u/Jazzlike_Berry_323

Hi, I’ve read the master thread on choosing a uni but just seeking a bit more specific advice, if this somehow goes into the master thread to help others that’s great 🙂

I’m looking for recommendations for part time online MSW, where the uni has a good disability inclusion reputation if anyone has experiences to share on this.

I did honours in a related area and 15 years work experience in community sector. I’m on DSP due to chronic illness so even though I’d always planned to get my MSW I would have to pace it carefully.

I need a flexible friendly course provider that wants students to succeed and that accommodates part time prac as well as part time coursework.

Thanks in advance 🙏

My nose is bleeding and congested, I have a moustache bandage and tooth pain.

This is the day after surgery.

I have lived with CFS since 2020. I have been unable to work and progressively more impaired in cog fog, cog fatigue, physical fatigue.

In April 2025, after a concussion I got a MRI. This incidentally showed a large polyp in my sinus. I shrugged it off thinking oh it’s only a polyp, lots of people have those. But actually it’s kind of misnamed…it is a tumour, usually benign but it aggressively erodes bone, and a large one about golf ball size. Remarkably invisible from outside.

It turns out that these can cause fatigue from: sleep disruption, apnea, neuro inflammation, sensitisation of facial nerves, headaches, congestion and the stress on the body of tumour eroding bone.

In 4-6 weeks I will know if it has made a difference to my CFS.

I hope it does.

Sadly it is the type that tends to recur within 2-3 years so even if it cures CFS, the condition recurs so the CFS may come back. Other sinus tumours have much better outcomes where once they are gone they are gone for good.

So I’m sharing this because we don’t know what causes CFS… and it’s probably not one thing.

I expect it’s not that rare in CFS that there is something undiagnosed lying cryptically hidden within the body that is putting a massive energy and chronic inflammatory load on the system. Where if we had those marvellous full body bioscans like in sci-fi films we would know quickly.

Hi, I’m seeing a lot of international students posting.

There was also a comment within a post recently about 80% of students in a masters course being overseas training for jobs here for residency.

Am I going to find a job at the end as a domestic student trying to qual for social work if there is oversupply of migrant graduates?

Or is it going to be like nursing where local graduates are struggling to find work due to international upskilling applicants?

Today I was sitting waiting for an appointment and kept nodding off with my head drooping like very old people do.

I also lay down to rest at 4pm and next I knew it was 8.30pm. I don’t faint but it’s immediate exhausted sleep like passing out.

Is this a normal symptom to have in severe CFS- to be unable to stay awake in an energy crash?

Fatigue for 6.5 years now I’m at my worst ever.

And yes I will be getting sleep studies but not for another couple of months.

Data Report:

https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/mental-health-service-use-disability/contents/ndis-participants

Executive Summary:

The findings below show how systemic barriers and gaps in coordination between disability supports and the health system shape NDIS participants’ mental health outcomes. When services operate in silos or are not designed to work together, people can be left without timely, preventative, or community‑based support. As a result, many NDIS participants end up seeking hospital‑based mental health services, not because these are the most appropriate options, but because other supports are unavailable, inaccessible, or not designed for people with complex needs.

In 2022–23: 

• NDIS participants had a rate of ED presentations for mental health care 10.8 times as high as people with no government disability supports after adjusting for age
• the proportion of NDIS participants arriving at the ED by police or correctional services vehicle was almost twice as high as people with no government disability supports
• the proportion of NDIS participants who had at least one hospitalisation for mental health care was 6.9 times as high as people with no government supports
• the rate of hospitalisations for mental health care for NDIS participants was 13.8 times as high as people with no government disability supports after adjusting for age
• around 3 in 5 (63%) mental health hospitalisations for NDIS participants took place in specialist psychiatric units, compared with 2 in 5 (44%) for people with no government disability supports.

Hi, sorry this just a reach out to vent as I just got declined again today. Also to share the difficulty of getting help when there is no structural damage on imaging.

I’m 9 months post injury from a car accident.

I’ve been declined 4 times now by neurology referrals over a 7 month period so I’m still on no waitlist for assessment.

A community care program has de-triaged me (switched to pretty much no care) because I’m not on uneurology waitlist. Also declined concussion program, the only one in my area for non-sports injuries.

I have severe fatigue, headaches, working memory loss (hard to sustain attention or problem solve), word recall difficulties and visual tracking injuries. I have a neurooptometry report showing post concussion syndrome. I simply cannot get any neurologist to accept referral to get mTBI diagnosis.

