Services to young people with complex support needs in rural and regional Australia: beyond a metro-centric response

Young people with complex support needs who live outside metropolitan areas face unique challenges. Issues such as poor educational and employment opportunities, homelessness, racism, problematic substance use, challenging behaviour, disability and mental illness can be magnified and lead to judgment and marginalisation in small communities such as those in rural and regional areas. As a result of poor resourcing of services in these areas, young people may be forced to transition from place to place, service to service as a way of coping with life challenges. This paper presents findings from interviews and focus groups with service providers who support such young people in regional and rural Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Service providers reported similar challenges to professionals working in urban areas, such as navigating inter-agency and inter-professional work and dealing with funding shortages. However, these issues were amplified by the need to work across broad geographical areas, to recruit and retain skilled workers and to respond to the many structural and resource inadequacies in smaller communities. While services aimed to be responsive to young people, the challenges of providing support in a non-metropolitan context could create a context in which young people either disengaged from services or poor response resulted in systemic escalation to crisis. The implications for policy and practice are explored

Experiences of parents who support a family member with intellectual disability and challenging behaviour: This is what I deal with every single day

Background: Research into parents\u27 experiences of living with a family member with intellectual disability and challenging behaviour does not specifically address what parents say about themselves and their lives. This paper explores I-statements parents made about their day-today actions in life with their family member. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 parents, of which 91% were mothers. I-statements were analysed using process analysis from systemic functional linguistics and thematic analysis. Results: I-statements showed that parents enacted a range of complex and sometimes extreme activities across a variety of life domains. Parents spoke about: managing relationships with services; educating themselves and others; seeking support; resisting poor service delivery; assisting others; and making both small and significant changes. Conclusion: The paper provided insights into the complex lives of these families and offered observations on the implications of the potential misalignment between the supports the data suggests are needed and those that, in reality, are available to them

Disability and a good life MOOCs

In mid 2014 a team of disability studies scholars and educational developers at UNSW embarked on producing two Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) called Disability and a Good Life: Thinking through disability and Disability and a Good Life: Working with disability. Both courses have since run twice on the FutureLearn platform, reaching 17 000 learners from countries as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Botswana, Slovenia and Italy

\u27Section 32: A Report on the Human Service and Criminal Pathways of People Diagnosed with Mental Health Disorder and Cognitive Disability in the Criminal Justice System Who Have Received Orders Under the Mental Health (Forensic Provisions) Act 1990 (NSW)\u27

A brief discussion of the MHDCD Project is appropriate in order to contextualise the Section 32 MHDCD Project. The MHDCD Project concerns a cohort of 2,731 men and women, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who have been in prison in New South Wales and whose mental health disorder and cognitive disability diagnoses are known (the \u27MHDCD cohort\u27). The cohort was drawn from the 2001 NSW Inmate Health Survey (IHS) and from the NSW Department of Corrective Services State-wide Disability Service Database (SDD). Ethics approval was obtained from all of the relevant ethics bodies, including from the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee

Complexity and disability: Drawing from a complexity approach to think through disability at the intersections

This chapter outlines how a complexity approach can help us think through disability. It explores how complexity thinking can help understand disability in the lives of people who experience disability and their interactions with other social divisions and systems or institutions of power. A complexity approach to systems and their inherent principles is particularly useful for social scientists - S. Walby states that this is because it recognises that each system takes all other systems as its environment. Casey, a young Indigenous Australian woman, has been ascribed various diagnostic labels including intellectual disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and a range of behavioural, emotional and mental health diagnoses. On the ninth occasion, a doctor from the hospital informs the police that it was his professional opinion that the young person was not in need of medical or mental intervention and Casey is refused admission to the hospital

Cognitive disability and complex support needs : challenges in the National Disability Insurance Scheme

Australia's adoption of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has heralded a new way of supporting people with disability. In this chapter we offer a critical examination of the extent to which the requirements of people with cognitive disability and complex support needs are catered for by the NDIS, identify potential problems, and argue the imperative for quality case management when it is needed. As with any social policy reform, the NDIS implementation (which is currently under way, with total national coverage expected by 2019) will inevitably be accompanied by challenges. Primary among these will be how people with cognitive disability and complex support needs will fare. Key questions centre on the extent to which the NDIS can cater for this potentially vulnerable client group, and the case management challenges that may arise to assist the self-determination of such clients

Another step forward for the NDIS, but details still missing

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has established an inter-governmental agreement that will form the framework for the initial phase of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). But as in every step of the NDIS’ implementation, the devil lies in the details of the roll out. People with disabilities, their families and advocates have lobbied hard for the scheme since the Productivity Commission first proposed the model in 2011. And new lobby groups were established to concentrate advocacy efforts in those states and territories where governments have not being entirely supportive

“They need to be able to have walked in our shoes”: what people with intellectual disability say about National Disability Insurance Scheme planning

Background: Planning is a key mechanism by which the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) ensures individuals with disability have choice and control over supports. People with intellectual disability will comprise the largest NDIS participant group and many will need assistance to engage in planning. In order to respond effectively, NDIS planners must understand the decision-making support required by individuals. Method: Focus groups were conducted with 9 adults with intellectual disability living in an NDIS trial site to explore their experiences of NDIS planning. Results: Thematic analysis identified 6 themes related to good planning experiences for people with intellectual disability: preparation, learning from mistakes, personal growth, and having a credible, consistent, and disability-aware planner. Conclusions: Participants who developed a trusting relationship with a planner used planning to increase independence and social participation. Planner skills, particularly communication and sector knowledge, and attributes such as warmth and openness created trust