Your child's NDIS plan is approved: the first month

Week 1: read it like a map

Start with the goals. Every dollar in the plan has to connect to them, and every provider you engage will be asked to report against them, so it's worth knowing the exact words. Then find the budgets. Core covers everyday help — a support worker, getting out into the community, consumables. Capacity Building is where therapy lives: the Improved Daily Living category funds occupational therapy, speech pathology and psychology; Improved Relationships funds behaviour support; and Support Coordination, if it's there, funds someone to help you make all of this happen.

Check the plan's length and whether the funding is released in periods. Newer plans often release funds in instalments rather than all at once, which stops you booking the whole year's therapy in February — even if you could find it.

Week 2: check how the plan is managed — it decides who you can use

• NDIA-managed (agency-managed) — You can only use registered NDIS providers. For paediatric therapy this narrows the field a lot, because many excellent small clinics are unregistered by choice.
• Plan-managed — You can use any provider, registered or not, and a plan manager pays the invoices. This is the most common choice and the one most families with a therapy-heavy plan end up wanting.
• Self-managed — Any provider, and you pay and claim yourself. Maximum choice, maximum admin.

Week 2: do the maths before you book

Therapy is charged by the hour at or below the NDIS price limits — for children's OT, speech and psychology that's roughly between $190 and $235 an hour at the moment, with report-writing and travel time also chargeable within the rules. Divide the Improved Daily Living budget by the rate and you have the number of hours in the year. Split that across the disciplines your child needs before any one provider plans to use all of it.

A plan with, say, enough for forty hours of therapy is not a plan for weekly OT and weekly speech. It's a plan for fortnightly sessions, or weekly in one discipline with a block in another, or a mix of sessions and parent coaching. Decide that shape yourself first; good clinics will work with it.

Weeks 2–3: get appointments, not just waitlist places

This is the hard part and there's no way around it except doing more of it at once. Start with providers who have confirmed they're taking new clients, call four or five, and ask each the same questions: when could my child actually start, do you run a cancellation list, do you offer telehealth or parent coaching while a regular slot opens, and are you taking my child's management type.

When someone says yes, you'll be sent a service agreement. It should state the rates, how much of the plan they intend to use, the cancellation terms, and how either side ends it. Don't sign one that allocates your whole budget to one provider — you want room to add a second discipline later.

Weeks 3–4: the support worker side, if funded

If the plan includes Core hours for a support worker or community access, decide whether you want an agency, an online platform where you choose the worker, or someone you already know who could be engaged properly. Whoever it is should hold a current NDIS worker screening check and a Working With Children Check. Start with short, regular shifts — a good match is worth more than a full roster.

Start a plan diary now

The reassessment arrives faster than you expect, and the parents who do well at it are the ones with notes. Keep a running list of what's worked, what hasn't, every waitlist you joined and how long you waited, and every provider report as it comes in. An underspent plan can prompt questions — but the agency looks at why, and “we waited seven months for speech” is a reason, not a sign the funding wasn't needed.