This was the second session of the Advocacy Sector Conversations forum held at the Queen Vitoria Women’s Centre on 11 February 2020.
Overview
Accessibility and inclusion is more than just a checklist. This interactive workshop reflects on the first six months of the Advocacy at the Intersections project which is being developed by queerspace in partnership with DARU. Jax (Jacki) Brown and Jess Mattar from queer space race through LGBTIQ+ inclusion 101 using some of the co-designed videos and information sheets that are ready for their first test run. Damian Cavenagh , Project Officer at DARU,talks about his role in developing the online module and working with the co-design group and Jade from Youth Disability Advocacy Service shares her perspectives as a participant in the co-design process. The final package will include a 4 hour professional development session, one on one training and an online module.
Links to references mentioned in this session can be found at the bottom of this post.
Transcript & Audio
MELISSA HALE, DARU COORDINATOR:
Welcome back everybody. I hope you enjoyed your lunch. The next session I’m really excited about actually. This is the Advocacy at the Intersection Project, which is a partnership between Queerspace and DARU.
I’ll just read the blurb and then let the others do the rest of it. Accessibility and inclusion is more than just a checklist. Our interactive workshop will reflect on six months of the DARU and Queerspace Advocacy and Intersection Project and provide an opportunity for the disability advocacy sector to discuss what advocating for LGBTIQ + inclusion looks like.
We’ll share training videos, tips sheets co-designed by LGBTIQ + people with disabilities and disability advocacy organisation aiming to highlight best practice examples and the value of sharing lived experience.
It’s my pleasure to introduce Jax Brown and Jess Marta from Queerspace and also later on Damian Cavenagh from DARU, thank you.
JAX BROWN, QUEERSPACE:
Thank you for that introduction. Before we begin, I would like to pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations on which we’re meeting today. I’d like to extend my respects to any indigenous members we are in this room. Always was always will be indigenous land. I would also like to pay my respects to the Wurundjeri and Bunurong people of which all the resource of the project was developed on their land.
My name is Jax, and I’m working on this project with Jess. I really like watching serious documentaries, going to the playground and playing with my kid. I’m a terrible gardener.
JESS MARTA, QUEERSPACE:
Hello everyone, I’m Jess. A little fun fact about me, which I don’t think I’ve told Jax yet a couple of days ago, my partner proposed to me.
[APPLAUSE]
JESS MARTA:
A quick tip on safety. As we’re all aware, being advocates or people with lived experience or both in the human disability sector we understand that language is very important and how we use language to describe our own identities and how we use language to describe other people is very crucial and very personal.
I would also like you to reflect on how important that is to use similar language and that same type of thought and respect when we’re talking about the LGBTIQ +community.
JAX BROWN:
In today’s workshop, we only have an hour. We really want to start to think about what the project is, where we’re headed with it, what outcomes we’re hoping to achieve by June 2020. To give you a bit of an understanding of language and language used in the LGBTIQ+ acronym, what all those letters mean, who they might refer to and how you might use them.
We’re going to look at the terms of sex, gender and sexuality and talk you through the difference in those terms and what they mean. We have some scenarios that we’re going to get you to do at your tables in groups later on. We’re really keen to get your feedback and thoughts about those because we’re going to use them when we build our online two hour training module for the disability advocacy sector in LGBTIQ + inclusion.
You guys are kind of our first group of people that we really want to get robust and honest feedback about how you find today and what you want to include.
Yes. So first we’re going to look briefly at an overview of the project, who was involved and what we plan to do between now and June with our little grant, which is when the Office for Disability ends.
Our project aims to provide advocacy, training and experiences on the LGBTIQ people with disabilities to the disability advocacy sector. We’re going to do our online training, as I just said which will roll out hopefully next month. We’re also going to be doing a face to face training at the VCOSS offices on Tuesday the 11th May, which will go for two hours as well.
If you log into the online module and you think wow I’d love some face to face training as kind of follow on from today, we really encourage you to come along to share it with your networks and to bring your colleagues too.
We really want to acknowledge the work DARU and thank you so much for inviting us to be here today and be our project partner. We’re really excited about this partnership. We also want to welcome Jade from YDAS whose on our co-design team and she’s going to come up and speak later about that experience as well.
