DARU Update
30 April 2012
· IN THE NEWS
· EVENTS & TRAINING
· PUBLICATIONS AND RESOURCES
· SUBMISSIONS, CONSULTATIONS AND FORUMS
· PAID AND VOLUNTARY POSITIONS
IN THE NEWS
With Better Digs Comes a Happier Life
Kate Hagan, The Age, April 27
She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 19 and her marriage broke down when it all became too much, but Katy Skene considers herself one of the lucky ones.
At the age of 31, because there was nowhere else for her to go after a two-month stay in hospital, Ms Skene was moved into a nursing home in what she described as her darkest days. "I put on a brave face for my parents but deep down I wanted to burst into tears," she said. "When the doors shut behind me, it felt like the doors were closing on my life."
Ms Skene is one of 250 young people — 72 of them in Victoria — who were moved out of aged care and into more appropriate accommodation under a $244 million federal and state program. A further 244 young people were diverted away from aged care, and 456 received additional support services within aged care to better meet their needs, according to new figures released yesterday by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The federal and Victorian governments are providing ongoing funding to continue supporting people included in the program, but it is not taking on new applicants after its five-year term ended last June. While the hiatus has prompted calls for work to continue to help young people in nursing homes ahead of a fully implemented National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), for Ms Skene the program has delivered lasting benefits.
At her new supported accommodation in Williamstown, home to 10 people in two units, Ms Skene said: "We're all younger, it's fantastic. I can't tell you the difference it makes. I went from having reheated hospital food at 4.30pm for dinner, to now having fresh food cooked at 6.30pm — a decent time.
Federal parliamentary secretary for disabilities Jan McLucas said the figures released yesterday showed a 35 per cent drop in young people living in nursing homes since 2005, but admitted there were still far too many young people inappropriately housed in them. The AIHW figures show that 658 people under 50 were living in nursing homes last June, including 133 in Victoria.
"Frankly, this is because of the failure of the state disability system to provide alternative accommodation," Ms McLucas said. She said that the government was working to implement the NDIS and to providing $60 million in the meantime under a new fund that will provide homes for more than 150 people with a disability, including 10 apartments in a new high-rise development at Southbank.
The NDIS will provide individually tailored care and support to more than 1 million Australians with a disability and their carers and is projected to cost about $6.3 billion per year to run.
Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge has urged the federal government to introduce the NDIS "as a matter of growing urgency", and said she agreed with a Productivity Commission recommendation that the Commonwealth should fund it due to its large revenue base.
A spokesman for the Young People in Nursing Homes Alliance, Alan Blackwood, said "serious growth in service funding" was needed in the lead-up to the scheme. "It's not just about flicking a light switch and having a wonderful service — you've got to actually build it," he said. "We need the bucket filled up to help people who have needs today and tomorrow."
To read the full story, visit: http://www.theage.com.au/national/health/with-better-digs-comes-a-happier-life-20120426-1xo12.html#ixzz1tEE28XqJ
Ministers Agree to National Categories for Disability in Schools
Media Release, Senator the Hon Jacinta Collins Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations, Friday 20 April 2012
Parliamentary Secretary for School Education, Senator Jacinta Collins, today thanked state and territory ministers for accepting new nationally consistent categories for students with disability in schools.
At Perth Standing Council meeting, Senator Collins said: "for the first time, we have the ability to collect national data on a diverse group with varying needs. Ultimately, data collected under these new categories will tell us the extent of change that schools are making to support students with disability."
"It’s concerning that school students with disability are less likely to complete Year 12 and that Australia lags behind other countries in the employment rate for people with disability.
"A definition was successfully trialled in 2011. Developing nationally consistent data will be a means to better understand and address the needs of students with disability.
"The categories, known as 'descriptors for adjustments', allow us to know if a school needs extensive, substantial, supplementary, or no adjustment to its operations in order to meet the Standards for Education under the Disability Discrimination Act.
"The next step is the development of an implementation plan for the data collection, which should be finalised at the end of May 2012.
"This information will help give a clearer picture of how schools provide for students with disability and enable policy makers, education authorities and schools to more effectively address the needs of these students," Senator Collins said.
To read the article online, visit:
http://www.ministers.deewr.gov.au/collins/ministers-agree-national-categories-disability-schools
Disability Groups Aim for High-Tech Help
Denise Ryan, The Age, 23 April 2012
When, at 23, Joanne Webber was told she had a rare eye condition, she received lots of support. She was diagnosed for free at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and was helped by the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind.
"I met with mentors of similar age to me and met people with the same eye condition," she says. "At university I got access to a computer with a screen reader and audio books. I had a complete introduction on how to live with a vision impairment."
Ms Webber thought this response must be normal for young people with disabilities. So when she started working with young people with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, she was shocked to realise their needs were not recognised and there was almost no support. "It really disturbed me," she says. "Only 3.5 per cent of people are blind but more than 10 per cent of the population have learning disabilities."
For six years, Ms Webber worked as the disability co-ordination officer for eastern Melbourne in a federal government role hosted by RMIT University. "I realised there was a massive gap in policy, with students with learning disabilities facing a tough time in education," she says."With my eye condition, teachers don't make me read off the board but they say to someone with dyslexia who can't do so, 'You are not trying hard enough'". Their disability is in the brain, just a few centimetres from where my disability lies, yet theirs is not recognised."
