essentially trying to do here is fit your frustrations into the model of the NDIS.
In case you don’t have them on hand, the categories are:
Assistance with Daily Life, Transport, Consumables, Assistance with Social & Community Participation, Assistive Technology, Home Modifications, Coordination of Supports, Improved Living Arrangements, Increased Social and Community Participation, Finding and Keeping a Job, Improved Relationships, Improved Health and Wellbeing, Improved Learning, Improved Life Choices, and Improved Daily Living. For more details on these and what they cover, check out this link.
By categorising your frustrations under these headings, you will be able to more easily identify the types of supports and services that your child may need in order to address these challenges and frustrations.
Referring back to our example above: this frustration might fall under the categories of Assistance with Daily Life, Assistive Technology, and Improved Living Arrangements. The specific category is going to depend on how we choose to address this frustration, but take note of how one frustration can fit into so many funding categories.
3. Identify Supports and Services
Once you have identified the categories of support that your child may need, we need to identify who might be capable and responsible for assisting and supporting you with working on strategies to mitigate these frustrations. This can include both formal supports (such as specialists, allied health staff, educators, and support workers) and informal supports (friends, family, and community organisations).
When you’re doing this, you should consider the qualifications and experience of these support people, as well as their availability and willingness to work with you to develop effective strategies.
Let’s go back to our goal-setting example: We may need to recruit an assistive technology organisation to provide some form of mobility assistance so our child can improve their capacity to move independently. We may also consider seeking out a support worker or trusted family member to help our child. We may also need to reach out to a home modification company to make some improvements to our home to improve its accessibility for our child.
If goal setting is something you’re struggling with, or perhaps is becoming too daunting to face on your own, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at RippleAbility. Our founder and head consultant Monique has had ample experience with NDIS goal setting within her own daughters NDIS journey and this expertise is laden through out all our one-on-one consulting services. If you need a hand nailing those goals, we’re always just a phone call away.
4. Identify Your Child's Interests
It’s pretty hard to get your child to do anything if they’re not enjoying themselves. So we need to consider what your child loves to do! What are their hobbies, interests, and passions? By understanding what your child enjoys, you can find ways to incorporate these preferences into their support plan, making it more engaging and enjoyable for them.
I recommend including your child in this process to the best of their capacity. Ask them what they enjoy. They might even have an idea of how they could make therapy more fun. Children have a remarkable capacity to think outside the box. Let’s embrace it!
For our example, let’s say our child really loves hanging out with friends. They always light up in the presence of the ones they care about. In this case, we might want to include an element of community participation in our goal-setting. Read on to see how we might write that up into a fully formed goal.
5. Write your child’s (Broad) Goals
When setting goals for your child with a disability accessing the NDIS, it's important to keep them broad and flexible. This will allow you to access funding for appropriate supports and services as your child's needs change throughout the lifespan of their NDIS plan.
It's important to focus on the key headings identified in Step two as the main areas of support for your child. By keeping your goals broad and flexible, you can tweak and build opportunities for growth and development as your child progresses, without having to totally reassess and adjust their goals.
Let’s return to our example for one last time.
We started with the frustration: “My child needs constant assistance moving around the house and fulfilling their basic needs”.
We identified this frustration falls under the categories of Assistance with Daily Life, Assistive Technology, Improved Living Arrangements (and potentially Increased Social and Community Participation).
We know, we may need to recruit an assistive technology organisation to provide some form of mobility assistance; a support worker or trusted family member to help our child with moving around; and we may also need to make some improvements to our home to improve the accessibility for our child.
And most importantly, we know our child loves hanging out with friends.
This may lead us to this, as a very good example of an NDIS goal:
“to improve our child's ability to move around independently and participate in activities with their peers, with support from a range of assistive devices, home modifications, and community services."
There we have it: a specifically, non-specific goal!
Now I’ve made that sound pretty straightforward, but sometimes it can be tricky. You might feel you would like someone to sit down and walk this through with you. If that sounds like you, we’d be happy to lend a hand. To help take the stress out of NDIS goal setting, we offer comprehensive one-on-one goal-setting workshops to walk you through this process with our own input to ensure your goals check the boxes of the NDIS. We specialise in helping families identify the supports and services available through the NDIS and the community that line up with their child’s needs and goals. If you want a hand, we’re only a call (or an email) away.
But wait! Why should I avoid being specific like the NDIS recommends?
The advice the NDIS gives you on goal setting for your child’s plan is dubious, to say the least. You’ll typically be advised to “be specific” and potentially use “SMART” goals. And while these can be really useful ways of personally achieving goals, we must remember, that your child’s NDIS plan is about more than checking boxes, it’s about supporting them through their disability journey to flourish and thrive. So often, we find that when families are too specific with their goal setting, they end up achieving those goals, and the NDIS is swift to withdraw funding when they see that you’ve “crossed the finish line” and are very hesitant to offer it back.
In summary, by focusing on the key areas of support and keeping your goals broad and flexible, you can ensure that your child receives the appropriate support and services they need to increase their functional capacity and independence