JESS MARTA:
For those of you who have not heard of Queerspace, Queerspace is located within the Drummond Street Services, predominately at 100 Drummond Street in Carlton. Queerspace is a fantastic leading organisation in the field of LGBTIQ + rights. They provide not only resources and information but amazing therapeutic and lived experience positions within their organisation as well.
JAX BROWN:
And they have a really keen and ongoing interest in having someone or multiple people with disabilities working for them. This is the first of many projects that we hope to partner with different organisations in.
But who best to talk about DARU, Damien. Welcome Damien up please.
DAMIAN CAVENAGH, DARU PROJECT OFFICER:
Thank you Jess and Jax. Being part of this project or any project really is having a good partner and certainly, DARU has been very lucky and fortunate to have Jax and Jess lead and progress this project with us.
DARUs role is to produce the online learning module, training materials for the disability sector. For us the co-design process we’ve been through today it’s been invaluable. The terms and concepts like intersectionality which Jax and Jess will talk about more today, do not come across to some people regularly.
The people will be training in using the module regularly. We can give textbook definitions and Wikipedia links and things like that but it doesn’t really come alive until it’s relevant and relatable to a person’s place in their work.
The co-design process has really enabled that to get the stories, the quotes and the scenarios from people with the lived experience. We hope you enjoy being involved in some of those scenarios later on.
Working together with Queerspace meant we had the benefit, the rich expertise, lived experience with people with a disability who identified as LGBTIQ +. And we’re able to hear from people themselves about what’s the most important factors we need to consider to ensure the training really has a voice of people of disabilities and identifies LGBTIQ +.
We’ve been able to pull our excellent resources together with videos and online tip sheets and to all credit hopefully a really good targeted learning package. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without Queerspace. It’s a credit to the co-design group and Queerspace that we’ve been able to get the best out of the group in a respectful way.
I’ve been involved in projects that are more fo-design than co-design but this one I hope we’re on the way to producing something that has the lived experience voice and is relatable and relevant to the disability advocacy sector.
JESS MARTA:
Thank you.
JAX BROWN:
Let me tell you briefly about the co-design process. it has five representatives from disability advocacy organisations, including Women with Disabilities Victoria, The Youth Disability Advocacy Service, Leadership Plus, Melbourne East Disability Advocacy and Grampians Disability Advocacy.
We’re looking to get a wide variety of experiences. We really wanted rural perspective of what it’s like to work in advocacy, in the country as well. We also have three representatives who come from the LGBTIQ communities or work in LGBTIQ organisations and people who have lived experience so who are both disabled and are LGBTIQ.
That’s been really important in terms of being able to have a wide variety of perspectives and experiences both professionally and personally that help us shape the project and help us think about what is important what do we need to include, what learnings is the disability advocacy sector really looking for in the LGBTIQ space.
Next up we’d like to welcome Jade from YDAS to talk briefly about what her experience has been being part of our co-design group and any other comments she wants to make in terms of what she may think is important for the advocacy sector to know about being LGBTIQ inclusive.
DAMIAN CAVENAGH:
Let’s welcome Jade everyone.
JADE, YDAS:
Hi, thanks for having me. It’s been very nice working with everyone on this project. For what it’s been like to be part of the co-design group, it’s been very good and empowering. I like being able to give my opinion and feel like it’s being heard and used for something meaningful.
I did come through as a representative from a disability advocacy organisation but also being a queer disabled woman working within that sector made it feel like it was a job that I didn’t really realise I studied my whole life for. It’s been very good working on it and nice doing so.
As for what I think is important for advocacy services to know to be LGBTIQ + inclusive, I think it’s important to note that there’s a higher than average correlation between the two groups and working towards being inclusive isn’t just working towards helping one in a million people even though if it was it would still be just as important I believe but it’s more like one in ten or even more as far as a higher correlation between the two groups.
There’s a few stats around that say in queer groups there are about a third of the people within those groups have a disability. I think it’s also important to note the intersectional beliefs and that people within that intersection receive reduced support and social connection from both groups thus leaving them more isolated and vulnerable.
Practically speaking what I think is important for advocacy organisations to know is that working towards being more inclusive can be quite simple and start off that way and can also be quite in-depth. It’s really, what you have the capacity to do.
