In Australia, people with disabilities use their NDIS funding to access Creative and Experiential Therapies that they choose themselves, because it helps them to live well, stay strong, active and healthy. 

Creative and Experiential Therapies include therapies that use more than verbal approaches to engage people:

• Creative Arts Therapy
• Music Therapy
• Dance/Movement Therapy
• Drama Therapy
• Art Therapy
• Play Therapy

Creative and Experiential Therapies are evidence-based approaches that:

• improve quality of life and independent living, 
• keep people active in their body,
• help people regulate emotions,
• engage people in their communities,
• strengthen relational and communication skills,
• and provide a safe place where people can be free to be themselves.

Creative and Experiential Therapists have tertiary degrees and are members of professional associations. They are recognised members of Australia's Allied Health Work Force along with physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists. 

Allied Health Services provided by registered Creative and Experiential Therapists for NDIS participants should be distinct from the services provided by support workers. Creative and Experiential Therapists should classified under capacity building along with other Allied Health therapies, and paid at the same rate as other Allied Health Professionals.

Creative and Experiential Therapies belong in the NDIS.

UPDATE: 7 Dec 2024

Eleven days in and this campaign for "Creative and Experiential Therapies Belong in the NDIS" has generated nearly 30,000 supporters and thousands of testimonials, public statements of support from disabled people, NDIS participants, numerous organisations and political leaders, hundreds of letters sent directly to decision-makers, thousands of social media posts, dozens of Creative and Experiential therapists hosting meetings with their local MPs all around the country, discussions on live-to-air radio, and feature stories in the mainstream TV news.

THANK YOU. PLEASE KEEP SHARING THE LINK TO THIS CAMPAIGN AND HELP KEEP OUR VOICE ACTIVE OVER THE COMING WEEKS. 

This is a massive, concerted, collective effort, and, yesterday, the Minister for NDIS Bill Shorten spent the day meeting in Canberra with many representatives about various NDIS concerns.

By the end of the day, we had reports that the Minister acknowledged the need for a fair review of Art and Music Therapy as evidence-based Allied Health Therapeutic Supports within the NDIS.

This news comes as a welcome step forward, providing some breathing space for all those affected by the potential loss of these essential supports.

The details of this review are expected to be released next week.

We continue to advocate for the following:

• The importance and need for a fair and transparent review of creative and experiential therapies, including art and music therapy, to maintain and ensure the quality of therapeutic services being provided to participants under the NDIS.
• More time should be provided to enable a comprehensive review, consultation and decision-making.
• On this basis, there should be no changes to the NDIS therapeutic supports pricing guidelines until at least July 2025.

Creative Arts Therapist, Alana Bosgra, published this poem with the permission of the author, a person who accesses Creative Arts Therapy using their NDIS funds:

*TRIGGER WARNING*

This poem mentions suicide and is a profound reminder of the inter-relationship between disability, trauma, and mental health.

...

“It looks like scribble and scrawl to you I know
But that scribble and scrawl is helping me grow

It keeps me alive so you see
Please don’t take this away from me
As a long term sufferer of PTSD
This therapy is starting to set me free

A lot of my background is hard to express
It obviously causes a lot of distress
My world is full of anger and hate
These feelings with therapy are starting to abate

It might not resemble Picasso to you
But it’s all raw emotions that are very true
With a damaged outlook on life
The only way I handled it got me into strife
The expertise of my therapist brings lots of relief 
She helps me share and deal with my grief

Sometimes the right words I cannot find
But she gently and carefully pulls them out of my mind
So this therapy might not look like art to you
“Art” is not what we’re supposed to do

It’s taking raw emotion and putting it on paper
The negative feelings start to taper
It’s emotional feelings expressed in a safe place
So my place in the world is not a disgrace

It’s hard work and that’s not what you see
It’s been massively helpful to me

So Mr Shorten, 
you’ll have blood on your hands if you take it away
The importance of this I’m trying to convey
That scribble and scrawl keeps me alive
It’s stopped me from committing suicide

So you may not care and I guess that’s true
BUT PLEASE DON’T THAT DOUBT MY FAMILY DO” 

Thank you again for your ongoing support of this campaign.

If you would like to hear more, listen in to Dr Carla van Laar talking with Loretta Hart on Geelong PULSE Radio 94.7 fm.

They talk about NDIS funding for Allied Health Services, Art and Music Therapies, giving listeners insight into what these services mean for participants.

Some key points:

• Creative and Experiential Therapists are Allied Health Professionals in Australia through our membership of AHPA, along with many other Allied Health Professions.
• Cuts to Allied Health Services won’t reduce needs, it will mean more disabled people are left without access to the support they really need.
• The proposed cuts to Allied Healthcare Services provided by Creative and Experiential Therapists are inequitable because they remove choice and control for people with NDIS funding, and unfairly discriminate against Creative Arts Therapists who are valued members of Australia’s Allied Health Workforce.

WE CALL ON THE NDIS TO 

• PAUSE ALL CHANGES TO THERAPEUTIC SUPPORTS 
• ESTABLISH ITS NEW EVIDENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE AND PROVIDE A DEFINITION OF THE NDIS’ ‘EVIDENTIARY STANDARDS’
• PROPERLY ASSESS ALL THE ALLIED HEALTH THERAPIES THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE THROUGH THE NDIS, BEFORE MAKING RUSHED CHANGES THAT DRASTICALLY AFFECT THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR DISABLED PEOPLE.