Holiday juggle for people with disability

The most wonderful time of the year can also be the busiest as people juggle shopping, socialising and relaxing.

But for many Australians living with a disability, the holiday season also poses an additional challenge to ensure they have access to and funding for the support services they need. 

Sydney woman Mel Tran, 26, works as a product designer and is completing her PhD. 

She also lives with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disorder which impacts muscle movement, and has a team of support workers who assist her throughout the year.

This Christmas, Ms Tran wants to spend time with her family and friends, recharge and enjoy eating far too much good food. 

To make this happen, she spent hours pre-planning for the holiday season to make sure her National Disability Insurance Scheme funding would stretch far enough to pay for care workers over multiple public holidays. 

"When I spend time with my family, I don't need as much formal support, but I also like my independence and that's where the support workers come in to help me visit friends or go out to events," she told AAP.

"The biggest consideration here is that most of my support shifts are full days and this means that I would burn through my funding very quickly on public holiday rates."

Ms Tran also had to balance her funding and needs with support worker availability over the holiday period, which can often be tricky with people taking time off. 

"A lot of the time it comes down to compromise," she said.

"What days am I willing to have less support, meaning I won't be able to do as much as I would like during the day? 

"How do I balance spending time with my loved ones with ensuring that I have enough funds in my NDIS plan to get me through the rest of the year?"

More than half a million NDIS participants receive individualised funding each year in a system that aims to give people a choice when it comes to the services they spend the money on.

Laura O'Reilly - who co-founded Hireup, a service which connects support workers to clients - said informal caregiving increased significantly over the holiday period and women were more likely than men to take on the role. 

Ms O'Reilly's younger brother Shane needed full-time disability support and Christmas could be a stressful time for her family when she was growing up. 

"Supporting a family member with profound physical disability is hard work and can be exhausting ... and it wasn't fun for Shane either because he didn't want his sister being his carer, he just wanted to be spending time with his siblings," she said.

Ms O'Reilly said there was a misconception that support services were not available over the holiday period and she wanted people to know what their options were.

"We know that support requirements and routines might change over the holidays, but disability support doesn't need to stop," she said.