Practically speaking a small example could be, that you could begin something quite small like having your pronouns listed in your email signatures because this can just be a simple indicator that shows that you’re welcoming to people and open to having conversations and it being accepted.
An example of something that would be important for people who work with clients, individual advocates in particular is knowing what laws and guidelines apply to people from that intersection and also knowing how and when to speak up when you think they are being discriminated against.
I think finally, as organisations I think it’s important that there’s creation of dialogue between disability advocacy organisations and LGBTIQ + advocacy organisations so they can communicate and collaborate on issues that affect both populations and can work together.
DAMIAN CAVENAGH:
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
JESS MARTA:
So we spoke a little about the project outcomes and I’ll go over this quiet briefly and a little more in-depth. Our co-design team we’ve definitely put them to work. We’re in the process of developing five short videos. One of those videos you will be watching at the end of this session and that’s on LGBTIQ 101 so hopefully you’ll have some learning, you will be able to get from that.
Something that’s a little more tailored towards the LGBTIQ organisations and communities so we have Accessibility 101. The next video we developed is a conversation between both groups talking about loneliness, isolation and community. We take those learnings and we have a video on how we can work together and how we can advocate together for change.
We’ll have tip sheets developed alongside. One of those tip sheets should be on your tables. It is a draft version. It is the LGBTIQ + 101 tip sheet. As Jax mentioned before we have a four hour training package in person and a two hour online training package.
So I briefly had a conversation with you all about language this morning. Unfortunately we can’t spend the whole hour going into language and the importance but I would like you to take a moment and have some reflection on what language or terms do you or we use to describe ourselves, why do we use this language or terms we choose to use and do we use different language or terms at different times.
If you’re taking one reflective moment from today, I would hope you ponder on those. So time for a crash course. We’re going to have a conversation about the difference of sex, sexuality and gender. I’d like to reiterate this is a safe place it is okay to get things wrong, it is okay to get things a little bit confused. You do all have a cheat sheet on your table so feel free to look at that as well and please ask questions.
I’m going to try to orchestrate this a little more like a workshop. Your participation is crucial. For those people who would like to speak, vocalise, put your hand up how you feel comfortable.
How do we define sex? What is some biological ways that we as a society define sex?
AUDIENCE:
Who are you attracted to is a start.
JESS MARTA:
Definitely, who we are attracted to is definitely how we in act our sexuality. When you’re born and the Doctor pulls you out what’s the first thing they do?
AUDIENCE:
They look at your genitals and all your hormones.
JESS MARTA:
Yeah, definitely. Genitals and hormones, chromosomes these are definitely ways we define sex in society. But curious question, I don’t think any of you can see my junk or my genitals and I would be a little worried if you can. There must be other ways we define sex. I don’t know about you, I’ve never gotten my chromosomes checked either.
What are some legal documents that define our sex?
AUDIENCE:
Your birth certificate.
JESS MARTA:
Yeah, definitely your birth certificate, what’s on your passport. We’ve got some cardinal documents that we use nearly every day with service providers especially when we’re starting up a new connection with them.
What are some structural ways we define sex? This might be a little bit harder to answer. Things you might be doing accidental, intentionally or other ways in your organisation.
AUDIENCE:
I was going to say the bathrooms. Having defined bathrooms like male, female, not having inclusive bathrooms. Then maybe not talking about people’s pronouns just assuming.
JESS MARTA:
Definitely so we definitely go into spaces of gender with the pronouns, we’ll come back to that in a moment. Maybe sometimes, you have induction forms or intake forms and on those, you may only have the boxes male and female.
We all know what it feels like when someone uses a label on us when that label is not a term we identify with and how uncomfortable that label can feel. Fun fact in the human population there are already over twenty known sex variations. It’s a little bit limiting if we’re only limiting ourselves to male and female.
The intersex community are roughly around two percent of the population where a lot of people who are intersex often don’t know that they’re intersex until they’ve either hit puberty, they are choosing to try and conceive a child or might have some complications at birth as well.
The Intersex Human Rights Australia has a beautiful definition of intersex and best practices as well. That’s definitely something to take into consideration.
