OPINION: Disability begins and ends with local communities

OPINION: Disability begins and ends with local communities

Our city enjoys a social service and healthcare system that provides care based on need; unfortunately the same
cannot be said for disability services. People with disabilities (PWD) are among the most vulnerable individuals in our communities.

PWD are marginalised by almost every government, private and social system they come into contact with; they lack the support to live in a way that is commensurate with their identity and beliefs.

The Federal Government has attempted to address this through the development of a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which aims to meet funding shortfalls for disability support based on the draft 2010 Productivity Commission Report Disability Care and Support.

While the NDIS is an overdue step towards helping PWD realise their rights. It follows the same old fallacy that disability is an economic problem which can be fixed with numbers.

Just as the hypothetical tree that falls in the empty wood isn’t heard, people aren’t disabled until they interact with their community. An advanced MS sufferer attending Redfern Legal Aid isn’t disabled until they reach the steps of that suburb’s station, or until a potential employer considers having them in the workplace too onerous a task.

With the increase in disability service funding the NDIS promises such scenarios may become distant memory, however not without recognition that disability begins and ends with local communities in which PWD exist.

Until more details on how funding gained through the NDIS is to be allocated we can only speculate as to what areas of service will be
given priority. However, if government at all levels is going to learn from failed social policy experiments, greater funding needs to be given to local community-based initiatives that involve both the PWD and the people they interact with daily.

Local communities too often look to politicians, activists and almost anyone other than themselves for an answer to how we can help PWD to participate fully and meaningfully in our area. The NDIS will hopefully provide the template for a social contract between PWD and their neighbours that will change this.

By Ryan Gleeson

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