Please join us in welcoming facilitator Cathy

Cathy Fiden has worked in disability support her whole career. Her path to Council for Intellectual Disability (CID) has been varied and challenging. But at CID she really feels she has found her ‘perfect fit’.

Cathy has been with CID for just over a month now. She’s a facilitator for our Get More Skills workshops, helping people prepare for the many changes that are happening in disability support.

Cathy’s career in disability started out in the USA. She continued working in disability support services after landing in Australia in 1992.

When she was working as a Case Manager with the NSW Department of Family and Community Services, she was offered a secondment to the Office of Public Guardian. In her new role she facilitated workshops for service providers, helping them provide better advice and support to people with disability.

The new role was challenging, but rewarding. “I loved that my work was empowering people,” she says. “It was great seeing all the knowledge I had built up over the years being put to real, practical benefits for people with disability.”

So one day when she was chatting with a member of the CID team at a conference, she realised that being a CID facilitator would be the perfect job for her: rather than helping service providers, she would be directly empowering people with disability.

“There are so many changes happening in disability support right now,” she says. “We’ve gone from a system where people with disability, their family members and carers had little choice, to one where they now have so many choices to make.”

“It can be quite daunting, but I hope through my workshops I can provide practical ideas and extra tools for people with disability to take control of their lives and get the best out of the NDIS.”

Please join us in welcoming Cathy to the CID family.

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