Accessibility in an Inclusive Society

Living for a revolution . . . for many the introduction of the NDIS is nothing more than a change is the way the support needs of those living with disability.  However, the ideals of the NDIS campaign extend far beyond providing support for people needs.  The induction of Disability Care Australia signals an end to funding based on which box you tick and what your impairment prevents you from doing.

The driving force behind its introduction is to see a rise in the participation rates of people with disabilities and the family members who provide primary unpaid care. Until now Australian society has played lip service to the social inclusion of people living with disabilities. Having a family member acquire a disability or a child being born with a disability can be just a social isolating for the carers and siblings of the person with impairment.

Often the only social inclusion for a sibling of a child with disabilities is there schooling.  As parents care for the child who has special needs, other siblings are deprivation of attention.  Providing care can also meaning siblings miss out on activities such as music or sporting activities.  Where a sibling has a behavioural or social disability, inclusion in community activities can be impossible with out respite care.

As we focus on the possibilities under Disability Care Australia, The biggest access we much overcome is our disabling attitudes.  For too long in our society we have hidden those with disabilities and their families way in small pockets of our community under the cover of 'speacialness'.   There is nothing inclusive about activities that only 'special people' can participate in. Things like S-trope (the 'S' is 'special) and supported workshops in my own community spring to mind.  Programs that are inclusive driven be participating in what are everyday community activities, but adaptive for those with specific needs.  While many of these activities have played a vital role in building a person's self esteem. The also contribute to social isolation of those living with disability.

By far our biggest challenge to full social inclusion is a society and communities that are largely inaccessible to many people whose lives are impacted by disability.   Accessible society are much more than ramps, parking and toilet amenities for those who struggle with mobility issues.  Australian communities are so far behind the eight ball when it comes to accessibility communities.  This is the number one barrier we need to address if we are to bridge the divide in terms of social  inclusion.

While our public admendities, transport systems, public schools, universities, finical institutions, sporting and recreational facilities and places of cultural interests continue to be inaccessible to any Australian residents, measures to build social inclusion levels in our local communities will be hard fought for.  Whether inaccessibility is physical or attitudinal in nature the barriers still need to be torn down and torn down quickly. 

When it comes to creating accessible communities Australia lags on the lower bottom of the ladder in the Western World in so many areas.  One of the social targets for the NDIS is employment of people with disabilities.  With work places inaccessible to many Australians to ensure reform targets for employment are meet, we must address these issues.  Changing social policy with addressing access issues can not build an inclusive society.

Currently the Australian economy is one of the healthiest in the world and yet we rate 21st out of 28 in the development counties for the employment of people with disability. People whose lives are impacted by disability in Australia are more likely to be living on the poverty line than in other Western countries. We as Australians should feel ashamed of this recorded. I expect in true Aussie style we live happily unaware of these embarrassing figures

For me these statics reflect our failure to value all Australians are equal.  Our attitudes continue to limit the opportunities we offer to those with certain impairments.  Those not expected or encourage to perform and push the boundaries beyond what is possible will continue to under-perform. If you expect people with disabilities to step up to the bar, can I suggest we at least stop lowering the bar so low that all require of these Australians to step over it.

That is indeed what we do every time we create an artificial community in which the is no real competition measure success.  If we want our children to thrive in a competitive community we set a standard and ask the child to me it.  Unless he or she has a disability and then we say, just do your best.  By not encouraging them to search for success in the same way as other children, instead labeling them is 'special', we are leading them into a life of mediocrity, dependency, social isolation and propriety. We unwitting have decide their lives are best that way and 'they don't know any better.

These attitudes, values and standards are not present in many other Western Countries. All children are required to attend school.  A child with special needs given appropriate support can attend a public school. In the united States where the bar for these children are the same height as any other child, they are out performing their Australian counterparts. We have a huge leap to make before see full employment for people with disabilities.

