Eligibility & Enrolments

Family enrolments are for families of up to a maximum of six people.

Both the Autistic Young Persons’ Program, and the Siblings’ Program, are open to young people between the ages of 7-14 years.

Additional Autistic young people, and other siblings, outside of this age range are welcome to attend with their family, but, to ensure the safety of all attending, we cannot provide for them in our activities programs between 8.30am-3.30pm each day. There are lots of great things for you to do with them before or after your camp. Please look through suggested activities for your family under the location you are applying for. For babysitting and disability support worker options please see our FAQs page.

We work on a 1:1 carer ratio for Autistic young people taking part in our day activities. Autistic young people must be able to participate in group sessions with their peers. Behaviour challenges and communication needs will be discussed in your intake interview.

We welcome undiagnosed young people in our Autistic program, however, at least one young person in your family must be formally diagnosed. Autistic young people (diagnosed or undiagnosed) cannot take part in the Siblings’ Program.

As part of our Camp Family Enrolment process you will be asked to provide proof of diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) for the Autistic young people, and during our camp intake process you will be asked for other medical details for all of the young people attending as part of your family.

PLEASE CONFIRM ALL FUNDING BEFORE STARTING AN ENROLMENT PROCESS.

The process for application to attend a camp is as follows:

Stage 1 > Complete a Camp Family Enrolment, provide proof of diagnosis/diagnoses, and select your top three preferred camp dates/locations.
Stage 2 > At this stage, we begin the process of collecting all of the information needed to confirm eligibility and funding options, and ask you to pay a $550 Enrolment Fee. This fee contributes to costs incurred by the charity during that process and is an out-of-pocket cost that cannot be billed to the NDIS. We offer a payment plan if a one-off payment is not possible. This fee is refundable until your Service Agreement is signed off in the next stage.
Stage 3 > We work with you to confirm your funding options so an invoice and Service Agreement can be issued and signed off. After this, we can confirm your family’s place in the camp!
Stage 4 > We will arrange a time to conduct an over-the-phone enrolment interview with the primary carer for your family.
Stage 5 > ACA completes the pre-camp Enrolment Process by collating the information provided by you and preparing it for our Camp Teams.

Camp places are allocated on a first in, best dressed basis taking into account resourcing and safety considerations. The Enrolment Fee is refundable until you sign your Service Agreement OR commence your enrolment interview at which time it becomes non-refundable. All other fees listed in the Service Agreement are refundable until 10 clear business days before camp. In the event that ACA has to postpone your camp due to Covid-19 restrictions (or bushfire or some other matter beyond our control as noted in the Service Agreement), your family will be offered alternative camp dates.

In the event that a family wishes to postpone or book alternative camp dates after a Camp Agreement has been signed a $200 administrative fee will be charged. In the event that a family has to postpone or cancel, ten clear business days’ written notice will be required. All fees associated with postponements/cancellations made within 10 clear business days of the camp are non-refundable. Our cancellation terms are balanced to share the risk between our charity and families. We support this by running a standby list so often there are families who can step in on late notice. We will always endeavour to fill late cancellation spots from our standby list but we cannot guarantee this.

If you have NDIS and/or Carer funding in place your Enrolment Fee should be your only out-of-pocket expense. If you don’t have NDIS and/or Carer funding you are welcome to pay those costs as out-of-pocket expenses to attend our camps.

We accept enrolments from overseas with all costs being paid as out-of-pocket expenses.