SPECIALISED field workers will be employed to make sure Aboriginal people do not miss out on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a Newcastle conference heard on Wednesday.
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Minister for Disability Services John Ajaka announced the NSW government would invest $480,000 to hire Aboriginal caseworkers who would serve indigenous communities “spread far and wide”.
The minister, who was attending an Aboriginal disability conference at Wests in New Lambton, also heard concerns from indigenous people having trouble with the NDIS.
Deborah Williams has post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder after being abused as a child.
She said all the services she’d been receiving had ceased because of the NDIS and she was unsure whether she would be eligible to sign up for the new scheme.
Mr Ajaka said they were tweaking eligibility criteria for the NDIS as they learned through trial sites.
“There will be some people who have a mental illness who won’t be eligible for the NDIS because they are eligible under the mental illness schemes available,’’ he explained.
