Leading health and disability researchers in Australia are calling for urgent action from State and Federal governments to develop a targeted response to COVID-19 for people with disability, their families and the disability service sector. In this post originally published by Croakey, Professor Anne Kavanagh from the University of Melbourne and Associate Professor Gemma Carey from UNSW flag risks facing people with disability in this rapidly shifting environment and set out recommendations for government to mitigate those risks.
Read More
When 60 Minutes aired a segment called ‘Does Australia really want to see the end of Down syndrome?’ in August 2017, its Facebook platform was flooded with negative comments about people with Down syndrome and their parents. Belinda Johnson and Dr Raelene West from RMIT University examined the online responses to the program and uncovered confronting views of Down syndrome as an economic burden, a medical burden and a social burden. As they worked their way through comments questioning the right of children with Down syndrome to access publicly funded disability services in light of advances in prenatal testing, for example, the authors began to question the extent to which derogatory and ill-informed comments that push people with disabilities into an exhausting and endless process of justifying their existence should be tolerated in the name of free speech. Their findings were recently published in the Journal of Sociology.
Read More
Implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is the biggest reform to the disability sector since deinstitutionalisation. To the broader community it can be assumed that the NDIS will benefit all people with disabilities. In the week of International Women’s Day, Jen Hargrave (@Jen_Hargrave) of Women with Disabilities Victoria (WDVtweet) and University of Melbourne (@MSPHSC) and Maeve Kennedy (@mkennedy_vic) of Children and Young People with Disability Australia (@CDA39) look into the reform’s fitness to achieve gender equality now and for the next generation.
In this piece we discuss the NDIS’ capacity to provide women with greater choice and control, and a number of areas of equity and sustainability. We also examine the way the NDIS supports, or fails to support, women experiencing violence and consider the potential impact of broader gender equality measures on a market-based scheme.
Read More
People over the age of 65 who develop a motor neurone disease (MND) can have difficulty accessing technology that can provide them with greater quality of life and independence, because they are not eligible for the NDIS. In today’s piece, Carol Birks (@CEBirks), Ben O’Mara (@BenOMara), and Morag Millington, all of MND Australia (@MNDAustralia) outline the need and propose cost-effective solutions for providing assistive technology to older Australians in need. This piece originally ran in The Mandarin.
Read More
In the wake of reports of service providers' poor conduct towards consumers with cognitive disabilities emerging from the Royal Commission into Banking, the Energy and Water Ombudsman of Victoria and the Essential Services Commission, Dr Yvette Maker and Professor Jeannie Paterson from the University of Melbourne offer two sets of resources here to promote a ‘facilitative’ approach to contracting and consumer transactions for people who have difficulties (or perceived difficulties) with learning, concentrating on, processing, remembering, or communicating information, and/or with decision-making.This piece was originally published by the Consumer Policy Research Centre.
Read More
Despite being our largest and most complex social policy reform, the NDIS didn’t receive much attention in the recent election campaign until its close. We could read something into this about how political parties think the NDIS plays with the electorate, but irrespective of political perceptions and prioritising the fact remains that the NDIS affects the lives of not just its 460 000 participants, but their families, carers, and more than 35 00 workers.
Read More
The Coalition government has had a long-term focus on moving women into paid employment through increasing Welfare to Work requirements and keeping the Newstart Allowance artificially low. However, many women are unable to participate in employment due to caring duties. For some women this career break is a temporary one as children age and become less dependent, but others are looking after family members or others who have a disability or a chronic condition. In today’s piece, Melanie Zeppel (@MelanieZeppel) of GenIMPACT at Macquarie University shares findings from co-authored research on the economic analysis of the cost of caring, which overwhelmingly impacts on women.
Read More
Improving the policy response for people with disabilities is a critical need for women, who make up the majority of people with disabilities in Australia while also facing reduced access to services, greater rates of poverty and increased experiences of violence. In today’s federal election piece, we share an analysis of the party platforms for Liberal Party, the ALP and the Greens which was conducted by People with Disability Australia (@PWDAustralia). You can access their analysis on their website here, as well as more detailed statements on social security, employment, the NDIS and preventing violence.
Read MoreLaura Davy (@LauraKDavy) from the Public Service Research Group, UNSW Canberra, summarises the findings of a review into the implementation of the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020 and urges readers to contribute to the consultation process for a new national disability policy framework which will begin next month.
Read More
The NDIS has failed to live up to expectations in many areas, none more so than disability employment. In a blunt and honest piece, long-term disability employment advocate Jeff Thompson from LEAD tell us why jobs are so important, and three things that would lead to an employment friendly NDIS.
Read More
Vanamali Hermans, Wiradjuri woman with a lived experience of disability, explains why it has been so difficult for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, to benefit from the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Read More
Gillian McFee, from the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals writes about a quiet yet noticeable revolution shaping the NDIS landscape, which may increase choice and control for NDIS participants, their families and carers. It it the rise of the member-run organisations such as co-operatives. Repost from Disability Services Consulting.
Read MoreA new oversight report draws attention to the market stewardship of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In this article Gemma Carey argues that to prevent market failure we need actions, not just principles.
Read MoreLiz Sayce - Joseph Rowntree Research Fellow in Practice at the LSE International Inequalities Institute and former Chief Executive of Disability Rights UK - explores tensions in campaigning for rights to work and rights to social protection for people with disabilities and calls for patterns of campaigning and influencing to change to avoid different groups working at cross-purposes. This post was originally published on the LSE Equity, Diversity and Inclusion blog.
Read MoreIn this post, Helen Dickinson (@drhdickinson) explains the costs of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, where the funding comes from and some of the debates behind the funding of the scheme.
Read More
Recently the National Foundation for Australian Women (@NFAWomen) released their annual Gender Lens on the Budget document. This comprehensive and highly collaborate effort includes analyses of how the Federal budget falls for women, identifying the winners and losers for a range of policy positions including social services, education and training, employment, health, and elimination of violence against women. It also provides an overview of how the Budget will shape the lives of women, including young women, older women, Indigenous women, migrant and refugee women, and women with disabilities. Today's post summarises the analysis authored by Sue Salthouse on budgetary impacts for women with disabilities. Her analysis indicates that the current budget is over-reliant on the NDIS to support women with disabilities, while other critical aspects such as affordable housing and a supportive welfare system are ignored. The Federal Budget papers can be accessed here.
Read MoreIn this piece, UK-based social affairs journalist Saba Salman (@Saba_Salman) considers what a truly accessible city would look like and explores some innovations currently underway to create such a city into the future. This piece is a re-post from Saba's blog, The Social Issue.
Read MoreA key component of the NDIS is the provision of individualised funding to people with disability, who should then have greater choice and control over how this is spent. While this sounds good in theory a new paper by Associate Professor Helen Dickinson, published in ANZSOG’s Evidence Base journal, raises doubts about the quality of the evidence in favour of individualised funding. In this post, Helen discusses the key findings of her review. This piece originally appeared on the ANZSOG blog.
Read More