The NDIS is not optional!

The federal government and Tony Abbot along with all Australians need to understand that the  National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is not an optional extra for Australia. The NDIS is a revolution this nation needs to begin to address the Human Rights of people living with disabilities and their families.

The scheme in its current format only begins to address some of the Human Rights and years of neglect, people with disabilities and their families have experience. Assistance to have our daily needs meet such as toileting, showering, feeding, transport and equipment needs are not 'optional extras', when they can be afforded. 

Every  human being needs water, food, shelter and love to survive.  The introduction of the NDIS only begins to address these very basic human needs for people with disabilities.  Without support people with disabilities can not get out of bed, go to the toilet or eat.  Some in our community, speak about the scheme as if luxuries were being provided to people with disabilities. Needing someone to change your incontinent aid is not a luxury.

Excuse me for becoming blunt about the daily living needs of those of us have disabilities, but until the community and all members of government fully understands the urgent need to address the Human Rights violations occurring in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, then we have a problem. The UN knows it, the International Community knows it,  The government knows it, and its time the Australian population knows it too.

If I posted a picture of a women in a nursing home bed, who hadn't been changed in 24 hours and was lying in human waste there would be outraged. Outrage for all the wrong reasons. Outrage that I exposed this lady to the public eye, not out rage that it was occurring! 

When we politely discuss the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, we tend to hold up the champions and it ideals. While the ideals of the scheme are a huge leap forward in securing the some of the Human Rights of people with disabilities, it does nothing to address vicolance against women with disabilities living in nursing homes, fails to empower women with intellectual disabilities to access the justice system, fails to prevent the imprisonment of men with intellectual disabilities unfit to stand trail; fails to protect unborn children with disabilities from termination and continues to fail to address the needs of people with disabilities living in nursing homes under the age of thirty because the cost of the care is too high.

As we debate what the scheme should cost, what it was expected to cost, how to fund the scheme for who and to what degree, we miss the injustices occurring! Like it or not even if the NDIS is fully implemented as designed by the productivity commission only some of these human rights issues are address. 

When I hear we might not be able to be afford, so these are trails the can be stopped. . . I cringe because people have failed to understand, the human rights message that is the Everybody Counts Campaign.

We here much about the costs and the increasing pressure the blow out costs with place on the budgets around the country. We forget that the National Disability Insurance Scheme will only partially be funded  by the increase to our medicare levy and the viability of the NDIS is also dependent on our state leaders. So much about the scheme, its role in improving human rights and funding arrangements is misunderstood. 

For many in our community it s simple change in funding arrangements, but talk to those who are already benefiting from what we were told was a roll out . . . and we realise the scheme dose much more than fund the basic support needs of people living with disabilities. The NDIS hands them the keys to enjoy ever aspect of life as any other member of the Australian society.  It acknowledges  people with disabilities have the same rights and that includes sharing a house and a bed in that house as a couple, whether they a married, defatos or a same sex couple.  Same country then we have the same rights!

It sounds a bit different when we say, Hang on we're married, we want to share the same bed . . . we need a modified bed to do that. Why should the government on fund beds designed for single people living with a disability or only if the were married.  If we're going to call it equality make us equal. If its only tokenism wrapped up as equality, we have a problem  because with what is a luxury and what is not.  

The equality that the National Disability Insurance Scheme can bring and continue to build on.  The opportunities for early intervention, access to better therapies, communication devices, mobility aids, transport. education and employment opportunities are just a beginning on how the scheme will improve the quality of life for Australians living with disability, their families and the community as a whole.   Mr Abbot the NDIS is not optional, so stopping talking like it is!

Australia again we must united until Every Australian Counts!  

Possibility of reform without education and consultation?

Can reform happen without an education process?

In short that is what the current federal government is hoping to achieve with the National Disability Insurance Scheme or NDIS. Despite what is popularly believed, the NDIS is more than a change in the way support needs for people living with disability and their families is funded.

True! Currently from July 2014, the NDIS will be gradually rolled out across Australia, and will cover all Australians living with a significant permanent (life-long) disability by July 1019. It is hoped that the introduction of the NDIS, will end the current unjust way funding is distributed.

It is also hoped the there will be greater access to services and the type of services people living with significant disabilities and their families can access regardless of where they live in Australian.  The NDIS has been promoted as ‘giving greater choice’ to people living with disabilities and their families. However, it is also predicted that the NDIS will provide a more competitive environment in the disability sector, creating a ‘market place’ environment. We know with competition there is also the threat of monopolization of the market place, as is the case with the two supermarket giants in this country. 

Monopolization in a particular corner of any given market, may in fact lead to a reduction of choice and this is something disability advocates need to be on guard about, as it threatens the core value or choice on which the National Disability Insurance Scheme was founded.

This is because the NDIS is not a funding reform. It is far more ranging in its scope than a change in the funding agreements between the federal and state governments, that see the federal government through an increase in the Medicare levy, fund disability care for the first time.

