CODA Auslan Services is a business run by Jade, a CODA (Child of Deaf Adult) who grew up in the deaf community and experienced first hand the unjust treatment and daily challenges that her deaf and hard-of-hearing friends and family faced every day. Despite the integration of the deaf community into the NDIS, the support available to help understand and properly navigate the NDIS planning process was severely lacking. This resulted in the ubiquitous occurrences of members of the deaf community not receiving sufficient funding to support their lifestyle and needs.
Since 2020, there has been a rise by 400% in AAT (Administrative Appeals Tribunal) applications to review insufficient funding for interpreters or assistive technologies. There is also a near complete lack of advocacy groups for the deaf community to help them navigate this system. We don't find this acceptable. So we have decided to use our skills and our knowledge of the deaf community and the legal sector to assist the deaf community with preparing and presenting their updated needs and goals during a plan review, and helping those who were wrongfully denied funding appeal the decision.