WARRINGAH DISABILITY NEWSLETTER No 255 - 12/05/11

Hello!

The newsletter starts with another discobility, a weekend at the Art Gallery, several performances, Paralympic talent search day / classification day, interschool football carnival. The Chatswood Social Club invites new members to join.  Carers can attend workshops on sign language, art and dreams, dementia, and support for children aged 0-6.  There is also an open day for the respite house, and mentoring for girls with a sibling having a disability.

Financial matters include grants for sexual health week, playing drawtism or having tea to fundraise, the sale of a shower trolley, and two jobs opportunities.  Resources include soft clothing, a manager’s guide to disability, tips on guarding your privacy in social networking, teacher resources for anti-discrimination, a resource for graduates with mental illness, and the expanded Parent Line.  Your participation is welcomed regarding an online gaming project, review of a drug / alcohol / gambling service, designing a poster, and walking or running for MS Australia.

Workshops address autism and schooling, suicide prevention, parenting, disability awareness, links to tertiary education, deafness and identity, Vietnamese culture, conflict resolution, mental health, texthelp skills, project management.  Forums and conferences involve the National Disability Insurance Scheme, physical health in schizophrenia, and training provided by the NCF and IFP.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome, as always!  The next newsletter will be sent on 26 May.

Regards, Marjorie Janz, Disability Information Officer, Warringah Council.

Located at Dee Why Library, Pittwater Road and St Davids Avenue, Dee Why NSW 2099.

Phone 9942 2686, fax 9942 2371.  Also janzm@warringah.nsw.gov.au.

NDIS Forum at Warringah Council chambers on 18 May, 7pm-8.30pm

Seminar on "Accommodation Models for People with Disabilities: The Past, The Present - and The Future?"

This is to advise that following an enthusiastic response to the proposed one-day seminar on future supported accommodation models for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the NSW Parliament House theatrette has been booked for Thurday 21 July, from 10am to 4pm. Wednesday 3rd August.

I hope this date will be convenient for as many people as possible wishing to attend.

Expressions of interest in presenting at or attending this seminar have been received from people with disabilities, academics, federal and State MPs, federal and State public servants, disability service providers and advocacy organisations, community-based groups and families of people with intellectual disabilities from Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT, as well as from NSW. (Suggestions have also been made already to stage similar seminars in Adelaide and Brisbane.)

I am pleased to advise that the NSW Minister for Disability Services, Andrew Constance MLA, has accepted an invitation to open and attend this seminar, and that Professor Christine Bigby from Latrobe University, whose recent thought-provoking article - contending that there should be "limits to consumer choice" in supported accommodation models funded under any future NDIS - has also accepted an invitation to deliver the key-note address.

This seminar is designed to provide an opportunity for an informed, stimulating and in-depth discussion between those who share Professor Bigby's concerns about the potential for re-institutionalisation under new accommodation models, such as "villages" and intentional communities; those who support or are involved in the development of such models for some people with disabilities; and those who just want to explore the latest research, evidence and arguments, for and against, before making up their minds.

Bookings
As the NSW Parliament theatrette only seats 170 people, it will be essential for anyone interested in attending to book as early as possible. Although the theatrette is relatively small, this venue has been chosen because of its central Sydney location and because the theatrette is being made available free of charge, enabling ticket prices to be kept as low as possible.

Other than for those who will be presenting at the seminar, and people with disabilities who are welcome to attend at no charge, the cost of admission will be $30 per person, which includes a buffet lunch and tea/coffee.

To secure a booking, please deposit payment directly into the bank account of Fighting Chance Australia, which is hosting this event (BSB 032 123; account number 256 045), and please also email me at fightingchancefund@gmail.com to advise how many tickets you have paid for. Any money deposited after all seats have been allocated will be returned.

Thank you for your interest in this seminar, and please onpass this email to anyone you think might be interested in attending.

Sue O'Reilly
Fighting Chance Australia

EDITORS COMMENT

Prof Christine Bigby, Head of the Postgraduate Programs in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at Melbourne's LaTrobe University, published a thought-provoking article on an online site, contending that any future National Disability Insurance Scheme "cannot afford to leave the supply of accommodation services, staff and organisational practices to consumer choice or the market alone. The scheme must regulate the type of accommodation service that can be purchased to those with the potential to facilitate required outcomes. Better still it must separate housing from support, so type or place of housing is not restricted by the degree of support a person requires." (For full article, see Limits to choice for consumers with disabilities A national disability insurance scheme must limit some choices like housing to ensure best outcomes. Christine Bigby - posted 15/4/2011)

I am not so sure I agree with all of what is proposed by Bigby.  I suggest the post is read closely and if you disagree then go along and make sure your views are heard.

