DPSC Stream 3 — Information, Advice & Referral Cat B (DAS)

Working title (form field, ≤250 chars)

The Centralian Disability Information Service (CDIS): locally verified information, advice and warm referral for Central Australia and the Barkly — in first languages and accessible formats

A 5-year Cat B IAR service answering disability questions for Central Australia + the Barkly the way the national Disability Gateway structurally cannot: in Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Arrernte and Warumungu, in Easy Read/audio/video, through a locally verified pathways knowledge base, a staffed local front door and warm referral — without ever acting on the person's behalf.

Project description (form field, ≤1,000 chars)

The Centralian Disability Information Service gives people with disability, families, carers and kin in Central Australia and the Barkly trusted, accessible answers about disability, rights, supports and services. A small local team operates a weekday phone/SMS line, a drop-in point in Alice Springs, and scheduled outreach to remote communities, backed by a continuously verified knowledge base of regional service pathways. Every priority topic is published in plain English, Easy Read, audio and video, and in first languages — Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Eastern/Central Arrernte and Warumungu — co-produced with interpreters and reviewed by lived-experience and cultural authorities. The service informs, advises and warm-refers; it never takes over. People with disability govern content priorities through DAS's decade-old lived-experience structures. AI-assisted production keeps a 2.6 FTE team's information current, multi-format and multi-lingual at a cost no call-centre model can match.

Activities

1. Local IAR front door: weekday phone/SMS, Alice Springs drop-in, Tennant Creek + remote community circuits, interpreter-supported sessions (AIS)
2. Regional Pathways Knowledge Base: source-verified, quarterly verification cycle, RAG-backed staff console — region + pathway depth, NOT a national directory
3. Multi-format publishing engine: one canonical source → plain English / Easy Read / audio / video / print, co-produced into first languages with cultural sign-off before release
4. Warm referral protocol: three-way referrals incl. advocacy (CoI firewall from DAS's NDAP service), Gateway for out-of-region, follow-up confirms referral landed
5. Lived-experience governance: Leadership Group + Advisory Committee set content roadmap (their voted priorities: Transport, Built Environment, Health), paid participation

Eligibility self-check

• Gateway exclusion's own example = 'collate ALL services, ALL disability types, single platform' — CDIS inverts all three: regional scope, pathway depth + format/language transformation, human warm referral. Complementarity MOU with Gateway as referral destination
• Inform/advise/refer only — hard boundary, zero representation; advocacy escalates through CoI firewall
• DAIS additionality statement: DAIS = 0.5 FTE triage desk (~$80k/yr NT-funded), CDIS = accessible-information service — explicit no-double-funding line in C3
• §4.4 CfP low-risk for Stream 3 — DAS holds neither named closed non-competitive grant
• First Nations service name co-designed post-award with language authorities — pending cultural review, NOT authored in the application

REFUTERS (11 Jun): best strategic bet — only DISTINCT novelty verdict of the six. Must-dos: DAIS additionality in criterion text + budget disclosure + pre-briefed NT funder; name NPYWC's $1.11M IAR grant with country/language/mode demarcation; kill 'walks alongside' phrasing. See dossier §3.