Issue 92 | 16 July 2007
You should start receiving your new three year Disability Employment Assistance funding agreement to 30 June 2010 from this week. This follows the Prime Minister’s announcement of the Disability Assistance Package on 28 June 2007 and the two month extension to your existing DEA funding agreement to 31 August 2007.
Please make sure your Boards are available during late‑July to mid-August to sign the agreement offers and return them to us by Friday, 17 August 2007. You should read the letters of offer carefully to ensure that you execute the agreements correctly. Please note that you need to sign the acceptance on both copies of the agreements and return only one complete set of agreement documents to us. The other copy of the agreement is for your records.
The Letter of Offer and Agreement contains further details about the new three year agreement, including the new increased case based funding prices. The ‘What’s New, What’s Different’ document accompanying the new agreements should answer many of your questions. If not, or if you have any other queries, please contact your local FaCSIA Contract Manager.
[ top ]
The Evidence Guidelines for disability employment services have been reviewed and updated. The review of the Quality Strategy for Disability Employment and Rehabilitation Services recommended the review, and the updated guidelines reflect the growing sophistication and diversity of employment services assisting people with disability.
A working group comprising of sector representatives from ACE National Network Inc. (ACE), National Disability Services (NDS), the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO), the National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA), the Complaints Resolution and Referral Service (CRRS), the Association of Accredited Certification Bodies, E-Qual, a vocational rehabilitation service provider, FaCSIA and DEWR considered the previous guidelines and suggested additional examples.
As disability employment services have evolved over time as different service streams, there are three sets of guidelines, one for each service type: Business Services, Disability Employment Network (DEN) providers, and Vocational Rehabilitation Service (VRS) providers.
Just a reminder—the Evidence Guidelines are NOT a compliance checklist. Their purpose is to give both providers and auditors examples of what examples of evidence may assist in determining if the service adequately meets the Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Services may offer other examples of evidence at audit not included in the Evidence Guidelines, and auditors may also sight additional examples not included in the Guidelines.
The new Evidence Guidelines can be found on the FaCSIA website.
[ top ]
A new series of Consumer Training and Support products are now available on the FaCSIA website and will be mailed to business service providers in the coming weeks. The new products include:
You can view the new products on the FaCSIA website.
Wodonga TAFE is also seeking feedback on an information product for cerebral palsy on their website, as well as requesting comments on the next round of proposed products. These products will focus on supported employees, their families and carers. Topics include complaints, an information kit about work, a retirement product, a ‘Stand Up for Your Rights’ product, a multimedia product on workplace behaviour, and an induction kit for new supported employees. To view the proposals and to give feedback, visit the Wodonga TAFE product development website.
[ top ]
The department would like to thank all funded disability advocacy agencies and disability peak bodies who attended and participated at the recent information and consultation sessions held around Australia.
The four fact sheets distributed at the recent sessions can be downloaded from the FaCSIA website.
The fact sheets cover:
The FaCSIA website also includes two consultation papers:
The department is seeking feedback by 31 August 2007. Hard copies of the consultation papers have been sent to all funded disability advocacy agencies and disability peak bodies.
The department looks forward to receiving your feedback and continued involvement with the changes to the NDAP. If you wish to discuss any aspect of the NDAP changes or the 2007-08 Budget measure, please contact:
Lou-Anne Lind
A/g Section Manager
Advocacy Reforms and Management Section
Tel: (02) 6244 6120
E-mail: lou-anne.lind@facsia.gov.au
[ top ]
The Client must sign a Client Consent Form before their Intake Assessment is completed and authorised. The consent information package, including the Client Consent Form, is on the Literature site in FOFMS.
The $500 Intake Fee and monthly Employment Assistance payments for new Cases are not payable until an Intake Assessment has been completed and authorised on FOFMS. Case Based Funding payments do not begin until the Intake Assessment has been authorised. FaCSIA will not backdate Intake Assessments, or make back-payments. If you do not authorise the Intake Assessment your Service risks a reduced funding flow for that Client.
If you create a Client and Case record in FOFMS and do not complete and authorise the Intake Assessment not only are your payments affected, but the total Cases and vacancies of your Service are also affected. When you create a Case record in FOFMS it is considered an active case and included in the count of your total Cases, which reduces your number of vacancies. If you do not complete and authorise an Intake Assessment you will not receive funding for the Client but they are also occupying a place in your Business Service that could otherwise be filled and funded by another Client.