My comments are included below; she says...
Should there be unrestricted choice of accommodation type in the new scheme, or as with clinical interventions should choice be mediated by the evidence base of what works? Should consumers be able to choose to use public money on accommodation choices that evidence shows obstruct rather than hamper [sic] the broader outcomes that as a society we seek for people with disabilities.
...
The proposed scheme will remove one part of the equation of poor implementation. It cannot afford to leave the supply of accommodation services, staff and organisational practices to consumer choice or the market alone. [Agreed]. The scheme must regulate the type of accommodation service that can be purchased to those with the potential to facilitate required outcomes. [Don’t agree]. Better still it must separate housing from support, so type or place of housing is not restricted by the degree of support a person requires. [Agreed]. The scheme must also ensure ongoing rigorous independent monitoring of individual outcomes against benchmarks of social inclusion and quality of life. These must be finely tuned for different consumer groups. People with severe intellectual disability will be a significant group in the new scheme. But there are also mild & moderately disabled as beneficiaries of NDIS.  They have limited bargaining power, many cannot self report, and do not always have resourceful family members or advocates alongside them. For this group, the benchmark of quality is not care alone or staff doing things for people but 'active support' to be engaged in their own everyday lives and to facilitate convivial social encounters.

The counter view, articulated passionately by my wife, is that there must be choice.  Some people will best fit in an intentional community; some will want to live alone.  Some can live in shared housing, some will want to stay in the home that they know – e.g. Sunnyfield’s congregate care Carinya & Hostel.  Some new clients will even still need those older models as the best answer for their case.

To force one person to fit in a model they don’t want is an undemocratic and bad thing.

And remember Prof Galbally makes the point that community housing sometimes means disabled people can just as easily be “shut out”.
Chris Howells

SUPPORTED LIVING

Family Advocacy is once again running teleconferences about supported living

Join other families to learn about and discuss:

• ·        What we mean by supported living and how it can happen for people with very high support needs
• ·        Stories of Australians with diverse support needs who are living in their own homes
• ·        Options for housing and support
• ·        The new Supported Living Fund
• ·        Taking the first steps toward supported living

Registration details attached

Belinda Epstein-Frisch AM

Family Advocacy

-------------------- PO Box 502 Epping NSW 1710 --------------------

Suite 305 16-18 Cambridge St Epping 2121

ph: 02 9869 0866  Freecall: 1800 620 588  Fax: 02 9869 0722

e-mail: familyadvocacy@family-advocacy.com

web: www.family-advocacy.com

National Congress delivers a powerful message

EVERY AUSTRALIAN COUNTS
5 May 2011

This week's National Disability and Carer Congress in Melbourne delivered a powerful statement of support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

It attracted 1,000 people - disability service providers, people with disability, family carers and government officials - and it elicited strong and supportive statements from politicians.
Bill Shorten, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, opened the Congress proclaiming that "your cause is my cause" and urging unity, perseverance and discipline in driving forward the case for disability reform.


Federal Parliamentary Secretary Jan McLucas, Shadow Minister Mitch Fifield and Greens Senator-Elect Richard Di Natale all spoke supportively.


Senator Fifield said that he and the Opposition did not baulk at the additional funding for disability services proposed in the Productivity Commission's Draft Report on Disability Care and Support.


Victorian Community Services Minister Mary Wooldridge said that her government fully backed the implementation of an NDIS. She has established a taskforce to look at the implications of an NDIS for Victoria.


Chair of the State, Territory and Commonwealth disability officials group, Jim Moore, argued that there was a compelling economic case - as well as a social justice case - for an NDIS.   
Strong messages of support for the NDIS were also delivered in speeches by Simon McKeon, Australian of the Year, and David Cappo, South Australian Commissioner for Social Inclusion.
While the conference generated a mood of optimism, the introduction of an NDIS - as National NDIS Campaign Director John Della Bosca noted - is far from inevitable. It requires a focussed, widely-supported and well-funded campaign, particularly between now and the end of November, the period during which the Government will be considering the recommendations of the Productivity Commission.