While im grateful not to have a severe TBI (I know no structural evidence of injury is a good thing), at the same time I’m actually at the end of my rope now as this is a complete no man’s land.

It feels like a no man’s land because there are presumably Neurologists somewhere out there that check for and diagnose mTBI but not for “people like me” whoever “people like me” is. I want to know how the decision is being made but know the transparency will never be there.

Especially after the latest knockback said “not convinced neurological evaluation warranted.

Had QEEG but they don’t do diagnostic reports. Had spect mri ct no “macro” change.

So yeh I just really need a hug and a “I see you and I get it”.

Thanks for listening.

Hi, just interested in how much me/cfs care varies by country and region.

I was severe with cfs for 6 years and been very severe almost 1 year now. Most doctors follow our guidelines to order standard fatigue blood tests and it ends there. So I don’t really get care or treatment for the condition, just that blood test screening.

So I’m curious about what a better care service would be: What does good care look like and where is it happening? Have you had good experiences?

I’m in a state where recovery accommodation (not NDIS but state based, 6 to 12 months requires:

1. a case manager in a public mental health service (very hard to acquire)

2. eligibility for public housing (often not relevant)

I’m wondering if other states and territories have different criteria from this?

Hi,

I just want to explore this as a fair few posts are around reasons for rejection and application processes.

Let’s take a step back.

If you need aged care , someone phones a number then an in-home assessor comes free of charge to assess your care package needs.

THAT is what NDIS access should look like.

Why are we settling for the other extreme experience for disability? Something so punitive, gruelling, time intensive, cost intensive, paperwork intensive.

Peiple typically NEED disability supports to apply for the ndis, from augmented technology to help with paperwork to transport support.

We also don’t say ‘well if we didn’t have that kind of process then people who didn’t need it would access it’ for aged care. Seniors want to be independent and they call for aged care when they need help. So I call a furphy on this- if seniors only don’t rort aged care entry neither do the disabled.

This scheme needs a complete overhaul to focus on the lives and journeys and needs of who it’s for , starting with how we access it.

I honestly don’t have $10,000 to $15,000 in my back pocket to fund intensive private treatments and assessments and on costs (travel). I shouldn’t need that much money and neither should you, anymore than seniors should when they need in-home care.

Make it fair and equal.

Advocacy/welfare support workers- on fee for service-where to find?

There’s a huge need for them in navigating disability experiences of NDIS, Medicare, housing and Centrelink.

They’re not on the hire platforms like mable, hireup, 5 good friends.

They might typically have a Dip Comm Services or cert iv disability plus welfare relevant experience (eg as family doing this for their loved ones).

Please 🙂

Where are they to connect up with?

I tried advertising on hire platforms. I tried direct outreach to a disability advocacy service who put it out to networks.

This is not counselling, support coordination, recovery coaching, positive behaviour support, folding washing, or floor cleans.

social workers typically will not do this work - they want the high paid counselling/SC jobs

Activities would be like:

- people finding contacts

-making calls

-clarifying facts and rights,

-walking alongside supporting the best for clients in interactions with service

-note taking/witnessing (on client request) at doctors, review meetings etc

Where to find?

I would like to understand more about the landscape in the UK for homelessness.

If there’s a better uk reddit channel for this topic please let me know.

Once someone enters homelessness (eg sleeping in their car) how long does it take to access stable ongoing shelter?

Assuming they are just low income (eg due to health conditions) not substance using, no criminal history.

Hi, in my searches for specific ndis companies I have come across a few that have high likelihood of being fraudulent. Here is the latest one:

-nation wide

-no listings in usual service finder directories

-website is dodgy (‘may try to steal your credit card’)

-no social media presence

-not registered as SDA provider but has acquired 12 ‘offices’ in various states that are standard residential homes

-not even registered as accommodation providers (the homes are called ‘offices’)- registered under a different category altogether

-one of the registered ‘offices’ ( homes) is also a beauty business

I have found out just incidentally searching while trying to find a legitimate- non fraudulent -ndis service.

I have no contract or relationship with this company

Where do I actually report this as a ‘red flag’ enterprise?

Are there any investigative journalists looking for companies worth investigating?

I’ve had 6 years of fibro with chronic fatigue, 18 months have been mostly bed bound after two concussions.

