Very
few of us would by a home without carrying out a building inspections and
checking council mud maps. We all know
that small cracks in the ceiling or walls can be a sign of major structural
damage we can see. We also want to know
if the property and house has flooded and how high the water was. Was it as high as the floor boards or as high
as the ceiling? When making major investments for our future we want our eyes
wide open to all the risks involved in that investment. We definitely want to
know the building is built on firm foundation.
However
no all investment we make in life have four walls, as we have explored in my
pervious posts. Boundaries often don’t come in brick and mortar, these types of
investments such as the trust of our children in day care, schools and sporting
clubs. We want to know our children are
safe. Very few of us would chose to fly with airline with a poor safety
record. Many of us are not prepare to make investment in plan tickets with
airlines with poor safety records.We
can stand round cheering and celebrating the introduction of (NDIS) Disability
Care Australian or we can begin to prepare our house, for revonnation. The way we think about disability care and
those with disabilities needs to be challenged. Now, not in 2019 is the time to
sand down the walls. However before you reach for the undercoat and spend hours
studying the colour charts. How well do
you know your walls? Who painted them last time? Was you or the previous owner?
The
federal government has just taken ownership of the keys to Disability Care, but
forget everything you thought you understood, take our the old scrubbing brush
and start scrubbing away the old foundation of the disability support
funding. On July 1 that system is to be
declared out dated, even that way we apply for assistance and are assessed in
changing. When I was assessed I was asked what I couldn’t do. How well can you walk? How far can you walk?
Can you walk to 10 stairs . . . 15 stair . . . How long can you stand.
These
types of questions are more about what we or our family member can’t do. Whether I can walk a 100 meters unaided, is a
useless question if my goal is to represent Australia in power chair ruby. If a
person’s identify goals are not associated with walking do we need to ask how
far they can walk?
A
couple has a 2 year old who has just been diagnosed with CP or an intellectual
disability, the Pedicatian suggests a visit to the Disability Care Australian
office to check for eligibility for an early intervention program.
I
sorry but when your working with a 2 year old and you tick they can’t sit up,
stand up. Talk, feed independently nor are they toilet training, I think you
could swap the application form between the parents with the child who has CP
(with potentially no intellectual impairment) with the form from the child with
Down Syndrome and the could look identical.
Assessments based on deficits are floored.
So
open you eye are look more closely at the stains, the water marks and the chips
and make you’ll be unlucky enough to find a crack. Or a birth deficit not pick up, like a heart
mummer. Just because you can’t see a
cancer doesn’t mean its not there.
That
water mark on the bottom left hand corner do you know how it got there or did
you just buy the house. Let’s pause our
assessment of wall # 1 there and step back and look at the wall again. Now in your mind I want you to seal the
cracks or replace paster where you need to.
Once the putty is dry apply the first under coat and step back, now tell
me how that wall is different. Has the
expectation for the wall change. Can you
visualised what other options or uses you can have for the wall, may be now you
thinking or other colours or may be you’re not sure about the repair job, maybe
you want a second opinion.
Maybe
those possibilities you imagined for the revenation underestimated what the
house can become. People with disabilities are just like the walls of a house,
all to offer when we explore the cracks we see things as irreversible or unrepairable.
How many times has a child with a disability or person with who had a stroke
succeeded all expectations.
In
disability care and support its time to ask what might be possible. Let’s stop putting people with disabilities
in boxes and assuming the child with Down Syndrome will not complete year
12. At the age of 2 let for now put that
in the possibilities box. Aged two it is
possible for a children with Down Syndrome to complete year 12. What about the child with CP is it possible
he or she may never walk, but complete a law degree? Yes! Let’s say at age 2
that is possible.
What
about are stoke patient, six weeks after the stroke he or she is regaining the
ability to talk. Is it possible this patient might be able to regain something
of what their life looked like before the stroke,
Can
you see how by changing the question we ask even though the circumstances
haven’t changed, the answers, the attitudes and the possibilities have. Welcome
friends to the future we’re about to create for people with disabilities and
the families. A future where the
disability does not define what is possible.
Rather when begin to ask what might be possible. Might it be possible
for my child to be mainstream school if we develop an early intervention
program? Might he or she be capable of
full time employment. Let us start to
ask what is possible?
Yes
those crack are forming, yes there are potential risks, yes we might need to go
back and to re-sand and plugs holes in the walls and make a plan B. However Disability Care is not about dead
ends any more than its about funding models we know failed!
Let
us reach a point when we’re happy with the wall’s and the potential to protect
us. Let’s together make a choice to take
a chance and ask what might be possible for people with disabilities and their
families. Lets us be bold enough to ask
questions differently as we meet the needs of the valuable members of our community.
What
might our community look like in the future?
Just maybe we’ve never asked the right questions before. I wonder what else we’ll discover as was
exploring and secure the appearing cracks?
Do
you still think Disability Care Australia is more of the same?
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