This is the first important myth for us to comprehend as we look towards the introduction of the NDIS.  This reform in not about funding!  While there will be an increase in funding available to those who need it and an increase in the number of people ‘eligible’ for direct support services, therapies and equipment needs, this is not the core of the NDIS. Yet in terms of the public education and information released I have seen so far, much of it has been around funding, changes to eligibility, changes to the way people are asses when applying, facts & figures around numbers and amount and debate of its costings and whether the Australian economy can afford it or afford not to induce it.

If the NDIS is not a funding reform, what is it? Essentially, as I understand it the NDIS is about social reform.

It is a major shift in the way we value people with a disability in this country. By acknowaging that people living with disabilities, their families and full-time carers live in poverty while they struggle to paid for medical expenses, early intervention therapies that can increase the quality of life the children or loved one who becomes disable can enjoy. It is about people with a disability and their families joining the social fabric for what makes Australia a great place to live.

The NDIS reform needs to remain a fundamentally a reform on how we view people with disability in this country.  The NDIS is about equality for all people living with a disability, their families and those who care for them. Until those standards are reached nationwide the work of NDIS campaigners with not be completed.

Funding reform and moving people to be funded under the National Disability Insurance Scheme and giving them dignity of choice for the first time is only half the battle.  Dignity of choice and direction over their own lives can only be achieved if ‘real’ choice is available and all activities available to other Australians are accessible to those living with disabilities and those who care for them. In essence the NDIS promises to provide real choices for real people!

This reform for the first time recognises the rights of those living with disabilities have the right to a choice in lifestyles that is consistent with every other Australian. This is the message that I think has been lost as we discuss and debate the economic value in the change for funding arrangements for the lifetime support needs of someone living with a disability.

In real terms the NDIS is looking at things like access to the education sector via providing specialized education support; access to a range of different therapies support not just what is popular of cheapest, we want to see an end to standard service and a choice in the market to open up; A choice is mobility aids and communication devices that increase the person’s ability to access and communicate in the community; physical, social and psychological access to the community in which a person living with a disability is a key player in the ability to deliver the NDIS reforms; access to employment and accommodation choices, being able to eat as a family at a restaurants and access holiday accommodations and destinations without needing to worry about access issues.

It is the change is the way we as society view access issues that pose and major threat to the NDIS reform process, where no longer worried about the legal access requirements for new buildings. Our biggest hurls in terms of access, is changing the attitudes of everyday Australians towards people living with disabilities and their families.   

While the tokenism attitude still occurs (like disable access toilets being used as storerooms, ramps with incorrect gradients, signs without brail or voice information, abstance  for captions for chimera goes, token ‘disabled’ employees and a inaccessible public transport system for people with disability) the type of social  inclusion that the NDIS reform aims to embody is still unattainable. I don’t think Australians comprehends the type of sweeping reforms that should  result  due to the NDIS, nor do I think we have the combine attitude to accept all people with disabilities as equal members of society.

We it comes to people living with disabilities, who they are; what they look like and especially what they are capable of achieving, I think we all fail in our correct assessments.  I am proven wrong everyday by the young people I work with.  They learn and comprehend things I think we not possible.  Traditionally thinking of what people with disabilities particular those with high intellectual process challenges are very limiting. For the NDIS to work our personal concepts of what is possible needs to explode!  I say that as an industry insider.  How much more will the general public struggle with the social reform that is the NDIS.

If you believe the government that the delivery of NDIS reform has began you do your maths and quick realised the focus is solely on the funding reform.   Funding alone can’t produce social change. We have seen it with smoking and drinking, Increase through taxes incurring prices rises do not work alone.  With finical reform needs to be public education to challenge along held misconceptions like it’s ok to drink while pregnant.

So how does the government think it can bring in major reform regarding the rights and choices of people with disabilities without any major advertisement on its reform processes?  Removing someone from the disability support pension and providing them with free taxies to get to work does not address, inequality in the workplace, the historical under employment of people with disabilities, the fact the many work places are physically inaccessible, yet alone the need to address what disability actual is!

Simple basic facts like people with intellectual disabilities can have a basic conversation to enable them to tell you how they want the hair cut.  The majority of them are able to have a conversation way beyond that complexity.  What amazes me is this perception is if a person is non verbal the do not functioning intellectually so there is no point talking to a non-verbal person and thus it becomes its acceptable to treat them as a non human being.

If retail staff, don’t want to talk to me, then how does the government expect me to go to a job interview, let alone be employed with uncontrollable seizures.  I can’t help but question some of the social reforms that are targeted by the NDIS and employment targets and thus the premise on which the National Disabilities Insurance Scheme is costs on is comprised.

Real reform for real people such as the NDIS needs education and disabilities awareness to be addressed.  Anything else denies people living with disabilities true equality.    

