WEBINAR: How Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) works in practice

Clenton is Chair of the Think Local Act Personal partnership board.  Clenton is also a member of the NHS Assembly, set up to oversee the NHS Ten Year Plan, the current chair of Quality Matters, a trustee of the Race Equality Foundation, ambassador for Disability Rights UK. He is a director of Community Navigator Services CIC, and a Skills for Care Ambassador. He works as consultant, auditor, trainer, and coach on inclusion, equality and disability, and was named in Disability News Services' list of influential disabled people. In his spare time, he supports Birmingham City football club.

Eddie is currently International Lead - International Initiative for Disability Leadership. Between 2014 - 2019, he was Strategic Adviser to the National Disability Insurance Agency in Australia providing national level expert advice on mental health/psychosocial disability, Local Area Coordination and community capacity building. Prior to this, Eddie was Western Australia's first Mental Health Commissioner for the period 2010-14, Acting Director General of the Department for Communities in WA and had  a long career and various director positions with the WA Disability Services Commission. Eddie has worked extensively and published across Australia and overseas in areas of human services reform, Local Area Coordination and individualised funding and personalised support. He is a Salzburg Global Fellow.

Maryanne is the General Manager Participant Advocacy at the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and the NDIA Disability Champion. Maryanne is a person who has lived with disability all of her life and is also a parent of an adult son with disability.  Maryanne has held a range of roles in Australia and at the global level for more than 25years including; the inaugural CEO of the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO), General Manager Advocacy and Engagement at Vision Australia, Chair of the International Disability Alliance (IDA) and a Past President of the World Blind Union (WBU). In June 2014, Maryanne was appointed as an Officer in the Order of Australia.   Maryanne was awarded the World Blind Union Louis Braille Medal in 2016 and was a finalist of the Victorian Australian of the year in 2017.

Marita is currently Strategic Advisor, Contemporary and Innovation Approaches with the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), with a focus on Individualised Living Options. Marita joined the NDIA in 2014 as Manager of the NDIS trial site in Western Australia. Prior to joining the NDIA, Marita was CEO of Perth Home Care Services (PHCS) for 15 years where her organisation focussed on working in partnership with consumers to design personalised supports. Marita has extensive experience over many years in providing disability support services in senior roles in government and non-government organisations in Western Australia.

Anne is the Executive Director of National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Services with a nongovernment organisation Mercy Community in Queensland, Australia and is leading the organisations reforms to align with the new NDIS.  Anne has most recently been engaged as an Expert Advisor to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) particularly related to areas of interface with mainstream services systems and was previously General Manager, Scheme Transition where she had responsibility for leading NDIA collaboration with the Commonwealth, States and Territories on arrangements for transition to full implementation of the NDIS. Prior to joining the NDIA Anne held several roles within the New South Wales state government related to disability and aged care policy, regional operations, and service delivery.

Dr Sam Bennett had a fifteen year career working in disability and health reforms in the UK in service delivery roles, in the voluntary sector and in national government policy and strategy leadership roles prior to joining the Australian National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) in 2018. In Sam’s immediate past role he was responsible for leading ground-breaking national programs to improve and better integrate services for people with complex needs across the health and disability interface. Sam now brings his considerable experience and expertise in individualised funding program design and implementation to the NDIA’s Strategic Advice, Research and Inclusion Division where he is responsible for a range of programs, including Information, Linkages and Capacity Building, the National Community Connectors Program rollout, and the implementation of the NDIA’s first Research Strategy.

Caroline is the Head of TLAP. She has over twenty years' experience of local government social care departments working in policy, commissioning and leading on personalisation. She is a strong advocate of co-production and says, "co-production is not an optional extra.  Rather, it is fundamental to an approach that is based on mutual respect and sharing of power".