Sexuality, what’s some examples? I’ll start, straight.
AUDIENCE:
Heterosexual.
JESS MARTA:
Yeah, what are some other examples of sexuality?
AUDIENCE:
Gay.
JESS MARTA:
Yeah, homosexual.
AUDIENCE.:
Queer.
JESS MARTA:
Bisexual, lesbian.
AUDIENCE:
Poof.
JESS MARTA:
That’s a term that’s used in a derogatory way that we try to avoid. That is a way people not in the community try to define us and going back to labels that we sometimes don’t like.
When we’re starting at a place of trying to understand sexuality and this is a good way to kind of reflect on your own sexuality because quite a lot of people don’t get that opportunity is to try and think of it in terms of a sexual trichotomy.
Our sexual identity, starting at the very top of the triangle our sexual identity is how we identify. You could publically and internally have two different identifications. Internally you might feel like I’m a gay man but publically I tell people I’m straight and that’s a personal choice, that’s a very private choice.
I’m going to assume quite a few people in this room probably without even realising identify as heterosexual or straight, you may have never been asked that in the first place. Our sexual orientation is referred to who we are attracted to, bringing it back to the point at the very start.
You could be sitting in this room and be I might identify as a straight male and my sexual orientation means I’m attracted to women. It doesn’t mean I’m attracted to every single woman ever but it just means that’s where my sexual orientation predominately lies.
Our sexual behaviour is how we enact that. For example, if you are a married man who is straight so you are identifying as straight your sexual orientation is yes I’m attracted to women and my behaviour because I’m in a monogamous relationship I choose not to enact my attractions to other women outside of my marriage, consensually.
When we often get to a space, where we accidentally offend or unintentionally cause harm we’re quite often referring to the identity. We’re quite often dismissing using the right label. Not mirroring the language of the person, we’re working with and at that point, that’s where the personal language comes in. That’s often when we offend.
Gender, this is a very fast crash course I know it’s a lot of information coming at you. So gender is typically broken down into two categories. We have our gender identity, which is up on the screen at the moment, which I will go through. On the next slide, we’ll talk about gender expression.
Give me some examples of genders that you’ve heard of, what is your gender if you feel comfortable sharing. Hey Jax, do you feel comfortable sharing your gender today?
JAX BROWN:
I see a name pronouns which means sometimes I’m comfortable identifying as a woman and sometimes I feel like I’m in between the space or woman and fabulous queer person.
JESS MARTA:
I’m also a little complicated for a lack of better words. I identify as gender fluid. Every day or periods of months, my gender identity has a tendency of shifting, which can be a little frustrating, makes the wardrobe cost a bit more because I like to express myself. My gender identity is gender fluid and I typically use they, them pronouns as a result.
I can assume a few people in this space might identify as a man and a few people in this space might identify as a woman. I feel like a few people in this space may never have given themselves the opportunity to really sit and do some reflection and be what is my gender identity, has anyone really given me the permission to ask that.
There’s gender expression, so we’ve all mostly heard of what I would assume as gender roles, some of those archaic expectations that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and a man’s place is on the footy field. I completely disagree with those. Gender roles are who society enforces or tries to entrench ideologies of masculinity and femininity.
When a person has a gender identity, they may choose to express that based on how they want to. They may identify as a man but want to express a very feminine aspect of their identity and gender. It doesn’t make them any less or more a man it’s just how they choose to express themselves.
JAX bROWN:
I think when we add disability into the equation often there can be a lot of pressure on someone with a disability to conform to the gender they were assigned at birth. If they’re presenting as a woman as feeling comfortable with that identity then they may come under pressure to wear dresses, skirts or shave their legs, do something to fit more into that assumed role of what a woman should look like.
I think that’s really interesting because it often gets very complex and complicated for people because they may want to be able to feel like they can express their gender and express their femininity and sexuality and be seen for who they are.
But then what does that mean if they happen to be queer, how does that complicate the ways in which they might express or explore their identity and their belonging and connection to that community?
I remember when I was younger and identifying as this gender so feeling like I fitted into or it made sense to me to understand my body as female I used to wear a lot of short skirts and dresses and feel like that was really important because often a lot of people would assume that I wouldn’t know my gender identity or have a strong sense of a gender identity because I have a disability.