Productivity at war with compassion

Productivity is define as the state or quality of being productive and in terms of the Australian Economy that translate in to the ability to work.  This creates a number of social and economic issues as we struggle with things like access for all Australians, social inclusion, unemployment and underemployment. While it is great to see the Australian Liberal Government focus on the economy,  economic stability and job creation it needs  to make sure it doesn’t drop the ball on its social obligation to maintain human dignity and human  rights.

We have already seen the UN Commission of equal human rights question the Federal Governments priority to ensure an equitable future for all Australian.  However since being elected Tony Abott has made is feelings towards those who life circumstance  has not be fair.  The Gina Rinharts of this great economy of ours would have you believe anyone can rise up above the soco-economic environment in which they find themselves and create a multi-million dollar empire ‘if they weren’t afraid of hard work.

Now I do not dispute that Gina Rinhart is one of the most hard working people in Australia any one that manages an empire as large as hers works in creditably hard and long hours what I have difficulty in swallowing is a belief that everyone on welfare is lazy and Australians can is 2013 walk in to any job they chose. The fact that Gina Rinhart is a the top of the business world should mean as a woman she has first hand faced so type of discrimination.

If not she only needs to talk to our current Prime Minister to experience the inner workings of a man’s mind and how women are devalued it the corporate world. Even having experienced discrimination as a woman, Gina Rinhart is still speaking from a position of privilege, she wasn’t born into a working class.  She was raise in a position of privilege which gives her access to privileges’ such private education, tertiary education and I am sure there are making things about the business world she learnt by observing her father.

Social conditioning and the effect it can have on individuals is too often dismissed but the Tony Abbrot’s and the Gina Rinhart’s of this society.  Despite what I think we’d all like to believe, not everyone can become a millionaire. If you believe that try telling that to a parent with a child with Down Syndrome who wants to access any Grammar School in Australia for her 5 year old daughter.

Or a young 17 year-old girl with cerebral palsy who has to not only achieve the academic results to gain entry into university, but prove she can physical cope with the strains of academic life while living away from home.  Oh yeah add into the mix the she’s the first generation of a working class family to gain a tertiary education.

The trouble is when we’re making statements about changes government policies is the general were making board and sweeping statements about a minority group and while that statement may be true for the ‘norm’ of the population, very few people might belong to that norm, especially when we’re talking about very small minority groups, like refugees.

The liberal government has stragtically played into the hands of the general population fears of terriots and feelings of righteousness and false gaining advantage with its turning back the boats policies.  If I had witiness the murder of my entire family and fled across the border in fear for my own life,  I can assure you I didn’t wait for me passport and visa to arrive in the mail.      

Any broad sweep ting statement about an soci-economic group will feed into things like misconceptions people have about that percentage of the population whether or not the government is basing its statements on statistical data or not.  Such as the statement claimed to be made by the Prime Minister in the Australian today, one in twenty working aged people in Australia receive a welfare payment.  The wording of the articles who have you believe these productive people are receiving entitlements when other taxpayers their age have to work.

The author as does the Prime Minister assumes the majority of this particular population ‘doesn’t want to work’ and productivity or the ability to be productive means you are employable.   I am by nature a very productive person and high achiever, but what boss is going to employ someone with uncontrollable seizures that will need to off even other week.  I can’t guardutee all my seizures will occur on my days off even if I only working 20 hours a week.

That my friends is the trouble when we make statements about norms even when support by statistics.  This government either governs with a social agenda or stimulates economic growth. I think the government is pretty clear when it make statements like the NDIS being ‘a cause’ rather than addressing a human rights issue (A ‘cause’ they gave bipartisan support to while in opposition – because it was the decent thing for a country like Australia to do!”) it’s very clear how it views their  social responsibilities .

Reform solely based on productivity and economic stability or growth puts at risk many socially disadvantage Australians, who despite hard work and remaining productive, through life hard knocks rather than poor choices need a helping hand.  Unfortunately it looking like the federal government has little room in its budget for heart and compassion even when basic human rights are at risk.

Dreaming of Possibilities

Deb's Rave!

The hopes and dreams that the National Disability Insurance Scheme will bring for people living with disabilities and those who provide unpaid care, seems to balance on a uneven seesaw. What I am beginning to see emerge is that different agreements that have between different states and territories, and the Federal Government, sees a different approach to disability care, being adopted around the country.  A reality I find disheartening, when the principle underlying the NDIS campaign was a universal approach to supporting people living with disability and greater access to choice regardless of whether people live in Hobart Tassimia or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.  

So the anticipated mistrust of governments ability to deliver a disability support system that people living with disability and their families, unpaid careers and those who seek to support them on a daily basis were well-grounded. 

