IT is not always easy to find a place where your voice is heard and you can hear from others with similar experience.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme can be a confusing and complicated system for those navigating it for the first time.

Luckily for Port Stephens there’s a new group started to help not only navigate but also support and share.

It’s called Port Stephens NDIS Community and their aim is to make the NDIS as straightforward as their name.

The two brains behind the new group are local business owners Nikita Austin and Andrew Thorley.

Through their work in the disability sector they became aware of a need that wasn’t being met.

“We created the group to be a place for people who either have NDIS or are looking at getting NDIS funding and create a place for them to connect with other NDIS people in the area.” Nikita says.

“We know the NDIS and NDIA can be quite confusing at times so we wanted to create a place where people can ask questions, have discussions and can network.

“We both have our own businesses in Port Stephens which service NDIS participants and we were planning on doing NDIS information sessions.

Our biggest concern was that there was nowhere for them to connect or network with people.”

Certainly the initial response to the group has shown the need and want in the community for it.

Within the first 24 hours the group had grown to over 100 with many messages of support and encouragement.
Nikita and Andrew have big plans for the future too.

Whilst the group is Facebook based at the moment there are already plans for offline events with details to be released as they become available.

 

By Victoria HENDERSON