To succeed, the campaign requires the support of many Australians. You can register your support for the campaign at http://everyaustraliancounts.com.au/ joining the almost 18,000 Australians who are calling for a National Disability Insurance Scheme. While there you can watch Bill Shorten's speech from the Congress.

EVERY AUSTRALIAN COUNTS

EVERY AUSTRALIAN COUNTS

The campaign to transform the funding for people we support, their family and the disability sector needs everyone’s support - NOW.  The final Productivity Commission Report goes to the Federal parliament in July and it will recommend two transformational  ideas to the Government:

1.    A National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) which will provide insurance cover for all Australians who have a significant disability. The scheme would pay for long-term high quality care and support. It would also provide referrals to other services that are required, ensure the quality of services, and encourage best practice care and support; and

2.    A National Injury Insurance Scheme (NIIS) which would cover the lifetime care and support needs of people who get a catastrophic injury from an accident of any kind. This smaller scheme would be based on the motor accident compensation schemes that operate in the states and territories.

If you would like to learn more about these ideas there is a simple plain English overview of the Productivity Commission’s recommendations attached.  This campaign needs you to tell the politicians that it is time to make these changes.

To register your support for this please go to COUNT ME IN  and join the campaign.  Make sure you also pass this email along to your family and friends.  We need to send the message to Canberra in a strong and united voice.

WARRINGAH DISABILITY NEWSLETTER No 254 - 29/04/11

Hello!

The newsletter starts with recognition of Sue Larter, a leader in behavioural optometry, benefitting many with ADHD and learning disabilities.  Fun involves hip hop, soccer for children and for adults, powerchair football, sailing, boccia and acting.  Carers can attend support activities in St Leonards and Milsons Point, dementia support, parenting series in Mosman, information session for parents of young children with disability, an evening on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.  There are also job vacancies for adults with disability at Sunnyfield.

Financial matters include the sale of a shower trolley, skills for women for home and business, scholarships with MHCC and Stepping Into…, a reminder about CDSE funding from Clubs NSW, and a job opportunity.  Your participation is welcomed in an innovative fundraising by Schizophrenia Research Institute, feedback regarding the home modification services, an invitation to be artist in residency, availability of social work students for placement.

Workshops address the law, anxiety in children, writing for the web, powerchair football development, horticultural therapy.  Forums and conferences involve brain injury rehabilitation, mental health, non-profit internet connection, father inclusive practice.  The Northern Region Disability Network meets in early May.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome, as always!  The next newsletter will be sent on 13 May.

Regards, Marjorie Janz, Disability Information Officer, Warringah Council.

Located at Dee Why Library, Pittwater Road and St Davids Avenue, Dee Why NSW 2099.

Phone 9942 2686, fax 9942 2371.  Also janzm@warringah.nsw.gov.au.

Politicians receive a compelling invitation from the nation's carers

• 
  Mike Steketee
• From: The Australian
• April 30, 2011 12:00AM

BY the time Julia Gillard returns from the royal wedding, she will have a letter with a less gilt-edged invitation waiting for her. 

It is to spend a day helping care for a person with a severe disability -- to "walk in our shoes" as Sue O'Reilly and Fiona Porter, who signed the letter and who have disabled children, put it. "There are many parents of adults and children with special needs who believe that politicians, although sympathetic, do not really fully appreciate what it is like to be in our situation," they write.


If the Prime Minister is too busy on a weekday, a Saturday or Sunday would be fine, they add, since "it is of course the case that supporting a person with severe dependent disabilities is, for many tens of thousands of carers, a seven-day-a-week role".


To ensure that such an event is more than just a photo opportunity, they suggest Gillard spends at least 10 hours with a disabled person. The same letter has gone to nine other leaders and politicians with responsibilities in the area, including Wayne Swan, Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop, Joe Hockey and Bob Brown.

The campaign for proper recognition of people with disabilities and their needs has come a long way in the three years since the 2020 summit adopted as one of its "big ideas" a new, insurance-based system proposed by Bruce Bonyhady, chairman of disability service provider Yooralla.

The Rudd government referred the issue to the Productivity Commission, whose draft report in February recommended a national disability insurance scheme to replace the present "underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient" system.

An NDIS would provide long-term care and support for about 360,000 Australians under 65 with permanent or very costly disabilities such as autism, Asperger's, some intellectual impairments, multiple sclerosis, congenital conditions, quadriplegia, blindness and deafness.