What was known from the outset, under the recommendation of the productivity report, was there was to be a nation wide shake-up to the eligibility criteria . With the promised the more people with disabilities and their primary careers would be eligible for support and the state-by-state regulations on supported career and accommodation would cease with individuals and families to be offered greater choice and flexibility in the way the receive that support.  That was the very essences of the National Disability Insurance Scheme campaign, a principle that disability advocates will not be negotiating.

The scheme must deliver a universal approach to supporting those living with disabilities and those who career for them.  In the push towards early intervention, fostering independence, the needs of families and those who care for them seems forgotten.  Loss in the former labor governments push towards priorities such as employment.    

While I cheer on reform that is founded on social inclusion, real employment opportunities and equality, these much not be at the expense of providing esscentual respite care and providing support to the family unit the live with  24 hours needs of a love one.  Everyone has a breaking point and everyone needs a brake and end to residential respite does not provide that break.

No one wants separation in any form but the reality is that unpaid career like every other Australian, has a right to annual leave.  The absence of being paid does not remove need.  We can debate all we like about what people with liabilities need, what the like, how to define choice, how do we create choice, how do people with disabilities make informed choices after a lifetime with out choosing basic things like the color of their toothbrush, what they want for lunch and what the will wear on any given day.  

As we face the road to a fully operational National Disability Insurance Scheme that delivers full equality to people living with disability and their significant others the challenges to ensure everyone has the same degree of choice regardless of type of disability, lifestyle and postcode are enormous!

The principles of the National Disability Insurance Scheme are not as secured as various governments have assured us.  We as the voice of those who can not speak must not be silence or rest. The right to choice must be secured for every Australia. Every Australian has the humane right to have their rights meet. 

Human Rights means equality

Access For All

"The ideal of equal opportunity holds no water unless it truly 

includes all people, including people with disabilities."

K. Martinez

World Blog Action Day is now only five days away.

Those who follow my blog will know the theme this year is 

is Human Rights 

As a advocate for people living with disability in Australia, I can tell you first hand that the rights of people with disability in Australia are often abuse. The likely hood of abuse increase for those living in residential facilities and group homes. Currently there are over 6,000 people with disability under the age of 40 in nursing homes. These facilitates and the programs are designed for those in their late 70's, 80's and 90's.

Younger people under 40 rarely have the opportunity to access the community and there only interaction is with people twice their age.  The incidence of likely emotional, finical, physical and sexual abuse increases if you are female and further escalate in you are of indigenous or Torrist  Straight decent.  , 

It is a shock to head that there is such a high incidence of people living within Australia who are denied so much access to basic humane rights and recently the Australian Government received a negative report card from the UN Commission on Human Rights.  Many human rights areas are not covered specifically for people living with disabilities under Australian Legislation. 

Please join me to learn more on October 16, 2013.  

Debbie    

What does the introduction of the NDIS mean for you?

 Changing roles under the NDIS

The introduction of the National Disability Insurance  Scheme (NDIS) affects us all. Not just through an increase in the Medicare Levy. The scheme reminds each of us we are only one serious accident away from a permanent disability and need for assistance ourselves.

Imagine if you had a horse riding accident tomorrow and your spinal cord is broken at the bottom of your neck. The good news is you survive and are eligible for assistance under the NDIS, this can be organised while you spend up to the next 12 months in a rehabilitation hospital, as one of the priorities of the funding is early intervention program to get you 'back into life again'.

The bad news is you will never be able to move anything below your lower neck again and you will need to access 24 hour care for the rest of your life. When you go to bed at night someone will need to come in and turn you every few hours so you don't get a pressure sore. You are now dependent on somebody else for everything. You can't even starch you nose. 

More bad news you have a physical disability. You intellectual process, thoughts and feelings are all as there were before.  You are lucky! You can still speak and voice your thoughts and feelings and soon every therapist, doctor and nurse is going to know about it.

Each person that walks or wheels into your room for the next 12 months is going to have the opinions on, 'how you can put your life back together'. You are forced to listen and proceed with your daily therapy. While you are feeling unheard you are also grieving for you loss of mobility and the life you once knew.

It gets worst you are a professional support worker, you know how to help people with disabilities, you know what you want and you can still communicate this clearly, but your wishes are often dismissed. Instead you receive constant reminders you are the patient. . .

Relax . . . this is not your current reality and I hope no one reading this ever experience this reality. Because the funding for NDIS is so individualized the best way to providing training and understanding of how this new system works is to provide examples.  

The priorities for funding under the NDIS are very different to what is currently here in Queensland. Under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the funding priorities are early intervention, access to therapies, medical aids, mobility aids and technologies; education; employment; accessing public transport and buildings, meaningful community participation, access to the arts and sporting participation.

Despite popular misconception, the introduction of the NDIS is not a change in funding roles between the state and federal governments. Under the NDIS funding is assigned to and individual or family based on the goals and lifestyle choices. Rather than a diagnoses made by a doctor at birth or time of injury.  For the first time a person’s funding package will look at all their needs and how best to enable them to achieve their own lifestyle goals. 