I went to a therapist Friday and my epiphany was this:

I realised that someone could pay me a world cruise with ports and trips to amazing places. I would not leave my bunker. That to me defines cfs- the most exciting or pleasurable thing that I can imagine becomes not just in achievable but intrinsically unpleasurable due to severe and overriding experience of constant exhaustion. When people say if you could be anyrhing in the world what would you be? Sleeping/resting.

I’m too tired to move, too tired to feel positive emotions. I crave sleep and rest like someone in the desert craves water and it is never enough.

I skip meals showers appointments tv anything that eats into 24/7 rest and sleep time. I’m banking sleep hours but the exhaustion doesn’t diminish.

I guess many have already had that realisation but it was a real anchoring for me in just how awful this condition is.

Australia has become a nation where being the middle class is the minimum threshold at which citizenship begins. Everyone else is facing impossible life barriers to meeting their needs in health, disability, housing and social relationships on top of general cost of living climbs.

Public housing funding is negligible compared to the hundreds of thousands nationally in the waitlists. Centrelink is below poverty line. Public health waitlists exclude or are 1/2 decade long for non-urgent cases.

People are homeless, sick, disabled and abandoned. Society in 2026 is barely recognisable as welfare society. Most of those who desperately need public housing will not survive long enough to access it. People with most reason to protest have been driven into the ground and protesting is outlawed.

Australia is a society where a federal department charged with commissioning essential care to people with severe disability, denies most people access and denies people with multiple disability full access (as only one disability is funded).

If you are on the ndia chances are you have made it through all the exclusion filters, found funds to self-fund evidence and see specialists into the thousands (cost-shifting onto the disabled), done the duck and weave through arbitrary decision making anytime a call comes through , ambushing and legal teams for disability denial , all from a department charged with “welfare”. Now it’s decided sweeping austerity measures to get more people off and less on.

That is not a social care system. It is a reckless, life wrecking, class-biased, ableist, care lottery doing demo-leave-vacant across thousands of lives. A social care system that in 2030 aims for 600,000 packages in a population of 30,000,000 - with an estimated 98% of people with severe disability (predicted 2.32 million Australians) left out.

A social care system for 2% of severely disable people is not a social care system for people with disability.

Anymore than a Medicare only open to 2% of citizens would be a public health system.

It’s time to scrap ndis completely and design a disability system for all Australians with disability severe enough to need support.

Im on Centrelink -I’m an early retiree due health disabilities.

People in Perth seek to be especially “anti-Centrelink” applicants. Then add “mature age” and “disability” too :/

Are there suburbs in Australia where it’s not a black mark to a housemate? or even applying for a small rental such as a studio/1 bed? Somewhere that quite a few of the retrenched-before-retired might live a modest, peaceful life 🙏

Hi, I have had whiplash years back and a couple of concussions. My CT came back fine so I got a SPECT which said normal perfusion to major lobes, limited detection power of scan to cerebellar region. So this has sadly not helped. A qeeg was done saying dysregulation in nearly all regions. but they don’t do discriminant analysis for TBI probability. I had a mri after the first but not second concussion and can’t get it done because I already had one on first concussion.

Are there any other tests?

Should I conclude I will never get formal TBI diagnosis? I have the usual symptoms of intense noise and light sensitivity, fatigue, executive dysfunction, reduced alertness, visual field dysfunction.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, I have been thinking about the ‘capacity building’ principle of reduced support over time and sudden drops in funding. My question is how secure is SIL/SDA funding package long term once it’s been approved. Especially for people with stable cognitive or developmental disabilities likely to need continued SIL/SDA over their lifetime, my question is whether the package item is actually continuing year after year for those eligible.

Are participants getting SIL then losing it within a few years when their functioning is actually not improving except in the eyes of the NDIA, not the participant and their care team. If yes, what happens to them to prevent homelessness and risk due to unmet support needs?

Like many who had an abusive mother, Mother’s Day is a s*** day to get through.

Why should one of the most selfish people in the world be forced into my consciousness, valorised and whitewashed from a hundred different stimuli reminding me to happy thank gift my abuser.

Tomorrow it will be Monday and it will all be over for another year.

When I was growing up TV viewing was discouraged as bad for the brain, too passive an activity to stimulate the brain.

When I think about it as a rehab tool I think my brain ‘might’ benefit by following dialogue and eye tracking of screen movement like car chases.

Curious whether people have heard things in therapy or personally experienced a) finding tv helps their brain b) being advised to avoid/limit tv in therapy