These are some of the kind of complexities that I think we’re hoping to tease out. Particularly when we’re designing the workshop, the two hour workshop which we’re running face to face and also the online one as well. How does disability complicate this discussion or add a complexity to this discussion.
We just wanted to take a moment to think about why respectful language is important. It’s important because it avoids assumptions, which is really important when you’re trying to be respectful and to use the language or pronouns sometimes is asking you to use.
It clarifies if it’s relevant, asking someone about their sex, sexuality or gender may not always be important or relevant just as people asking about why I’m a wheelchair user in different context and why I’m accessing their service isn’t relevant.
In terms of best practice language, use language assigned at birth instead of born. Thinking back to when baby is born and we assume that baby is male or female, thinking back to how they’re referred to. Asking who is in your family or what words do you use to describe people in your family so not assuming that everyone has a mum, a dad.
I know for me I’ve got a young toddler with my partner Anne and that’s something really important for me when accessing services is that people give me the space to describe whose in my family and describe whose in my life.
Transgender is an adjective. What that means is transgender can be shortened to trans. We don’t use the term transgendered it’s not a verb. We do not use the term transgender it’s not a noun. We can say trans people is kind of the preferred term for the LGBTIQ community.
I think thinking about language is really key and is something that both the disability community and the queer community continue to have really robust discussions on and that’s something we found in co-design group too, is that people might choose to use really different terms. I like using disabled person sometimes and sometimes I use person with a disability.
Some people use deaf some people use hard of hearing. Some people use the term queer, some people use lesbian, gay etc. etc. whatever letter under that acronym they feel fits for them.
Really creating a space where people feel like they can tell you who they are and use the language that is important to them and listening to that language and reflecting that language back is something that we found to be really important.
Also not trying to say you must use this language like you must always use person with disability, you can’t refer to your impairment whatever that is. We found having spaces where we can have those conversations with services and people in our lives is a really key way that we can actually start to create more inclusive environments for LGBTIQ people but also for people with disabilities.
JESS MARTA:
So quite often, we get stuck about how do we start this conversation. We’re going to have a little chat at your tables, or the space as you’re currently occupying. We’re not going to assume, we’re going to introduce yourself to the person either left or to the right of you.
If you feel comfortable let them know what your pronouns are, it may be a fun little facet about yourself and then take the time to listen to them. Throughout the rest of the day and how you continue your work, we really hope that you don’t assume what pronouns are of other people but gently ask.
Jax and I will give you a bit of an example. Would you like to start Jax?
JAx BROWN:
Sure hi I’m Jax and my pronouns are she and they.
JESS MARTA:
Nice to meet you Jax, my name is Jess and I use them and she pronouns. It’s as simple as that so please take the next one or two minutes to partner up and introduce yourselves.
[AUDIENCE PARTICIPATING IN ACTIVITY]
JAX BROWN:
We might come to the front now.
JESS MARTA:
Thank you everyone for participating I think we’re going to bring it back to the rest of the workshop.
JAX BROWN:
In the interest of time, we’re going to push on because we want to get to some group activities, which we would really love your participation in. We wanted to talk briefly around intersectionality as a key concept that we’ve come across in the co-design group and we’re going to build into the longer training.
Coming back to the front of the room. Intersectionality reminds us that everything about us is interlinked. We’re not just a man or a woman or a queer person or a person of colour or a person with a disability. We’re multiple different things all at once.
This concept of intersectionality was first coined by Kimberley Crenshaw in the late 1980s to understand how racism and sexism interacted in the lives of women of colour in America.
It’s a really useful concept in terms of starting to think through the different experiences you might have because of your gender, because of your sexuality, because of your socio economic background. All these kind of things really shape your experiences in life and your access to different spaces and opportunities.
In summary, your sex that you’re assigned at birth is not necessarily consistent with the gender that you might identify as. Your gender is not related to your sexuality, they’re two separate things. Your sexuality is not related to your sex assigned at birth. Using the correct language and terms is important including finding out people’s names and pronouns.
Understanding intersectionality is a really important concept and again it’s okay to make a mistake just apologise for it and try again.