This is not merely a changing of the guard or a change in who is paying the bills. The choices clients and their families will make about their own lives.  A change which will be directly felt by support workers who work one-on-one with clients. For the first time clients and/or their families will be able to chose the service or services they want to access for their support needs.  

These revolutionary changes will be based on the clients lifestyle choices (ie to life independently in their own home near the beach); and their goals and aspiration (eg to play basketball in the Australian Special Olympics team).  Support to attend training and travel to tournaments with be a large feature in this person support package. My recommendation is the person who supports this person will need to be both fit and a early rises.

This fundamental shift to funding being assigned based on individual lifestyle and goals, will see a big shake up in how and when clients are supported and the organisation that is most suitable to support them. 

While support has always been based on a goal, (such as to enable the client to leave the house), all their goals and how they will achieve them is now determined by them and their families or careers. This is their lives, their dreams, their goals and their choices! The NDIS is ALL ABOUT CHOICE.

MY LIFE! MY CHOICE!

SELF-DIRECTED FUNDING  

Regardless our how you view you're client’s ability to make choices, around their lifestyles. As a support worker it is your job to assist your client to achieve their goals. If their goal is to organised a surprise party for their dad's 80th Birthday, but you doubt their ability to achieve and afford the party, as a professional support worker your role is only to enable the client to achieve throwing a successful party.  Whether they then occur a debt, under the rules of the NDIS is their choice and their responsibility. 

Until now in Queensland people with disabilities and their families have had little choice on who will support them, when they will be supported and what they will be support to do.

Currently, the Department of Communities undertakes an assessment and decides the types of support you need e.g. community support, personal care, in-house, respite care and how many hours that will before. They then place you with a service that will provide that support. 

Despite popular beliefs held by support workers a number of factors which currently determine the way you support clients. This includes their diagnoses, the type of disability (e.g. physical disability); whether the disability is progressive; even their post code.  The chances are whether you are on a in-house support shift or a community access shift has not been determined by your boss, but the Departments of Communities. 

It always amuses me when my staff complain they weren't told what we were we're doing on a particular day. As they are always informed Debbie will tell you what she needs when you arrive at her place. The fact that my support plan clearly states my support will be center around my needs at the particular time of the shift (I might wake up vomiting and that will change what I had planned for the day.) I am a real person and real people get sick).  The change with the introduction of the NDIS is that clients no longer need to negotiate with the scope of what 'my needs at the time of the shift' means. 

Self-directed funding means the client choose who will support them, which what activities the will be supported and when they will receive their support. Without a support service being in control of a client's funding, the division of funds will be directed by the client or their guardian. So if a client wishes to be supported at a time when higher penalty rates are paying and receive less hours of support, under the NDIS that is their choice.  

The major priority for funding under the new NDIS is to ensure the human rights of all Australians with a disability and their families are upheld. Just as you have the right to choose things like where you send your children to school and what type of work you do. People living with disability and their families have the same basic rights regardless of the intellectual ability.

Under NDIS even the Adult Guardian Board will be held more accountable to ensure its client have access to choice and the way they are cared for. The NDIS is very much about empower people with disabilities to exercise their right of choice.

It may interest you to know current there are 30 articles on the Human Rights For People with Disabilities. Currently there are hearings occurring in Geneva around Australia's record in upholding the rights of people living with disabilities. As recently as September the Australian Government was using the introduction of the NDIS as its defence and omission that until now it has been in violation of the convention and these articles. The stakes for getting the implementation of the NDIS spot on are very high.

The changes we are about experiences are fundamental and will be felt far beyond the disability sector. These are changes that demand dignity and respect of all people living with disabilities and a goal of social inclusion.  Therefore will be felt:-

• The Public Health System 
• The Public Trust
• Private Therapist
• Education System
• Public and Private Schools
• Transport System
• Equipment Providers
• Public Housing
• Telecommunications 
• Technology Specialist  
• Medical Providers 
• and Support Services Providers of course.  

As the framework for this new model of social reform was being developed under the guidance of the Productivity Commissioner, people with disabilities and their families were very clear the things they wanted the NDIS to achieve the most is social inclusion with meaningful participation in their community.  

They have asked for specific things to be included such as education, employment, an end to underemployment, accessibility to bookshops, libraries, restaurants; recreational activities, sports, sporting venues, gyms, and theaters.

People were very, very specific and very clear on what the visions was for the future. Remember the person in the hospital who was told they would need 24 care, their minds, their thoughts, the feelings, their passions and their dreams are still present. Their vision about a future living with a disability is now taking shape. Their ideas to will be wishes on how they want to be supported will too clearly stated at the right time.    

The person you next support to develop a lifetime support map, could be your husband, your daughter, your grandson or your father. What kind of choices would you want to enable them to make?

