Professional Practice in Aged Care and Disability: NDIS Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and its relationship with therapeutic recreation in aged care and disability services. It begins by defining the NDIS and outlining its objectives, including providing support to individuals with disabilities, their families, and carers. The report then explores the alignment of the NDIS with the principles and values of therapeutic recreation, highlighting behavioral support and social interaction as key areas of synergy. It examines the appropriateness of therapeutic recreation for the aged population, emphasizing its role in social interaction, improved quality of life, and the reduction of anxiety and depression. The report also addresses the reasons why therapeutic recreation has not been fully integrated into the NDIS, such as cost considerations and the scheme's primary focus on disability support. Furthermore, it discusses the potential impacts of including therapeutic recreation in the NDIS, including increased confidence, improved physical skills, positive health outcomes, and reduced mental health issues. The report concludes by advocating for the inclusion of therapeutic recreation in the NDIS, emphasizing its benefits for individuals with disabilities and the aged population.

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN AGED CARE AND DISABILITY 1
Professional Practice in Aged and Disability
Student’s name
Institutional Affiliation

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN AGED CARE AND DISABILITY 2
Professional practice in Aged Care and Disability
National Disability Insurance Scheme
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a scheme whose main aim is the provision
of support to the people with disability, including their carers and families. The organization is
jointly funded and governed by the Australian territory and states government. It is a legislation
that seeks to create the National Disability Insurance Agency. The National Disability Insurance
Scheme plays several roles, such as determining:
 How an individual can take part in the scheme
 The principles and objects of operation of the scheme
 How a major provider can be registered.
 The process of both external and internal review of particular decisions made according
to the Act of NDIS.
 The arrangements of governance of NDIA.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme does better with the fundamental therapeutic
recreation values and principles because of a number of reasons. One major reason is because it
seeks to fund people with therapy, and this enables them to select the significant providers of
their services. Using the scheme, the major participants usually use the NDIS planner that gives
them advice concerning the use of therapeutic services they have access to in various healthcare
units. Additionally, the National Disability Insurance Scheme offers therapeutic support that
involves the behavior support to the individuals under therapy (Thill, 2015). One of the
significant values of therapeutic recreation is behavioral support to the people placed under
therapy.

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Consequently, such behavioral support is a significant role of the National Disability
Insurance Scheme, the two can, therefore, work together. The NDIS also enables people in the
society to easily access healthcare services in the hospitals through transportation that allows
them to take part in the social, economic, community as well as daily activities (Cameron, 2017).
A key principle of therapeutic reaction is on social therapy that allows people to interact with
others to fully satisfy their social needs, and this is a major role of the NDIS. Therefore, the
NDIS works well with the therapeutic recreation values and principles.
The aged who form the client of the group are appropriate for therapeutic recreation
because of a variety of reasons. One primary reason is that it enables them to interact with others
socially. They have the opportunity to engage and even meet new individuals. Through social
interaction, the aged are prevented from the feelings of isolation as they converse with others just
like everyone else in society (Reddihough et al., 2016). The therapeutic reaction is also
appropriate for the aged as a way of caring for them because, through such recreations, their
quality of life is improved. Thus, some of them end up living for a long time than if they had not
been exposed to recreational activities. Lastly, therapeutic recreation is important to the aged
because it helps in the reduction of feelings of anxiety and depression that comes with isolation
from others. Their self-esteem becomes boosted because of the interaction with both new and old
individuals in society.
Despite the support offered by the National Disability Insurance Scheme to therapy that
is the behavioral therapy, the therapeutic recreation has not been included in it for a number of
reasons. A critical reason for the exclusion of the element is it would be expensive to implement
such a program. The number of the aged individuals in Australia is estimated to be higher than
the younger generation that is rarely placed in therapy (Collings et al., 2016). The government,

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN AGED CARE AND DISABILITY 4
through such an insurance scheme, would not be in a position to fund most of such programs due
to the huge capital that would be involved to implement the scheme entirely. Additionally, the
National Disability Insurance Scheme mainly deals with people with disability and not any other
group of persons. It is because of the fact that it is concerned with the issues to do with disability
that the therapeutic recreation is not included in NDIS. Therapeutic recreation is mainly aimed at
helping people gain confidence as well as self-esteem through social interactions with new and
old people within their reach thus, it would not be included in the National Disability Insurance
Scheme.
Impact of Inclusion of Therapeutic Recreation
There are several implications on the community if the therapeutic recreation has been
included in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. One key implication that is likely to
happen in the current lives of the people is that it will boost their confidence as well as the
physical skills that are required in many recreational and sport activities. Additionally, it will
result in numerous positive health outcomes that result from the participation in the recreational
activities (Thompson et al., 2017) Some of the positive health outcomes include, an enhanced
capacity to deal with community activities, life as well as recreational activities. Others are
improvements in cognitive status, physical health status, and psychosocial status, among others.
The other effect of the inclusion of the therapeutic recreation to the current lives of the members
of the community would be the reduction in depressions, anxiety, pain, sleep disturbances as
well as tension that may come due to various reasons such as disabilities and even work-related
among others (Fisher et al., 2017).
However, for their future lives, the therapeutic recreation may enable them to discover a
particular new recreational activity that one could enjoy and eventually make it part of their life.

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Another implication for their future lives is it will help in creating and developing new friends
through social interactions and engagements (Parsons, 2016). Finally, the impact of the inclusion
of the therapeutic recreation in NDIS in the future lives of the members of the community is that
it will help to discover how much they could attain through much emphasis on their ability
instead of their disability (Fenton et al., 2017).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the National Disability Insurance Scheme is beneficial to people with
disability. It funds various programs and activities that are essential to the people living with a
disability. For instance, it offers behavioral support to people. Therapeutic recreation is also
important to the members of the community. It helps in reducing isolation as well as increasing
the level of confidence, thus it should be included in NDIS.

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References
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National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Australian Journal of Music Therapy, 28, 1.
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Fisher, E. E., Sharp, R. L., & Bradley, M. J. (2017). Perceived benefits of service learning: A
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Parsons, M. D. (2016). Perceived Benefits of Therapeutic Recreation Camps for Young Adults
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Reddihough, D. S., Meehan, E., Stott, N. S., Delacy, M. J., & Australian Cerebral Palsy Register
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Australia. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 58, 66-70.
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