Rather than money, most would get an entitlement to a package of assistance, including care, transport and other physical help, therapies, aids and equipment. But there also would be an option for people to cash out their entitlement and organise their own support services.

The argument for an insurance rather than welfare approach is that it creates incentives to minimise costs, through, for example, early intervention and employment initiatives that help people become more independent -- what the commission calls spending dollars to save more dollars.

Like Medicare, every Australian would be covered against the risk of a significant disability but it would come at a cost, estimated by the commission at $6.3 billion a year, which is twice the funding now provided by state and federal governments.

It suggests the money come from the federal budget rather than a specific tax levy. That means finding savings elsewhere, raising taxes or both.

The commission more often brings down reports suggesting how governments can operate more efficiently rather than splashing around large amounts of money. But it says funding the scheme is "manageable, taking into account a wealthy and growing economy" and that the present system, with rapidly rising costs, is unsustainable.

The extra funding would represent about 1.8 per cent of total federal government spending. The report's most telling argument is that this is an area that should be one of the government's core responsibilities: "It should be noted that, were government to be starting with a blank slate in determining its funding priorities, there would be a strong rationale for provision of disability services to be one of its highest spending priorities."

Despite the government's in-principle support for a new approach, people with disabilities and their carers and supporters are concerned about the issue losing traction in Canberra. There are any number of challenging issues jostling for attention and Gillard is being urged not to make Kevin Rudd's mistake of fighting on too many fronts. Inevitably, too, there is concern about the cost, although none of it would fall within the present budget cycle, with its preoccupation on returning to surplus.

Doubts about Gillard's commitment increased when she failed to include anyone with responsibility for disabilities in her initial announcement of the new ministry after the election. In the revised list she gave the job to parliamentary secretary Jan McLucas. Since then, there has been talk of Gillard and Swan wanting to "manage expectations" -- political speak for lowering them.

In one sense, this is understandable: the commission still has to produce its final report (by July 31), although it is unlikely to change its main recommendations. A change as big as it is suggesting will take time to introduce: the draft report suggests starting the scheme in 2014 in one part of Australia to allow finetuning and fully phasing it in between 2015 and 2018.

The commission's preferred model involves the states and territories ceding responsibilities to the commonwealth, inevitably meaning some tortuous negotiations. The Barnett government in Western Australia already is baulking at the idea, saying its own system is the best.

If Gillard and Swan would like to lower the profile of the issue, advocates of reform are intent on not letting them. They may find excuses for not accepting the "walk in our shoes" invitation but they will run the risk of appearing hard-hearted.

O'Reilly and Porter are looking at widening the idea to asking all politicians to spend a day with a person with a disability. Last year, they launched the Mad as Hell campaign that collected 20,000 signatures from voters pledging to support only parties committed to an NDIS. They are prepared to go further in the next federal election and set up a party to run candidates in marginal seats to direct preferences to whoever commits to including an NDIS in the next budget.

If one thing is clear, it is that this is an issue that will not fade away. On Monday, Bill Shorten, who as parliamentary secretary for disabilities was a vocal advocate for reform and is now Assistant Treasurer, will give the opening address to the National Disability and Carer Conference, which has attracted more than 800 registrations. Whatever reservations Swan and others have, Shorten, together with Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin, remain enthusiasts for an NDIS.

Many in the opposition are sounding even keener. After the last election, the Liberals' Mitch Fifield successfully argued to Tony Abbott that the portfolio should be elevated from parliamentary secretary to ministerial status and that he should stay in the job. "Our starting point is that we recognise that the current system is bust," he tells Inquirer. "We will give the most generous consideration to the Productivity Commission's final report . . . I don't baulk at the cost."

In a rare event under the Abbott opposition, Fifield is offering bipartisanship. The NSW and Victorian Coalition governments are strong supporters, with the Baillieu government having set up an NDIS implementation unit and offering to trial the scheme.

O'Reilly and Porter drew their inspiration for their latest initiative from the new Liberal MP for the Sydney federal seat of Hughes, Craig Kelly, who told parliament in his first speech last November that, as the father of a 14-year-old son with Down syndrome and autism who does not speak, he wanted to tell parents with a special needs child "that you have someone who stands on the floor of this parliament that walks in your shoes".

He added: "As a society we ask our carers to provide over one billion hours of unpaid work a year which, if we the taxpayers had to pick up the tab, would cost well over $30bn. Simply, as a society, we are asking our carers to do more than their fair share of the heavy lifting."