Participant Lived Experience Statement & example letter format
A Participant Lived Experience Statement is like your personal story about living with a disability. It's all about sharing your own experiences and challenges with your disability and the support you get. It's your chance to explain how your disability affects your daily life, the kind of help you need, and how that help makes your life better.
Having a Participant Lived Experience Statement can be a game-changer when dealing with the NDIA. This is especially true if you need more funding because your circumstances have changed, or if you're going through a plan reassessment and want to show why you should keep your current funding.
Your lived experience statement is super important because it helps the NDIA understand what it's really like to live with your disability. It’s your voice in the decision making process, it shows them the kind of support you need to be the best you can be.
Imagine your statement as a bridge of understanding between you and the NDIA. It conveys not only the challenges but also the successes that you have and will continue to achieve if you have the right ongoing support. It has the potential to shape the quality of support and resources you receive.
To make the process easier for you, we have attached a recommended letter format for you to use. This format provides a structured framework, complete with numbered sections, to help you organise your thoughts effectively. Numbering each section is a deliberate choice, ensuring that the NDIA contact person can easily reference your evidence, making your case more compelling and straightforward.
Make sure your statement is really clear and tells the whole story of how your disability affects you, whether you're at home or out in the community. Explain how it feels when you're tired, around people you don't know, in noisy places, when you're stressed, and so on.
And don't forget to say what could happen if you don't get the support you need. Describe how your situation might get worse without the right help. This helps the NDIA understand why your request is so important.
Helpful Tip
To create an even stronger Participant Lived Experience Statement, consider becoming a Support Plus Platinum Member. You will receive additional resources such as guiding notes and detailed examples for you to download to assist crafting your own impactful statement.
You will also receive other valuable resources such as an easy to follow template to use for every plan reassessment and guiding notes and examples to develop an impact statement for carers.
If you would like access to these resources and more, consider becoming a Support Plus Platinum member by clicking on any of the ‘padlock’ symbols on the left hand menu.
