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Kimberly’s sunny, athletic and inquisitive about everything. But for years she harboured terrible secrets about what happened to her. Janine Fitzpatrick investigates why her school failed to heed credible warnings that she was in danger.
A disability advocate has detailed harrowing stories of abuse against some of Australia’s most vulnerable people – from physical assaults to being put in cages – by those paid by taxpayers to care for them.
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.
Australians with disabilities have suffered higher rates of domestic and family violence, are experiencing suicidal thoughts, and felt “expendable” during the Covid-19 pandemic, a royal commission has heard.
This was the first session of the Advocacy Sector Conversations forum held on 28 July 2020. WDV have long promoted best practice in supporting women with disability to recognise abuse, stay safe and seek support if they experience violence. In this session, Rosie Granland, Our Right to Safety Resources Project Officer and Nadia Mattiazzo, Program Manager, Community Inclusion and Womens Empowerment from Women with Disabilities Victoria, provide advocates the opportunity to view and discuss the ‘Our Right to Safety and Respect’ video and its accompanying Video Guide, which has been produced in a variety of accessible formats.
Three police officers who assaulted a disability pensioner on his front lawn after they attended his home for a welfare check have been spared jail. Senior constables Brad McLeod, John Edney and Florian Hilgart were found guilty last Friday of a combined six charges over their use of force against the pensioner, John, outside his Preston home on September 19, 2017.
Somewhere along the way, we seemed to have developed self-serving, compliance focussed systems designed to appease auditors rather than safeguard people. In a time of scarce resources and transformational change, this seems absurd, even negligent. Why does our sector accept it?
Data is an important element for measuring the scale of abuse and violence faced by people with disability in Australia, but there isn’t enough available, researchers say.
When working with a woman with disability who is experiencing violence, it is important to support her in a safe and culturally sensitive way. This resource outlines the best practice response to violence against women with disabilities and provides a list of services that can help.
Three special schools in Melbourne will be investigated over a series of allegations of “violence, abuse and serious neglect” of students with disabilities over the past 10 years. Victoria’s Department of Education and Training has launched an investigation into multiple claims of mistreatment of vulnerable children at Marnebek School in Cranbourne East, Jackson School in St Albans and Southern Autistic School in Bentleigh East.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme’s watchdog failed to immediately investigate the rape of a disability care recipient “by one or more care workers”, Federal Parliament has been told.
“Vulnerable participants are not routinely identified and assigned ongoing support coordination in their NDIS plan,” the interim report states. It found there was no requirement for care providers to allocate at least two workers to cater for each client and no requirement for carers to have regular supervision.
Gaps exist in the system to protect disabled people under government care, with a dozen issues identified by a South Australian task force examining the case of an Adelaide woman who died in appalling conditions. The group’s interim report was released on Tuesday and found 12 areas that required attention, with most within the Commonwealth’s jurisdiction.
Celebrating his 10th “truly free” day of freedom since he was 16, Indigenous man Daryl Carr, 35, who has a mild intellectual disability, had a single message. “I don’t want to see the mob go through what I went through,” said Mr Carr, a Wiradjuri man who has spent most of his life behind bars. He was released from prison in late May after a NSW Supreme Court judge found that Mr Carr had been cruelly detained on a five-year extended supervision order for 11 years, sometimes for “minor breaches”.
NDIS Minister Stuart Robert is planning to introduce the proposed powers to federal parliament within the next two weeks. The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission would be able to draw on sources outside the scheme to determine a ban, including a worker’s history at aged or child care centres. People with Disability Australia spokeswoman El Gibbs said the new powers would be the first step towards improving safeguards in the NDIS.