These are some quotes from our co-designed group so people with different experiences. You don’t need to agree with someone’s language to mirror it. Then we have lots of discussions about people feeling like when they approach services either they’re great around access and disability but they’re not so good around LGBTIQ issues. Or if they’re a LGBTIQ service, they might be good at thinking about those things but really terrible at access.
It’s really trying to think about how we can make services really supportive and inclusive of people.
Now we will get you to do some small group work. You should each have a scenario at your table. We want you to talk about it as a group and think about how you might respond or support that person.
JESS MARTA:
On your table, there should be an A3 size paper with the scenario. Please take the time to read through the scenario and for the next 15 minutes please work within your group to address the question. It sounds like there is some amazing conversations happening but we need to start slowly bringing it back to the centre.
JAX BROWN:
I forgot to say to the poor people online going what’s happening, if you scroll forward we could’ve added the scenarios for them. Sorry online people.
JESS MARTA:
So which group, I don’t think everyone got a different scenario but did anyone have scenario Number 1, it should tell you at the top of your A3 piece of paper.
Did a particular table grab Scenario 1, up the back. Someone at the table quickly read out the scenario and maybe mention one or two key points you thought of.
AUDIENCE:
I just noticed the short straw come my way. We have Scenario 1 misgendering client. You’re in a meeting with another person and your client and this person is consistently misgendering your client. They know your client’s real pronouns and gender but are not using them. Your client is visibly uncomfortable and becoming more distressed as this continues.
Before the meeting, you asked your client whether or not you should say something if this happened and they said yes. So there was five scenarios, pick as many or as few answers.
JAX BROWN:
Just tell us which ones you picked.
AUDIENCE:
We had a long convo. I don’t think we were looking at Number 5, which is to yell at them we might want to do that inwardly. We just think that it’s a work scenario it’s about professional conduct, we will do that internally but not externally.
We felt it’s imperative as we’ve had the conversation with the client as well that we should call them out on this and not let it slide to the keeper. We’ve probably looked at between numbers two and four, which is wait for them to do it again and then correct them.
In saying that the end of two is correct them once, we would want to correct them more than once. We also had a long discussion about should we correct them every time or every couple of times. We absolutely want to correct. We don’t want it to go unnoticed.
JAX BROWN:
Fabulous. This is one of the ones we’re going to build into the online space. It’s going to come up you click on it and it will say that answer is correct or you could do better.
On our cheat sheet the correct ones are Number 3, which is keep correcting them and also Number 4 as well. Does that make sense?
JESS MARTA:
Who had group Scenario Number 2, which was misgendering by services, no. What about Scenario Number 3, it should say at the very top. The table down at the front, is someone at your table to read out the scenario and give us your feedback.
AUDIENCE:
So our scenario was you work at a disability advocacy organisation. Part of your job is to hold regular meetings of an advisory group of disabled people. One of the advisory group is trans. Other group members frequently miss gender them and make transphobic comments.
Then there are five different kind of responses that we discussed. The ones we focused on were around kind of training and also having a policy in place so that people are I guess training kind of underpins people’s responses. Having that in place first would be really helpful before looking at how you could expand the group to make sure trans people were included and felt space.
JAX BROWN:
In terms of the answers on our cheat sheet here, we were saying Number 1, seek out more trans people to be part of the advisory group so that person doesn’t feel alone, they feel like they have someone who shares their experiences with them. Number 3, is to pay a disabled trans activist to run mandatory training so people are getting some training around stuff and Number 5, which is about the policies, which is a really great point as well. Thank you.
JESS MARTA:
Who had Scenario Number 4?
AUDIENCE:
We didn’t come up with any solution. We are just coming up when we were told we were [inaudible]. We did say that basically we did say that to complain to advocacy organisations.
JAX BROWN:
Anything else you want to add from your group on to that?
AUDIENCE:
Greg also if it’s okay you said that you could confront the person directly and talk about that everyone has the right to sexual identity and gender identity. We also had making a complaint to the persons manager and connecting John with a self-advocacy group if he was keen so he could speak up for himself.
JAX BROWN:
And rainbow rights, self-advocacy might be a great one in this because it’s run by LGBTIQ people with disabilities. Connecting into community as well as connecting them into advocates.
