People with disabilities in the criminal justice system feel like they exist in a “black hole” after an international torture prevention body cancelled a visit to Australia. “We’re locking them up and throwing away the key … their behaviour is misinterpreted as wilful defiance or criminal intention but it’s often just the product of their disability.”
This first Inquiry focused on the experiences of NDIS participants living in supported accommodation. The Inquiry examined reportable incidents and complaints that have been made to the NDIS Commission in connection with the supported accommodation services provided by 7 of the largest providers of these services over the period 1 July 2018 to 30 September 2022. The inquiry report describes trends in issues that are occurring in supported accommodation, what is causing those issues, models of best practice to eliminate or address these issues, and how the NDIS Commission can use its powers to support the delivery of higher standards of support in these settings.
The submission is informed by the collective knowledge and experience of independent disability advocacy member organisations. It explores the context, key barriers and challenges for the disability advocacy sector and outlines recommendations to support achieving positive outcomes for people with disability throughout Australia by eliminating the risk of experiencing violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation.
There have been more than 7,000 serious incidents — including sexual misconduct, serious injury, abuse and neglect — in disability group homes over the past four years, according to a startling new report from the NDIS complaints watchdog. The report followed an inquiry into disability group homes, set up to identify trends among issues occurring in the sector and how best to address them.
A bleak new report has revealed the scale of issues in Australia’s supported accommodation system. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission’s inaugural ‘Own Motion Inquiry’ into Aspects of Supported Accommodation found that people with disability had experienced thousands of incidents in group homes run by seven of the nation’s largest providers.
The report found that a lot of violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation experienced by people with disability is related to being segregated or institutionalised, discrimination and negative attitudes. It said that complaint mechanisms are not equipped to make systemic changes which are needed to prevent and address violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
A disabled Bangladeshi refugee has told the Disability Royal Commission he often went hungry during his detention on Nauru because he was unable to stand in the food line for hours.
This report highlights implications for improving policy and practice across intersecting disability, child and violence domains. It begins to address one of the evidence gaps identified in the 2020 interim report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Disability services are regularly and notably absent from cross-sector collaborative responses to domestic and family violence, and a lack of understanding, resources, awareness of or education about people with disability has led to a lack of “disability literacy” among mainstream services. Alongside this, disability services lack expertise around violence.
The report confirmed that understanding: compared with the total population of NSW, people with disability were more than twice as likely to be victims of reported violence and domestic violence offences.
This report draws on de-identified stories that starkly illustrate the impact of the system failures on adults who are at-risk. It identifies gaps and failures in the current framework and makes seven recommendations to improve Victoria’s safeguarding laws and practices for all at-risk adults. The recommendations aim to ensure that we do not lose sight … Continued
This podcast series discusses intellectual disability, accessibility and violence and was created in collaboration with women with intellectual disability. Experts are interviewed about how they work with women with intellectual disability who have experienced violence. They share their wisdom around what workers and services could be doing to work better with this group of women.
Writer and disability advocate Hannah Diviney has turned a discussion about Beyoncé using an ableist lyric on her album Renaissance into a call for those with lived disability experience to be more involved in politics and the NDIS.
“I travel a lot, but never without fear,” she says. “It sounds awful, but I just expect the worst, then I plan what I’ll do if the worst happens – if I wet myself, if I’m stranded, if I’m dropped, if my chair is damaged. I’m always kind of in a state of distress.”
The family of a young disabled man abused by a carer has never received an apology or compensation from the service provider, a royal commission has been told.
Ann Marie Smith died in abject circumstances, at the hands of her carer in the middle-class Adelaide suburb of Kingston Park. Her killing raises questions about the way our society treats the Disabled, in life and in death. .