Would you be happy for them to go see a movie every day?  Or sit fishing in the summer sun for six hours? If you was the person with the spinal injury and you wanted to stay in bed an hourly longer or have a PJ day; how would you feel if you were made to get up and get dressed? 

With the National Disability Insurance Scheme, trips to the beach, a night at the movies or local pub aren't on any agenda under this reform. The game has changed. Yes, I am sure some clients, who will chose to be continued supported in same way they have always been supported.

The NDIS means We're no longer debating over a clients right to watch an adult movie or get drunk. Our role is now about demanding buildings are accessible. Assisting the client to apply for work or choosing a swimming coach; engaging an advocate so your client can join a choir (as an  intellectual disabilities doesn't affect the voice, just the way you need to teach the person the words.)

If clients are genuinely continuing disappointed with the service receive and/or if the feel their choices are not herd,  NDIS gives them the freedom to go to another service.

I know there are people who like to complain and nothing ever seems good enough for them.  Want to know how I know this? 

Well, I spend about 10 hours every listing to support workers complaining about everything from the husband not putting the wheelie bin out the night before; the neighbours setting traps for the cats because they’re not keeping them in at night; being cheated on by boyfriend; clients not answering the door; shifts either being too short or too long and then of course there’s the weather.

Excuse me - I the one sitting in the wheelchair, I really need to start charging counselors rates, as my degree is in Behavioural Science. For some workers . . . should I chose to complain, I am accused of being hormonal! The fact I have a disability somehow the gives me a hassle free life. Go figure! (For the record that was the week I wrote three grant submissions!) 

If clients are upset for the right reason they will change their provider, just like you won't return to the hairdresser who didn't listen to you. The game has change!

       

     

Exploring Possibilities

Imagine . . .

If you could help change the world, to make society a more inclusive world for people with disabilities. This October you have the opportunity to join others around the world to bring change to those living with disability, through World CP Day 02.10.13

'

A global exchange of ideas to benefit the 17 million people around the world living with CP. In Australia it is estimated Every 18 hours a child is born with Cerebral Palsy or  CP. 

There are a number of identified cause than may lead to cerebral palsy but no known cure's for the five different types of C.P.  The term Cerebral Palsy, is actually a general term for a number of brain disorders. 

It is a physical disability  that primarily affects the skeletal system and  muscles control. However these symptoms are caused by damage to the developing brain. Put into its most simple terms C.P. is the result of brain damage caused in the womb,  birth or firsts months of life;  and it can mirror thy symptoms of acquired brain injury in adults. 

    

How that presents in an individual is dependent on where the damage to the brain occurs and the extent for cell function that is loss.  The above diagram illustrates some of the functions of the brain and how damage in that area may affect the individual. 

Cerebral Palsy may be characterized by the following. 

• tightness of the muscles and/or muscle spasms
• involuntarily movements    
• difficulties with motor skills, effecting the ability to walk, balance, move limbs, hand eye coordination and speech. 
• perception and sensory  difficulties 

Many people living with C.P have secondary disability related to their cerebral palsy. These are often confused by the physical disability itself.  Those with C.P. may experience hearing loss, low vision, epilepsy and intellectual ability, in the same way an acquired brain injury.  The common belief CP and intellectual disabilities go hand in hand is a myths.  The majority of people with  do not have an intellectual disability something the urgently needs correctly, especially in the medical profession. 

  

I sometimes tell people I have an acquired brain injury the happen at birth because the results are the same.  CP can affect one, two or all four limbs.

Living with CP brings many challenges including the barriers that myths create. Each year WORLD CP DAY seeks to address some of these. Through advocacy, invention, technology and the sharing of ideas . 

October is your opportunity to be involved in the sharing and development of these ideas. You can SHARE, READ, VOTE  OR OFFER TO INVENT AND DEVELOP THESE IDEAS by visiting  website.

Tomorrow I have a guess blogger who will share her story and will repost Marlene's story and u-tube clip to raise awareness, you can help raise awareness by sharing this posts with others. 

Debbie   

Ways To change the world!

We can not change the world, not can to block every single cause of CP. But we can improve the ability of people with CP to be more independent in their daily lives. 

CP or Cerebral Palsy is the  most common form of disability in childhood and affects around 34, 000 children and there is not cure although many different treatments for the various types of CP have been developed.  Cerebral Palsy is the name for a number of different impairments or disorders cause by damage to an infants brain.  This damage can occur in the womb, at birth or during early infancy. General clusters of disorders include spastic, ataxic,athetold, or a combination of two or more of these.  

CP is a physical disability which affects the person motor system, resulting in difficulties with mobility, balance, coordination. and speech.

Children who have cerebral palsy often have secondary disabilities associated with trauma to the brain. Such as hearing loss, low vision, epilepsy, and intellectual impairments. In Australia a child is born with CP about every 18 hours.  You can read more facts about Cerebral Palsy here.

