The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has released several resources to give participants, providers and assessors clearer guidelines about assistance animals funding requests with updates to the Operational Guideline.
The ‘Including Specific Types of Supports in Plans’ Operational Guideline now includes a section on assistance animals, to help explain what supporting evidence planners need when considering funding requests for assistance animals. There are also clear definitions and examples of assistance animals for participants, providers and assessors. There is also a new Assistance Animals assessment template, which will improve the quality of requests from participants, assessors and providers.
The changes came about following a La Trobe University report called ‘Key terms for animals in disability assistance roles’, which is available on the NDIS website.