The NDIS planning meeting: what to prepare

Most parents walk into their first planning meeting underprepared. It's not a failing — nobody tells you what it's going to be like. Here's what actually happens and how to walk in ready.

What the meeting is

Once access is granted, a planner (an NDIA or Partner staff member) contacts you to book a planning meeting. It's usually by phone or at a local office, and runs 60–120 minutes. The meeting has one job: to produce the written document that becomes your child's plan.

The planner is not your clinician. They are not your advocate. They are not there to tell you what supports your child needs. Their role is to translate what you describe into categories, budget lines, and plan management arrangements that the NDIA's systems can actually fund. A well-prepared parent makes their job easier; an underprepared one ends up with a plan that doesn't match their child's real needs.

The three things the meeting produces

1. 1Goals — 2 to 5 specific outcomes you want to work toward during the plan period. These frame what can be funded.
2. 2Supports — the therapy, equipment, and services that will be funded, grouped into Core, Capacity Building, and Capital budgets.
3. 3Plan management — how the money moves (self, plan-managed, or NDIA-managed).

Prepare in three parts

Part 1 — Write your goals before the meeting

Do not walk in without goals drafted. Draft 3 to 5, ranked by importance. Good NDIS goals are:

• Specific — 'Maddy will be able to attend a 30-minute group activity at kinder without requiring 1:1 support' beats 'Maddy will improve her social skills.'
• Functional — they describe what your child will be able to do, not what therapy they'll receive.
• Meaningful to your family — not a copy-pasted list from a template.
• Achievable inside the plan period — usually 12 months.

A good mix for a first plan often looks like: one communication goal, one self-care or self-management goal, one social or community-participation goal, and one broader family or home goal (e.g. 'our family will be able to attend a supermarket together without meltdowns').

Part 2 — Identify the supports that map to each goal

For each goal, note the supports you think will help. The planner will then map those to funding categories. Useful things to have at hand:

• Therapy type (speech, OT, psychology, behaviour support) and preferred frequency.
• Therapist preferences, if you already have relationships.
• Assistive technology needs — communication devices, sensory equipment, specialised furniture.
• Any daily care, respite, or community-participation support needed.
• Transport requirements if relevant.

Part 3 — Organise your evidence

Bring physical or digital copies of every piece of evidence in your pack: paediatric letter, allied health reports, functional capacity report, parent observations. The planner may not read every page in the meeting, but referring to specific assessments during the conversation carries weight.

What the planner will ask you

Meetings follow a loose script. You can expect questions on:

1. 1Your child's day — walk me through a typical Tuesday morning, weeknight dinner, weekend outing.
2. 2What's working well right now — current supports, routines, things that are going right.
3. 3What's hard — specific situations where your child struggles, with frequency and impact.
4. 4What you want to be different in 12 months — this is where goals come in.
5. 5Current providers and how long you've been with them.
6. 6Family context — siblings, work, carer responsibilities.
7. 7Plan management preference — we have a chapter on this.

How to describe what's hard — without overstating or understating

This is the single most important skill in the meeting. Parents tend toward one of two traps.

Trap 1 — Understating

You're in a room with a friendly planner. You want to seem capable. You describe your child on their best day. The planner writes a plan for the child you described, which is not the child who struggles six days out of seven. Understating is the more common trap for parents of children who mask well.

Trap 2 — Overstating

Less common, but real. Parents sometimes describe worst days as if they were typical, and the planner's functional assessment looks inconsistent with the clinical evidence. This can raise flags in the decision-making process.

The fix — describe the typical, the bad, and the context

For each behaviour or difficulty, describe: what a typical day looks like, what a bad day looks like, and the context that triggers the worst. 'On a typical day, Liam manages dinner with two or three reminders. On a bad day — usually after kinder when he's overwhelmed — he will refuse to eat and will hit his sister, and this escalates to a 45-minute meltdown about once a week.' This paints the real picture. Planners appreciate it.

What usually comes out of the meeting

At the end of the meeting, you'll usually know:

• The rough shape of the plan — which budgets will be funded, what the priority areas are.
• Plan management decisions — who will manage the money.
• The plan's likely start date (usually 4–6 weeks after the meeting).
• Goals as agreed.

You will not usually know the dollar amount. That is finalised in drafting, when the planner translates your goals and supports into specific budget lines.

After the meeting

The planner takes the information and drafts the plan. 4–6 weeks later you receive a written plan. Read it immediately. Does it reflect what was discussed? Are the budgets realistic for the supports agreed? Are the goals worded correctly?

If something is wrong — a missing support, a smaller budget than discussed, a goal that's worded in a way that limits what it can fund — you have options. You can request clarification (usually informal, often resolved in a phone call). You can request a plan review (more formal). Or, if the issue is significant, you can request internal review of the plan decision within 90 days.