The federal Department of Health and Aged Care has released a Comprehensive Health Assessment Program (CHAP) for young people with a disability. This follows the CHAP for adults released last year.

Developed by health professionals with people with lived experience of disability, their families, carers and the disability sector, CHAP is an evidence-based tool for support workers and carers to gather health information for an annual health assessment for a young person with intellectual disability.

Regular comprehensive annual health assessments were recognised by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission as crucial to the continued wellbeing of people with disability, improving the detection and management of health issues and risks. The CHAP tool responds to the complicating factors in assessing the health of people with intellectual disability. For workers and carers supporting a young person with an intellectual disability, as well as their health professionals, it makes completing the assessment more straightforward and effective.

The free CHAP tool that was released in May last year was not designed for younger people, so the new tool has been developed for people between 12 and 18 years. Both CHAP tools will be reviewed and updated regularly. To improve the tools, NDS is passing on sector comments to the CHAP team.

To supplement the government resources, NDS has published a comprehensive guide to CHAP for the disability sector. It helps managers of accommodation or in-home support guide their staff to prepare for the CHAP appointment with health professionals. It also goes through what needs to be done after the assessment. CHAP can also be used by family or carers, and our guide outlines what accommodation providers or in-home supports need to do when family or carers are involved.

To find out more about CHAP for young people and download the pdf, go to the Department of Health and Aged care webpage.

The guide to CHAP for adults is also free for download (pdf) from the department website.