Four mums raising children with disabilities have cracked $1 million in funding through a Birchal equity crowdfunding campaign for their startup that provides parents with tools to navigate the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Summer Petrosius, Sandy Golder, Steph Wicks and Tara Thompson have made it their mission to unshackle parents just like them from the complexity of the NDIS infrastructure.
The group’s own research of more than 1000 families raising kids with a disability has revealed one in four parents is spending more than five hours each week navigating the NDIS website and filling out forms.
Their Kindship application, the first social networking app for parents of kids with disabilities, launched this year and currently has 2500 families using it each month.
Kindship matches up parents with lived experience with parents new to raising children with disabilities so they can more easily navigate a diagnosis and the complex healthcare and funding systems that come with it.
The $1 million funding will be used for the launch and scale of Kindship’s integrated NDIS plan management tool, the Kindship Wallet, which will give parents the tools and knowledge they need to utilise their NDIS funding to its full potential.
Kindship CEO and co-founder Summer Petrosius says the startup’s story started with a passion for parent advocacy, a dream to change the world and conversations with hundreds of parents that led her to her fellow co-founders.
“Our vision is to help spearhead a world that celebrates and champions the contribution of parents and their children living with disabilities,” she told SmartCompany.
“We will do this by creating flexible employment opportunities for parents and continuing to build a platform that unites and amplifies their voices as advocates and experts in their children’s support needs.”
Petrosius says growing up with undiagnosed autism, she recognised and wanted to do something about the isolation and loneliness experienced by families living with disabilities.
“Parents raising children with disabilities are at breaking point,” she said.
According to Kindship research, of the one in four parents spending more than five hours each week navigating the NDIS, 83% neglect physical exercise, 71% are missing routine medical check-ups and 31% have given up seeking employment.
In addition, 53% never leave the house, 50% do not go on family holidays, 68% say they do not have time to clean their house properly, 63% suffer sleep deprivation, and 57% feel isolated and almost never see their friends and family.
Kindship co-founder Sandy Golder says the demand for disability-related support and services often exceeds what is immediately available.
“It is not uncommon for families to call numerous service providers seeking help for their child and then sit on waitlists for 12 plus months,” she told SmartCompany.
“This experience contributes to the distress and difficulty associated with navigating their child’s diagnosis and disability. We are providing parents with crowdsourced provider reviews and waitlist data, which will help families understand their options and find alternatives.
“This has never been done before.”
