Taking back the power- Parents standing up to deviant lying providers...#disabilitylivesmatteroz
When I recently told a provider that they took $18, 965 plus of my sons funding and needed to pay it back, I also rang the fraud squad of the police after reporting to the NDIA who I figured would take so long it would become almost impossible to address. I told the policeman on the fraud squad line that the organization wanted me to meet them he said you don’t need to don’t do it. I felt it would be an intimidate and confuse the parent time which I was not going to put myself through, remembering the endless telephone conferences with two of the managers bullying me at the other end of the phone telling me that I had outstanding funds which I knew I didn’t but tried to work in with them time after time yet all the while they were taking the funds and keeping them aside unreleased for the whole of the year. Funds were never outstanding for them but they were owing back to my son’s funding I only recently discovered. So angry now.
Cut to the core the sense betrayal was surprisingly great in me, after years of my son going the managers and workers pretending to care…all along they were stealing they saw my son as a commodity to make money from. How cruel when he was so innocent and sweet and vulnerable. James, I said to my gentle happy son, you don’t even know all the battles that are going on over you – you are covered by me I’m covering you with sunshine like Pink sings but I am distressed from all this and I will fight for you. Obviously in the organization something shifted where they no longer cared but they had become greedy and craftier at taking off parents and off their disability kids. Yep just a corporate business now – no heart, just money. Filthy lucre.
. I felt I had to report them, even to stop them doing it to other parents - not only had my son been assaulted there a year or so ago, and the worker moved on secretly, covered up… now they were stealing from him. I circulated a petition for cameras in disabilities places of care, since when there is harm, no one is getting prosecuted, so many parents suffering so we need the cameras for hard proof without which the police could never prosecute.
Again, my son recently came home slapping something he never ever did before was a nightmare I found myself tearful. Complaining to the manager who was always pleading ignorance and the workers never saw anything. Yeah sure. I looked for other services very few in our area…finally one was opening.
Then the thieving organization said do you want to make a new booking agreement? I was amazed at the gall, that depends I said on whether you pay back the $18,000 you stole or not. (why would I make a new agreement when they had put four false agreements on the ndis portal and why had the ndis let them? As well as the other seven agreements they were holding unreleased funds on not letting it go back to James funding). I was loath to sign any agreements even though my son needed the services. I walked away. I only knew how much had happened in the last year it could have been happening for years. Not only to me but to other parents who were not checking the bookings in the portals, there have even been deviant planners. I never told them I reported them to the fraud department of NDIA or the fraud squad police who were waiting for a formal report depending on what happens. It will be a nice surprise for the thieves one fine day.
Oh well said the operations higher up manager you wouldn’t come and meet with us so that we could show you the process of how we work. It was on the tip of my tongue to say well the police fraud squad said not to. I had realized by now that if I told them the depth of investigation going on that they would start hiding things even more, so I didn’t. Even better a friend said if you turned up with the police fraud squad for the meeting with the organization. Yeah that would have been so good. It could still happen hopefully with handcuffs for the managers.
Amusingly my son had found music on the internet by a gospel choir he kept playing “I went to the enemy’s camp and I took back what you stole from me!” Good song James I said he smiled at me. Its his favorite song and I haven’t played it since he was a baby back in NZ. My daughter said he heard it way back. Its in his memory. You should play that to them when you’re at the respite house I said to my son. James is non verbal but he seems to know what is happening even so. Hilarious if not so awful to find out all the deviancy going on by providers and the way they treat parents arrogantly ordering us around when we should be doing it to them. We have the power remember that - WE have to stand up for our vulnerable children we have to fight, we cant let it go or they win the liars and the thieves. We must not let them win, we must make providers accountable. By standing up we help each other and standing up together we are strong even if we feel weak. If you do nothing you lose, and your child loses out, don’t let them win.
In September 2020 (AFP and NDIA media release 2020) Two people from Western Sydney were jailed for a combined 9 years and six months as result of a NDIS fraud taskforce code named Operation Apus, investigation into $1.5m of fraudulent claims against the NDIS plans of Australians living with a disability. The NDIS fraud taskforce investigation saw five members of an organized crime syndicate arrested in May 2019 and the subsequent forfeiture of multiple luxury vehicles and a property in Goulburn NSW in April 2020.
The syndicate also controlled NDIS registered providers such as Universal Group Australia Pty Ltd, Reliance Disability Services and United Mission to fraudulently claim more than $1.5m in NDIS payments from 68 people or those managing their affairs between October 2017 and May 2019. A victim impact statement submitted to the court showed the direct and damaging effects this type of criminal activity had on the Scheme’s participants and their families.
If you have experienced deceit from a provider or stealing of your funds – including being charged for services that never happened. It needs to be reported so that we can stop them stealing from you and from other families who suffer from all this.
I am annoyed the NDIS agency has not policed it more themselves with the providers putting whatever they like in the portals and claiming money for something they never did or false service agreements as happened to me.
I met a mother recently who was upset because the provider where her son has full time accommodation would not let her see her son. You go and see him I said…actually I realized later threaten to take your son out of there if they will not let you see him. One thing Providers hate to lose is money. They are charging me for day programs and not sending him to the programs at all the mother told me - what ?! Taking his funds and then denying him the program. She said he was depressed from not going to the day program and getting social interaction He has a gash on his head falling in the bath she said. He has autism and seizures. Oh no please don’t let him have baths I said – someone has died from a bath drowning through lack of supervision that they had been told to give - she also was autistic and had seizures – the workers don’t follow their instructions and are not always trained please get him out of there. Without cameras we cant even prove by a disability person gets injuries and police lack in investigating. It has happened so many times now. That is why I am lobbying for cameras. Our children are being injured and even dying and the disability organizations are not accountable when they should be.
The mother was nonplussed as if it never occurred to her she could stand up to the provider or demand anything for her son. You are his mother I said if you don’t fight for him you will get depression you have to fight for what you need and you need to see him. Meanwhile her adult daughter listening thanked me for saying something. Mum cant handle you talking about this but she needs to hear it she said. I just hope they get their son and brother out to a better service it is frightening how we trust providers and then they are not trustworthy at all. The providers need to be accountable. This mother is too scared to demand to see her son and she misses him has not seen him for weeks. I think now, get the police and go in there and get him. Organizations get half a million for full time accommodation of a disability person no wonder they wont let them out. Its all about the money. It making mothers suffer we cannot leave it.
You must stand up when things are not right and being done against you and your child. Be strong I am here for you. If we all stood up the providers would soon get the message – at present they know they can get away with things because they know parents are vulnerable themselves and worried about their children so much they don’t think to check up on the provider when that is what needs to happen. They look for your weakness and play on it. Don’t let them. The more you fight the stronger you will get and you have the power so take it back and don’t give it to the disability providers. They are not the boss - you are.
All the best
Anndrea x
https://www.change.org/p/the-federal-government-new-protection-laws-needed-for-vulnerable-persons-with-disabilities-over-18-years-old/psf/share