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.