Life is for embracing - not for wishing for what we don't have

World CP Day on October 2nd is a chance to put our collective thoughts together and create and develop new technologies or gadtics that will improve the lives of people living with CP in some way.  It about doing something positive about the challengers we face.  People have being suggesting all sorts of things. Check out there ideas to change the world !

So come on and join us as we change the world for those living with CP!

Sorting fact from fiction

The still seems to be many to be many misconceptions around the introduction of  Disability Care Australia so the best place to go for information is their website.  It is important to remember the scheme is early trial stages to find out what works and what doesn't. From July 1 2014 the scheme will be rolled out across the country and start up dates vary depending on where you live. 

The future for people living with disabilities and their families now looks much brighter, as we prepare to have a greater say in what our lives will look like and how we want to engage in our community. For the 420 000 estimated Australian who will benefit from the Introduction od Disability Care Australia that will look very different on the ground.  It is very difficult to imagine a system of care that is so individualized. In 12 months time we will see examples of how some of the trail participants are using their funding different to prior to July 1 2013 and I find that exciting.

I hope we see some people engaging in their communities in way we've not seen before.  I hope we find new ways of supporting people to achieve their dreams or the dreams the have for their son or daughter. 

I hope we are able to open up a new world of possibilities for all Australians, not just a few.  All Australians have the right to make the same types of decisions regardless or the type of impairment or the level of impairment. The NDIS message continues to be the same Every Australian Counts.

Disability Care Australian is not a restructure of the disability support sector.  It is a revolution in the way we view people living with disabilities, it is a system not based on limitations but possibilities. Especially in it emphasis on early intervention program.  OK so not every child will be able to walk.  As we explore the possibilities we must to learn to recognize our individual limits.

But we must all take responsibility to build an accessible Australia.  

    

relovuation

ArtISability Pilot Program

ArtISability is a Professional Development Visual Arts Program

I have designed for Artists with disability. 

Artist's with disabilities face additional challengers as a result of their limitations. Artist may apply to join our program if they have a physical, intellectual, sensory, learning, behavioural, neurological disability and/or mental illness and they need support to join the mainstream arts community. 

Some of the obstacles there artist may face are physical access to buildings where mainstream artist meet, public art galleries, educational and training opportunities, and  transporting their work. Artist may struggle with written or verbal communication or require learning supports to complete training to further develop and refine their visual arts skills.

Mental illness and Behavioural disabilities bring challenges that dispute their daily routines.  Periods of depression, anxiety and isolation make continuity in their art practice hard to maintain and forming professional relationships difficult. As an artist presentation and self marketing is essential.

Most artist I know struggle with their self-image and self-worth.  Producing our artworks is like giving birth.  To criticize our work is to criticize our inner being.  Yet to achieve and make a living we must expose ourselves to the critics.

However none of these challengers are a difficult to overcome as our task of public education and overriding negative energy and attitudes towards us and our craft.  Life as an artist is isolating, so too can be living with disability.  We we don't isolate ourselves the attitudes of others based on misinformation and misunderstanding can isolated us.

ArtISability seek to provide artist with disability professional development opportunities through removing the costs of being supported to undertake a three day training opportunity, and link them to the local art's community. 

Our 2013 pilot visual art retreat program will be hosted at the Metro International Hotel in Ipswich CBD from the 4th to 6th October for Ipswich Residents Only, 

If you or someone you know
would like to know more about our program

you can email me for an 

application pack.  

Disability Care Australia and Community Participation

One of the driving themes behind the NDIS campaign and now the introduction of Disability Care Australia is the desire for people with disabilities and their families to participate in all areas of life and to have the same freedom to fully participate in society.

There are many places, events and activities which people with disabilities have felt excluded from. Either through the inability to physically access like beaches, pubs, swimming pools, restaurants, art galleries, theaters; or poor access to education and learning supports; limited access braille services and hearing loops, the cost and limited funding for assistance dogs, including guide dogs; cost and delays in home modifications and mobility aids and lack of funding for appropriate support care.

             

The introduction of Disability Care Australia does more than ensure people with disabilities and their families receive the correct types of supports and equipment to meet their needs. It brings Australia into line with UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.  People with disabilities as standing up and saying, I simply want to be counted in!

Many have mistaken the NDIS campaign for another grab for 'entitlements' or 'welfare'! The popular myth: people with disabilities are content with being 'spectators' in society, this is certainly not true in my case nor my friends withe disabilities.  The majority of people I know with disabilities are either engaged in study, community, full time employment or are small business owners like myself. People despite the barriers;  lack of support and community attitudes go out and crave their way into the community.

For me one of the larger challengers of Disability Care Australia will be to reshape our view of 'disability'.  That is to challenge the traditional view or stereotype of disability, to see the abilities, talents and skills that people with disability, to explore new possibilities for people with disabilities and admit past attitude have limited the people with all disabilities.

