Mr Wallace has been a disability activist for decades, but he hasn’t yet spoken out about this incident, even though it happened almost 40 years ago. He is sharing it now to explain why some members of the disability community are deeply fearful of a new government plan to introduce an independent assessment process for access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Coronavirus cases among National Disability Insurance Scheme participants have been made public for the first time. There are 129 active cases across the country, including 41 participants and 88 workers. Almost all of the cases are in Victoria.
When Bodhi Dreyfus-Ballesi, 25, is happy, he will jump, clap and slap the top of his head. Now for the first time, his non-verbal expressions will be used as vital feedback to help inform the design of an all-ages and all-abilities playground.
What happens when an entire population group is absent from decision making forums? It makes it possible to forget them. The people who are most affected and should be central considerations in emergency responses are left out.
The response is so full of government doublespeak and responses with no discernible relationship to the recommendation that it’s taken us a full week to even understand as much as we do. And while many of the proposed changes sound good at first, there is some serious room for error in how they are implemented.
This raises a question – if the assessors are hired through an NDIA tender, are they really independent? Presumably they will want to win the tender again, maybe they will be not so independent after all.
This can generate a skewed impression mental illness causes violent behaviour, which reinforces myths, increases stigmatising attitudes and cultivates fear among the public.
A confidential NSW Department of Education disability strategy obtained under FOI laws has revealed inadequacies in planning for the state’s students with disabilities.
There is concern in Australia’s disability community that an overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme could make it harder for people to access the program and lead to instances of self harm, including suicide.
The NDIS funding model provides a one size fits all approach, making it difficult for good quality group supports to survive and thrive, and for new ones to evolve. In recent months we have conducted cost analysis for a range of providers of group programs. The results painted a bleak picture.
The NDIA says the assessments help to develop an overall picture of a person’s function in a number of areas of their life But disability activists such as NDIS participant Craig Wallace are not convinced.
The Australian Government is investing $64.9 million in grants to 138 organisations in the disability sector to build the capacity of Australians with disability to participate in and contribute to the community. Organisations will be offered up to $500,000 per year for two years under the Individual Capacity Building (ICB) grants round, part of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Information, Linkages and Capacity Building (ILC) program.
The government’s decision to support all of the recommendations in the Tune Review has been labelled a “step in the right direction” for the National Disability Insurance Scheme by advocates, who hope the reforms will make the scheme quicker and easier to navigate.
The Support Coordination Discussion Paper is asking the sector to respond to a question that has long circulated the NDIS: should providers be allowed to deliver Support Coordination and direct supports to the same people? This is a question the NDIA is being forced to turn its attention to.
The report found Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living with a disability are 1.6 times more likely to report racism than those without a disability and are almost twice as likely to avoid certain situations because of past experiences of discrimination.