Since 2003, Ms Webber has been lobbying for students to have access to voice recognition and other software in high schools. Many students drop out in years 7 to 9, she says, because disabilities such as dyslexia or auditory processing disorder mean they struggle to get their thoughts onto paper, to read or to understand verbal instructions.
Ms Webber has trained teachers in schools to use this technology and says it can be useful for all students. The program, Dragon Naturally Speaking, which converts a student's speech into text, is being used by a number of schools to help students with learning disabilities write down their ideas. Free software on AccessApps and EduApps, which reads documents to students who struggle to read, is also being used by an increasing number of schools. These programs also have mind-mapping tools, which allow students to list ideas that are then converted into draft essays.
The president of the Australian Learning Disability Association, Timothy Hart, says he dropped out of school at year 10 because of his dyslexia, finally going to university at age 29. He also wants young people with learning disabilities to be provided with this technology.
. He and Ms Webber are calling for such technology to be approved for use in senior exams. Schools repeatedly tell them it helps their students but say they are reluctant to offer it to senior classes as students can't use it for exams.
Justin Shortal of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority says students with disabilities can apply for extra help including a scribe or a computer if they have difficulty writing. But he says it is a difficult area as the VCAA has to be certain students aren't gaining an unfair advantage.
Ms Webber says such assistance is granted to students with a physical impairment but rarely to students with learning disabilities.
Education Minister Martin Dixon says he would like to see such technology used more in schools. "I applaud that sort of innovation," he says. "Victorian schools determine how they spend their budgets but I would say this is a great idea for schools that have students with such needs."
Professor Max Coltheart, an expert in cognitive science at Macquarie University, has tried to get the federal government to respond to such issues. He was the chair of the Dyslexia Stakeholder Forum, an expert panel established in 2009 by the former parliamentary secretary for disability, Bill Shorten, to work out what should be done.
Professor Coltheart delivered a report with many recommendations but says nothing has come of it. "I guess I wasn't really surprised," he says. "Governments like to be seen to be doing something."
Ms Webber has watched parents stretch the family budget to send their children to independent schools, hoping for more support. "I got lots of calls from parents who had sent their boys to wealthy grammar schools, who had been told when they got a diagnosis at year 9, 'Your son doesn't belong with us any more'," she says. "It was traumatic for them." She also knows students who have been told: "You will bring down the VCE results so let's do VCAL or exit you early."
Louise Smith, a research associate at Sydney University, is working with Deakin University to see how disability, including learning disability, has affected young people. "We know such students are at increased risk of negative social, physical and mental health outcomes," she says. The researchers want to interview 100 people with a disability, aged 15 to 29, in Sydney, Melbourne and a regional area. Those interested should email:
To read the full story, visit:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/disability-groups-aim-for-hightech-help-20120420-1xc8y.html
Advocate Ineligible - Ruled Out of a Disability Prize
Lachlan Hastings, MX News, 24 April 2012
An 'incredible' advocate for mentally ill people has been ruled ineligible for awards recognising those who help disabled people achieve goals because mental illness is not defined as a disability.
Peer support worker Naomi Snell has complained to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission over her nominee's rejection by the Victorian Disability Sector Awards selection panel. The awards are intended to "celebrate and acknowledge those who demonstrate excellence, passion, vision and commitment to the development of people with disability to achieve their life goals,'
In a letter seen by MX, the selection panel said the nominee who advocates on behalf of other people who also has a mental illness was ineligible because his work occurred in the mental health field.
"Mental illness is not defined as a disability under the Disability Act 2006" said the letter, written by DHS staffer on behalf of the panel. "Despite the excellence of the application and the clear value of the work being done by the nominee the application was not considered eligible,"
The letter said because of the clear relevance of the nominee's contribution to the sector the criteria for the awards was being reviewed.
This article is not available online, however to comment on whether mental illness should be defined as a disability go to: http://www.facebook.com/mxnewspaper
ACOSS Report identifies $8b in Budget savings
ACOSS Media Release, 26 April 2012
A new ACOSS report identifies around $8 billion dollars that could be saved in the Budget if the Federal Government tackles poorly targeted subsidies and tax concessions and clamps down on tax loopholes such as ‘golden handshakes and other shelters.
“This will have the effect of moving the Budget towards a surplus, as the Government intends, but will also make our tax system fairer and put us in a much better position to fund essential social services and infrastructure into the future,” according to Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO, Australian Council of Social Service.
“Our report ‘Waste not, want not: Making room in the Budget for essential services’ calls for the Government to target the new layer of rebates which have grown unsustainably in the past decade and are poorly targeted.
“These include subsidies for ‘gap fees’ or other private expenditures for health and community services, such as the Private Health Insurance Rebate from ancillary or ‘extras’ cover; the Extended Medicare Safety Net; the Medical Expenses Tax Offset; the Education Tax Refund; and tax deduction for self-education expenses.
“A major problem with these rebates is that they mainly benefit people on higher incomes who in relative terms can afford to pay more for these services (including health insurance) in the first place. The time has come to pare back these programs beyond applying means tests to cap them at very high income levels.