I personally do not believe we have begun to explore the possibilities that people with disabilities and their families can enjoy with all that advances in medical science; technologically, communications and methods of education have to offer.  The education system continues to allows the labeling of students with disabilities and the schools the attend.  There is no need for the would "Special" to be used in the name of a school.  Just because that school caters  solely for the needs of students with disabilities.  The idea that having a disabilities makes as "special" or "different" is outdated and continues to feed myths and inappropriate attitude to those who deal with disability as part of their daily lives.

Complying with UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. means taking a mature attitude. To treat all people the same.  We need to treat adult with disabilities as adults and require more of them and ourselves.  Individuals need to be treated according to the physical age not the intellectual comparability we mentally assume them to have.  For so often our assumptions are incorrect.

If working with young people with high support needs taught me one thing, time and time again it is how much I underestimate people with intellectual and behavioral disabilities is they deliver so much more than I require of them and the always give a 110%

Means people with disabilities and their families want to be part of every aspect of the Australia way of life and enjoy everything that our beautiful country has to offer. For we too come from the land down under!

Choices creating possibilities!

Young man with Autism Graduates 

with his Masters!

It's a statement I hear often, It is not our disabilities that limit us, rather attitude and the attitudes of those around us. The change that has urushered in a new system of Disability Care in Australia, is on of the biggest shift in thinking Australia has even gone.  It requires a shift in thinking . . . and shift in attitude.

On July in 5 trail sites around Australia the doors to Disability Care Australia will open for the first time.  For the first time people with disabilities  the families and adult graudin will be given choices about the way the want the support needs to be meet. While Disability Care Australia will see in real injection of funding to meet the unmet needs of 10, 000's  of people living with primate serve disability, it also aims to 'revoluationalised  the way we have historically thought of disability and how we have 'cared' for these people.

Often during these debates I have heard these people refer to as 'the most vulnerable members of our community. Our ingrain first reaction and need to protect these individuals with disabilities is very strong. I living with a disability know first hand their are many people in our society ready to take advantaged of those who are traditionally viewed as having a weakness.  Sadly there is an element in our society that will exploit anyone with any type or weakness and we do not have to have a disability to fall pray to these people.  Our expressions tell powerfully stories of how we view people with disabilities and labeling them as being the most vulnerable people in the community, makes a powerful statement for protection.

However these statements and therefore judgments are made on traditional and historical views of people with disabilities. Historically people with disability and their families were isolated from their community. They were not given opportunities to be educated or seek employment.  No one challenge that their was more that one way people could play tennis and ruby.  People who need to mobilize in wheelchairs and artiphical limbs now compete on an international playing field.  My friends playing powerchair rub is a new normal even for me!

So as we march towards a new era in Disability Care we need as a society openly acknowledge that we need to work together to extend the bounds of "possibilities".  People with intellectual and sensory disabilities are now guarduating from high school and going on to territory education.  People of equal education levels should not been label 'vulnerable' on the bases of diagnoses along. 

Thus the first change we will see under Disability Care Australia is a shift in the way people with disabilities and their families are assessed.  Not longer will we ask what a person can't do, we will ask what the person who like to do or about the 'dreams' parents have for their children.  Even our fundamental assessment tools have contributed to the undervaluing of people with disabilities.  So in order to make these major changes and see a true enrichment in the lives of people with disabilities, their families and those who care for them we need to choose to ask smarter questions.  It a child with Cerebral Palsy has intensive physio is it possible the may be able to walk?  Not can your child walk?  

Hopefully as we shift the way we make our assessments and the way we define what is possible. Our natural insticts to protect to people with disabilities will decline and we will be willing to lossing the  puppet stings enough to give people real choice and real direction over their lives.

As my regular readers know to give people choices means we need to accept that some people with disabilities and some family members will make poor choices resulting in people being harmed in same way people chose to smoke.  To give people real choices means the person making the choice is responsible for the results good or bad.

One I the things that will leader to greater acceptance of choice is to begin now to ask ourselves, is it possible that my son or daughter could live independently in the community if they were given the right support.  It is only after we ask 'what is possible' when can then ask how do we make this possible, what are the right type of supports for 'my child'.  What does my child need help with to get out of bed ans to arrive at TAFE/work or the day centre on time?

To get the right answers, we need to learn how to ask the right questions.  To do this me need time to allow ourselves to explore possibilities that have never been there before. Need possibilities because of better supports, advances in medicine and technology, shifting in attitudes and more access to education and early intervention programs.

The first step we can take in this journey together is today.  Today we can start to change the question we are asking ourselves and service providers.  Today we can begin to ask what it possible given the opportunity to make different choice.  What could our future look like.  So when we reach our turn to switch to Disability Care Australia or be assess we already know the possibilities we want to make real!  Are you ready . . .  ?