We are unlikely to accept any attempts by employers for tokenism and the underemployment of the past.  With the NDIS revolution rolling out across country, all employers should feel put on noticed.  The federal government has set the wheels in motion, so to speak to give people the support they need to be at work on time.  Employers are now duty bound to make sure their worker places are accessible for any Australian who may or may not have a disability.

As we seen with the CEO of Myers, one of the largest retail chains in Australia the days of make excuses for the inability to employ some living with disability are number.  Australia its time for all of us to raise the bar and expect more of ourselves.

Count us all in!

The Employment Section

Or is it seek.com now.  Take you tick of any online employment recruiting website and see if any job advertisement reads like this:

WANTED - Product design manager, an innovative creative person want to head put a new product design range. We're looking for a person with excellent team leadership and communication skills to learn of team of designers. We are an equal opportunity employer will to accommodate any person with a disability who can demonstrate they have the skills to lead our team.  We are also happy to offer flexible work hours. 

My hunch is not only will we never see such a job advertisement few companies are currently will to make the physical adjustment to their work place (such as accessible toilets) or equipment modifications let alone be flexible with work hours to work around the team managers health needs. And yet the introduction of Disability Care Australian, has put Australian employers on noticed. Not only is it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of disability, but employers are being ask to modify and arrange their businesses to accommodation the employment of people with disabilities, but allowance for the support needs to be met in the work places.

It is the one piece in the NDIS puzzle I can quite click into place.  As a person who experiences uncontrollable seizures that are triggered directly by stress I know I am unemployable in a traditional 9 to 5 role.  I am most suitable to roles that allow me to work flexible hours from home. 

"Despite what you read about 'bludgers on the DSP' (disability support pension) regularly in the Daily Telegraph we don't want to live on the DSP. We want to work, earn a wage and pay taxes."Australian Network on Disaility

A sentiment, I heard echoed around the discussion table at near ever conservation about the introduction of the NDIS or Disability Care Australia. Yet wanting to work, even having the ability to work, has never correlated in to jobs. People with disabilities and the carers are currently 30% less like to be employed than the generally population.

On would think with the current discussion and debate surrounding the introduction of Disability Care Australia and the views being expressed by people with disabilities themselves you would be forgiven for thinking the gap in narrowing. The reality is the jobless rate among people with disabilities is on the increase. As reported by Australian Network on Disaility.

Why then is it that so much of the Disability Care Australia legislation and the Productivity Commissioners Report  hinged around the increase employment of people with disabilities and the relatives that play a vital care role in a family members life.  I can see how the availability of regularly respite care support will enable the primary care given to go beack to work.  I can see the huge increase number of jobs in the disability sector, especially when the talking about doubling the number of people who will be supported in Queensland alone.

My struggle is why because people will be assured of assistance to get out of bed in the morning and be assisted to get to work on time, do they suddenly overnight become employable?  Yes we can address public access issues and  improve public transport for the needs of people with disabilities, but how to we bridge those attitudinal barriers, that equate disabilities to illness and incapacity. How do we as Australian with disabilities make our seemly visible abilities more visible.

"There are times when I feel I need to twice as much to prove my capabilities to perform a job than my competitors without disabilities. Then there are times I feel I a seen to have supper powers because of the professional approach I take to my work.

As if the is some think of rule of thumb the people with disabilities can not achieve as well as the non disable counterparts and to do so is a supper feet. Mate I am lucky if I can get the sales person to talk to me, yet alone convince a potential employer he or she has the correct CV in their hands  and I have not lied about my achievements. A person with a disability is dammed if the don't reveal it to a potential employer in the cover letter and if The do they run the risk of not getting an interview.  No one has ever explained how we can prove it is my epilepsy that leads to discrimination and not my cerebral palsy.  When the contraints of my CP are much more visible.

To use a Pauline Hanson expression, "Please explain . . . how support disability Care Australian will make us suddenly employable?"

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Is your house ready for the induction of (NDIS) Disability Care Australia?

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?