DAMIAN CAVENAGH:
Who had Scenario 5, which was carer choosing clothing? Please read out and give us some example.
AUDIENCE:
Our scenario was Fatima is living with intellectual disabilities and is getting ready to go to a wedding. Fatima usually wears gender neutral clothing. When you arrive to visit her, you find she is very distressed because her carer is dressing her in a very frilly dress.
The carer says, “I know she doesn’t want to wear it but it’s just for the photos.
The family want her in a dress and she won’t really know where she is anyway.” What do you do?
So unlike some of the other scenarios we did not have multiple choice. We talked about it and agree that initially we would separate Fatima from her carer and ask her specifically how she’s feeling. Try and grasp her understanding of what’s going on and whether or not she wants to change or wants to compromise and wear a dress in a photo and then not.
Yeah, we thought it was not appropriate to assume what she does and doesn’t know.
JESS MARTA:
That’s a fantastic response, thank you. Then we have Scenario 6, which I think is the trickiest out of all of them. Sorry group number 6 at the back.
AUDIENCE:
We had Scenario 6, lack of services in rural areas. It reads your client is a transgender woman with a chronic illness and a complex psychosocial disability. She is unable to access medical care as the closest medical clinic that understands the medication and care she requires as a trans woman is an hour away.
She does not drive and is unable to take public transport. This has left her ill, socially isolated and she is unable to cope with symptoms of her illness in public. Her symptoms would be treatable if she could access a trained professional.
Ararat only had one Doctor who accepts bulk billing which is important when you’re on a disability support pension. However, the Doctor is male and your client is not comfortable visiting him.
None of us work really we do have one advocate. We had a few kind of ideas and we thought there might be a situation where you have to try a number of options and see what works. We talked about potentially finding a Doctor in Ararat who is a woman and would bulk bill this client because they’re on a disability support pension even if they don’t usually do that.
We also talked about a tele conference of skype set up with the Doctor whose further away even if that was as often as possible. We also spoke about I guess talking to the Doctors and seeing what they thought too and transport. Transport is a nightmare. If you could work it out, that would be good.
JAX BROWN:
If you could get transport in the NDIS funding, yeah. Great thank you so much. Sorry for the last two groups who didn’t have the multiple choice answers. Hadn’t got that far in building the scenarios so you just helped us work out what some of those might be.
JESS MARTA:
What we will move onto next, we will show you a short video of people who are LGBTIQ + with lived experiences of people with disabilities talking to you about their feelings their perspectives and their thoughts on some Queer 101. Please take it away technician.
[VIDEO SHOWN]
JAX BROWN:
Thank you for watching that. Just a note on access we are going to get the questions, which popped up audio, described and put in the final version.
Now we might take a couple of minutes and I know surveys can be a bit boring but it’s really important for this little program to continue and to hopefully get more funding. Also for us to know how you honestly found this, very quick one hour presentation and what you might like to see included in the future training.
If you could take a moment to fill out that form. If that form isn’t accessible to you and you would like us to send you a digital copy we can do that as well, just put your hand up and we will grab your email address and send that across.
JESS MARTA:
We also have forms printed out on larger font as well. They should be available on the tables. Please spend the next five minutes quickly filling out that one page form, we would really appreciate it.
JAX BROWN:
Just go through our contact details. That’s just our contact emails on the screen too. Please feel free to get in touch. You will definitely hear from us again and we really welcome you to return the face to face training on the 12th of May and also do the online module and to share that round when it comes out next month as well.
JESS MARTA:
If you or your organisation or your community is interested in taking some training yourselves when we’ve developed the four hour training module or if you would like us to do the in person training, please send us an email and we can see what we can organise together.
MELISSA HALE, DARU COORDINATOR:
Thank you very much Jax and jess, really really looking forward to seeing the online training module. It’s a really exciting project we’ve really enjoyed this process very much. Thank you very much.
Please make sure you fill in the surveys because your feedback is really important for informing this kind of work. If we don’t hear from you we can’t make sure that, the information we give you is relevant to your work. It’s really important.
We’ll take a short break now and if you can be back at 2.30 pm, we will move onto the next presentation. Thank you very much.
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- Author:
- DARU
- Date published:
- Tue 11th Feb, 2020