Why You Need A Carer's Statement For Your Next Planning Meeting

DATE POSTED: 19 JANUARY 2023

1.     What is a Carers Statement?

A Carer’s Statement (sometimes referred to as an ‘impact statement’ provides a clear, realistic insight into your everyday life as a carer for the participant. It provides detail into your family life, daily life and about how being a carer impacts you and those around them.

If you don’t provide this evidence the NDIS will expect that you are coping well with everything in your caring role for the individual living with the disability.

2.   Why should I write a carers statement?

The LAC/Planner/NDIA delegate use the information collected in the Carers Statement to justify how much care and support the “participant” should need. A Carer’s Statement makes excellent evidence to justify meeting Reasonable and Necessary Criteria (based on the NDIS Law). It does depend on what you are asking for. We list a few reasons or circumstances when a Carer’s Statement is beneficial in point #3.

I have never heard of a person working for the NDIA ask for this statement (why would they assist you in what they want to see to potentially increase the $$ in an NDIS Plan?). It is essential to give the NDIS a complete overview of what supports are needed and therefore allocate the appropriate level of funding… So, don’t hold back when you write it because it strengthens the application. Keep it real and authentic. You need to imagine what things would look like for “the participant” on their worst day and if you weren’t there, what could happen?

3.    When do I need to submit a carers statement?

We recommend providing evidence such as a Carers Statement when you are going for:

• Access Request (so they can get an idea of the functional capacity of the individual applying to the scheme or the First Planning Meeting).

• Plan Re-assessment (formerly Plan Review), so that the plan’s funding isn’t potentially decreased. If it is submitted and you don’t think anyone read it, it gives you grounds to request an Internal Review. At an Internal Review they will only assess the things that were submitted prior, not new information.

• Change of Circumstance

We particularly recommend submitting a Carer’s Statement if you are requesting funding for:

• Support Workers / Mentors

• Respite

• Psychology or Behavioural Supports; or

• If you are requesting a plan that is higher than a TSP (Typical Support Package) or ‘banding’ - where they benchmark how much funding and the certain supports they deem to be appropriate for a participant with that disability.

4.    Who can provide a Carer’s Impact Statement?

Anyone assisting the “participant” (individual with the disability), who is not being paid should write a Carer’s Statement at each Plan Review/Re-assessment. It is one tool (within the toolbox) that assists the NDIS evaluate whether or not the reasonable and necessary criteria (which is part of the NDIS law) has been met for the supports you may have been requesting.  Such supports might be respite supports, Support workers, hostfamily, mentors,  

A well-written Carers Statement will detail in depth how the disability affects and impacts their everyday life and the lives of the people who support them.

5. I’m nervous to write a Carer’s Statement incase the PWD reads it later in life.

We get it. Try and think of this as a much bigger picture than only considering the person with the disability.

We often refer to the primary carer as the Captain of the Ship. What happens if the ship springs a hole in it and the rest of the family (informal supports) start sinking into the water along with the ship… Who is going to be left caring for the person with the disability?

Your caring experience needs to be documented and submitted to the Agency, so they can understand the bigger picture of your caring role. You know your loved one better than anyone, so therefore you can explain the accommodations and adjustments you make for them, in everyday life that you do with love. How long can you maintain your current caring role for?

6.    How will the Achievable Carer’s Statement template help me?

It makes this often daunting and overwhelming task, totally Achievable! Here’s why:

• This template has been written by carers, for carers! It contains prompts throughout to remind you of the accomodations and adjustments you make for your loved one, without thinking twice. It gently reminds you of the different areas of your caring role, that are easy to forget in the busy-ness of everyday life!

• Will help you be efficient with your time and reduce your confusion about what you actually need to include!

• It’s designed to be user-friendly, encouraging and most importantly, easily accessible by phone, tablet, laptop or computer. That way, you can write the statement at a time that suits you best.

• It is pretty draining writing a Carer’s Statement, so we support you through each section with real life examples to guide you with what to write where.

• There’s examples throughout to act as a guide for you to know what to write.

• You can take a break, or pause whenever you want and come back to it later.

• For some of the prompts, you don’t even need to write full sentences, you just tick a box and we stitch it together for you.

• No need to worry if you make a typo or a mistake if you’re on the go, as you can go back and edit the statement before you submit it.

• All your answers will automatically produce a pdf that is ready for you to upload to the NDIS MyPlace Portal as evidence.

• We have designed this tool to step you through the 'Functional Capacity' (how the NDIS measures eligibility and funding for the participant) so that it’s easier to get what you need to say – out onto paper.

7.    How is the Achievable template better than other free templates available online?

That is a great question! Firstly, we are not paid by a government agency, like many of the other organisations that create the free templates. Many of the free templates, are quite generic and don’t provide much scaffolding to assist you in what to write.

We give a stack of detailed prompts (which we promise make it easier to write what you need to!), along with an example of what type of response the question asks for. The examples we give are more of a ‘no-bullshit’ version.

I (Megan) am a carer too, for my son who has a very complex neuro-developmental disability. I know life is busy and sometimes we just need to be told straight what we need to include or do, to get the best outcome for our loved ones.

The combination of this lived parent/carer experience, alongside my experience as a Support Coordinator, I have used my knowledge and insight to design our interactive Carer Statement Template for parents to communicate the realities of their caring role.

8.    How can I make sure the NDIS reads my carers statement?

This evidence needs to be uploaded to the NDIS MyPlace Portal as a pdf, so your LAC/Planner can read it. That’s why we have designed our template to export easily as a letter/statment-like PDF ready for upload on the portal.

We recommend doing this about 4 weeks before your planning meeting. Do not email it to the generic NDIS email address as evidence can be lost in cyberspace or never get filed into the participants file.

If you’ve got your LAC/Planner’s email address, you could email them once you’ve uploaded the statement to the portal, as a friendly notice that it’s there and ready for them to read before the meeting.

You can find out more about our Interactive Carer’s Statement Template and purchase it here.