Individualised Funding (IF) gives disabled people more choice in how they are supported. It is available throughout New Zealand for eligible people who have either:
Home and Community Support Services, which include help with household management and personal care, Respite services, which include Facility Based Respite, Carer Support and In-home Support.
IF increases your choice and control about who provides this support, and how and when you use it. Your options range from engaging support workers and planning how to use your supports, to employing your own care providers and managing all aspects of service delivery.
You can use Individualised Funding to:
- Purchase household management and personal care provided by support workers (where your employees can include family members, contracted personnel or organisations) and pay costs relating to the employment of support workers.
- Purchase Respite through support workers, or other suitable alternatives so that the full-time carer can have a break (including school holiday programmes, facilities or items).
For more information go to Whaikaha – Ministry of disabled people.
You can spend your IF on any disability support or service that:
- Helps you to live your life or makes your life better, and
- Gives you a break from caring for your family member with a disability, or to provide a break for the disabled person, and
- The use of funding if it is reasonable and cost-effective, and
- Not funded through other funding options such as a Disability Allowance. You can find out about what is reasonable for you to buy and you can find out more information at What People Can Buy with Disability Funding: Ministry of Health Purchasing Guidelines.
The primary carer can be paid to provide household management, and personal care supports. For respite, you can pay a household member who is not the primary carer.
As it is up to you to choose what support or services to buy, it’s your responsibility to make sure that the support or service meets the Purchasing Guidelines. Your Host can help you with this.
What you can’t use the funding for
I.F doesn’t cover costs related to medical supplies, equipment, home renovations, or household costs. You also can’t use it to increase the personal income of an individual or family.
Anything illegal, alcohol, tobacco (or related products) or personal income, gambling, anything that is not a cost related to disability and would be considered something that every citizen has to pay for.
IF Hosts
If you want to use IF to manage your support allocations, you must do this through an IF Host organisation. These are organisations that Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People contracts to support people using IF.
IF Host Providers in Auckland
The Role of Individualised Funding (IF) Hosts
IF Hosts are there to support you to make good use of your funds and budget. They are not the gatekeepers of your funding. They will
- Help you understand IF.
- Help you learn how to organise, set up and manage your supports.
- Administer payments for the support services.
- Help you manage your responsibilities – this includes reporting back to them on the support hours you have used,
- Advise you if something that you want to purchase meets the Purchasing Guidelines.
- Work with you to ensure that your purchases and supports are relevant to your personal situation.
- Ensure that the purchase doesn’t fall outside of the purchasing guidelines.
- Support you to revisit your plan as your needs change.
- Provide advice and guidance.
- Check that the service is working well and report back to the Ministry about it.
If you want your IF Host to be responsible for recruiting, training and paying your support workers and possibly managing the legal aspects of your service, your IF Host may do so for an extra fee that they set and you pay.
Please note that you do not need a host to manage your Carer Support Funding.
Click here for the information on Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People website.
