Recently in an interview for work I said “this can all be summed up by saying there’s still an opportunity for foundational supports to be an amazing service for Australians with a disability” (audio version here, version with transcript here).
And to be fair to myself, that is technically true.
When they haven’t been designed yet, it means there’s still a chance to design them well.
But that doesn’t mean I think governments are actually planning to do a good job.
After yesterday, I feel like that fear of foundational supports being done poorly is quite real.
I mean, the codesign team (they mentioned something like 50 people were selected) had to meet in person for something. Training maybe? To be honest, I don’t care what it was for – a codesign system that requires meeting in person is automatically excluding people who are housebound, or people who don’t have the right supports to travel, or having caring obligations that don’t permit travel. Lots of reasons travel is inaccessible and yet this “significant reform” (their words not mine) is requiring an exclusionary activity. So yeah, fears that only disabled people who are somewhat palatable and able to perform able bodied get included are being confirmed.
I’d like to know if anyone on that team has an energy limiting condition, because I’m very sick of being told my needs are wrong by service providers. We would have a better chance of avoiding being told that if we were included in service design.
86% of Australians with a disability do not have NDIS. Very few people have NDIS. And yet that’s the only thing that gets talked about or that exists for support. You can see that here when the state government refused to help me and told me to go away and bother the NDIS.
Why am I concerned?
Because there’s an increase in rhetoric that I’m finding difficult to stomach. The rhetoric is that those who REALLY need the NDIS have it; “The irony is that the very characteristics of these people mean that they don’t require either the depth, or length, of assistance over a longer period” (source).
The NDIS review website says that targeted foundational supports are “for people with lower level support needs who are not eligible for the NDIS”.
Unfortunately, many of us do need “depth and length of assistance”, or are not “lower support needs” AND don’t have access to the NDIS.
I’m worried that needs of people with ME will be ignored and we will be forced to use inappropriate services. I’m worried that disabling chronic health needs, which are a huge part of the community, will be ignored. I’m worried that the diversity of needs within the same condition won’t be respected.
The information and the community is all here, ready to make a good system. I don’t think the government is listening. And I don’t think the government wants to listen.
The problem I see is that the government adheres to a social model of disability, which assumes that once barriers are removed, we’re fixed.
Unfortunately, removing barriers in society doesn’t remove disability for everyone. It absolutely can help, removing barriers always helps, but it doesn’t mean we’re now non disabled.
And when the government decides removing a barrier is all they need to do, they’re creating a support gap that wouldn’t exist if they listened to the community they claim to be consulting with.
So, is there still an opportunity to do foundational supports well?
Yes. There is an opportunity. I just don’t think the political will exists, which is critical to success.