Cases that have been created but do not have an Intake Assessment completed or authorised have a status of 'Draft' in FOFMS. You should review you case list for any cases with a 'Draft' status and either complete and authorise an Intake Assessment or exit the record.
You should create a client case record on the day that a potential employee first presents for work. Creating a case on the employee’s first day will ensure that your service receives the funding it is entitled to. This will save you time if the employee fails to attend your service and will not cost your service a unit of outlet capacity.
[ top ]
There are currently a large number of business service clients who are overdue to have a DMI reassessment completed. Reassessments are due on the two-year anniversary of when they were first completed. If the DMI reassessment is not completed, authorised payments will be suspended and the case will ultimately be exited. The following rules are automated in FOFMS:
It is your responsibility to monitor DMI assessment and DMI reassessment dates. If your clients have their payments suspended or their cases exited as a result of DMI assessment or DMI reassessment dates not being met, you will not be back-paid.
You can monitor when your service’s clients are due for a DMI assessment and DMI reassessment by simply using the predefined queries that are built into FOFMS. To access the predefined queries you will need to be in the ‘Cases’ view. Then, from the ‘Queries’ drop down menu you can select either:
You should run these queries each month to help you monitor and plan your services DMI reassessment workload.
If your clients are exited because a DMI assessment or DMI reassessment was not completed and authorised within the due dates, you will need to contact the FOFMS Helpdesk to request that the case status be reset to 'Return from Suspension'. Once the case status is reset you will have one month to complete and authorise the required assessment. If the required assessment is not completed within that one-month period the case will be exited again and you will need to create a new case. You will also need to complete and authorise an Intake Assessment to receive payments for supporting this client.
To help you monitor DMI assessment and re-assessment dates, FOFMS also auto-generates an activity to notify case workers, that a DMI reassessment is due. You need to ensure that you keep the case worker current in FOFMS otherwise the notifying activity will be sent to the wrong person.
[ top ]
Sometimes when you are entering in new client details on FOFMS you may receive the error message ‘CRN is not unique’. This happens when the client details you are trying to enter are already on FOFMS, that is, the client already has a record on the system. If you receive this error message, please contact the CBF Helpdesk.
The CBF Helpdesk can be contacted by email at helpdesk.cbf@facsia.gov.au or by phone on 1800 034 887.
[ top ]
Please note that when DMI assessment and DMI reassessment dates are not met, FOFMS will suspend payments and exit cases in line with the DEA Programme Procedures. The following rules are automated in FOFMS:
Business Services are notified two months prior to the DMI reassessment date by an auto-generated activity in FOFMS to the nominated case worker. Business Services then have five months (two before and three after the DMI reassessment date) to complete and authorise the reassessment. Business Services should use this five-month period to smooth their DMI reassessment workload to avoid peak workload periods.
It is your responsibility to monitor DMI assessment and DMI reassessment dates. If your clients have their payments suspended or their cases exited as a result of DMI assessment or DMI reassessment dates not being met, you will not be back-paid.
To self-monitor when your service’s clients are due for a DMI assessment and DMI reassessment, simply use the predefined queries that are built into FOFMS. To access the predefined queries you will need to be in the ‘Cases’ view. Then, from the ‘Queries’ drop down menu you can select either:
or
If your clients are exited because a DMI assessment or DMI reassessment was not completed and authorised within the due dates, you will need to contact the FOFMS Helpdesk to request that the case status be reset to 'Return from Suspension'. Once the case status is reset you will have one month to complete and authorise the required assessment. If the required assessment is not completed within that one-month period, the case will be exited again and you will need to create a new case. You will also need to complete and authorise an Intake Assessment to receive payments for supporting this client.
[ top ]
With International Day of People with Disability 2007 less than six months away, event registration is now open! To register your event, go to the International Day of People with Disability website.
As part of the event registration, you can order free promotional products for your event. This year, promotional products include A2 whitespace posters (with enough white space to insert the details of your event), A3 IDPwD 2007 posters, blue wristbands, multi-coloured balloons, badges, individual stickers and, as a special extra for event organisers, IDPwD bandanas!
The website now includes a new feature so you can order each product individually, in the quantities you need. There are limited quantities of products available, so log on to the website and register your event today!
[ top ]
Email disAbility e-news if you'd like more information on a particular issue or program or to let us know what you think of this e-newsletter.
[ top ]
Your contributions to disAbility e-news are welcome. Do you want to let others know about your successes? Or how you engage with local businesses to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities? Email your story idea to disAbility e-news.
[ top ]