School readiness program for Aboriginal children with additional needs: working with children, families, communities and service providers

This report presents an evaluation of a school readiness program for Aboriginal children with additional needs, assessing the benefits for the children, their families and communities as well as local service providers. The outcomes of the evaluation may be useful when considering future service models to support Aboriginal families of children with disabilities, developmental delay or challenging behaviours.Executive summaryNorthcott Disability Services in partnership with the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) is evaluating Northcott’s school readiness program for Aboriginal children with additional needs (the Program), which works with Aboriginal children with developmental delays or disabilities and their families to support school readiness and successful transition to school.In the Program, Northcott provides inclusive playgroups; preschool and school based support; family information, training and support; information and training for preschool and school teachers; and therapy. The Program is in two sites in NSW: one urban and one rural Local Government Area (LGA). The urban LGA is located in metropolitan Sydney, and the rural LGA consists of small towns and remote areas. In both sites, Program services are delivered in several locations from January 2012 to June 2013. The Program is funded by Ageing, Disability and Home Care (ADHC), Department of Family and Community Services NSW.This interim report presents the findings of the first round of data collection for the evaluation. Data were collected close to the beginning of service provision, from February to April 2012. The evaluation applies participatory research principles and includes a literature review; interviews with teachers, service providers and families; and program data about changes in the capacity of children, families and communities. It is conducted over eighteen months to June 2013, concurrent with service provision.ConclusionsIn the rural Program site, staff recruitment and retention were difficult, travelling took considerable proportions of staff time, and a shortage of health specialist and therapy services impeded Program implementation.The Program needed a set up time of more than one year to build trust within communities, and it would benefit from longer service delivery times of more than one year to achieve sustainable outcomes. The Program was extended by six months to June 2013. Engaging Aboriginal families in the Program required time to build trust with the families and communities, identifying support for general needs of the family in addition to the child’s disability needs, and achieving some short-term goals. Collaboration with schools and preschools was facilitated by existing experience with disability issues among teaching staff, and by good internal communication within schools and preschools. Partnerships with other local service providers were easier to establish in locations where Northcott was well-known and staff had personal connections in the community. The participatory action research methodology used in the evaluation gave Northcott staff the opportunity to gain research and evaluation experience and to improve the Program as it progressed.Authored by Christiane Purcal, BJ Newton, Karen R. Fisher, Christine Eastman and Terri Mears

Self-directed disability support: building people’s capacity through peer support and action research

How are people with disability experiencing and managing the transition towards self directed support and preparing for the NDIS? In this project, small groups of people with disability around Australia met over 6 months to talk about their disability support. The peer support groups enabled action research about how they are deciding the practical details about support, such as how, when and by whom it is provided

Supported accommodation evaluation framework (SAEF) guide

High hopes for the NDIS are that people with disability will be able to live as independently as they choose, with the housing of their choice, and with the paid support that suits their preferences and life goals. Research conducted by the Social Policy Research Centre for the NSW government about disability housing support that is like the NDIS found that most people did achieve some positive outcomes. Least change was evident in people’s interpersonal relationships and employment, and some people did not live in housing that met their needs.&nbsp

How do self‐advocates use community development to change attitudes to disability?

Background Negative attitudes remain a major barrier to the equality of people with disability, especially when coupled with the lack of autonomy imposed on many people. This paper analyses how disability self‐advocacy groups seek to change community attitudes and work towards systemic change by mobilising knowledge from their lived experience. Methods The paper applies a cycle of praxis community development approach (a cycle of experience, learning and reflection, synthesis and planning, and implementation and review) to conceptualise and analyse their activities. The methods were a desktop document search, focus groups and reflective analysis with members of two self‐advocacy groups. Findings A synthesised data analysis found that applying the four‐part community development framework was useful to understand the practice and the purpose of work by self‐advocacy groups to change attitudes. The analysis also demonstrates the benefits for advocates and codesigned activities to intentionally apply the cycle of praxis model to guide their future efforts to change attitudes. Conclusions The research provides evidence that self‐advocacy groups achieve sustained impacts on attitudes in the community, beyond the direct benefit to their members. Government investment in self‐advocacy has potential to leverage wider system change in attitudes to achieve policy goals for the rights of people with disability. Methodologically, the research also has implications for the benefit of inclusive roles in reflective analysis to understand the lived experience of how practices contribute to system change. The design is an opportunity for inclusive researchers to intentionally incorporate reflective analysis into research processes

Community attitudes to people with disability: scoping project

This paper is an initial step towards building an evidence base on Australian community attitudes to people with disability, on the impact of these attitudes on outcomes for people with disability and on effective policies for improving community attitudes towards them. In this context, ‘outcome’ refers to the experiences of people with disability as measured by social policy indicators within the domains of education, employment, community and social participation, health and wellbeing, housing and access to support services. People with disability and their families and carers have reported the effects of negative attitudes towards disability across all life domains; further evidence of these effects includes the experiences of discrimination reported to the Australian Human Rights Commission and constant investments by governments in efforts to change community attitudes. The need to address attitudes was featured in the reports of the consultations for both the National Disability Strategy and the National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy (Deane 2009; DEEWR 2009). FaHCSIA commissioned the SPRC to conduct a scoping project investigating current research on community attitudes towards people with disability

National evaluation (2004-2008) of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy 2004-2009

This report covers three of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy initiatives - Communities for Children (CfC), Invest to Grow and Local Answers. It examines service provision, service coordination, Indigenous families and children in CfC sites, factors that facilitate or hinder service provision and outcomes, and sustainability.Many research participants compared the SFCS 2004–2009 model favourably with other funding models noting that it gave service providers considerable control over the types of services they could provide and the way they could deliver them. Programs benefited greatly from consultations and partnerships with Indigenous organisations and community members, but effective community engagement takes considerable time, especially in rural and remote areas. Partnerships, better coordinated services, and a focus on early childhood may be long-term outcomes of the SFCS 2004–2009 initiative in some areas. However, without ongoing funding, it is unlikely that SFCS 2004–2009 programs will be sustainable. Short-term interventions can fuel resentment and mistrust. Furthermore, preliminary positive program outcomes may diminish, and potential benefits remain unrealised without sustained funding. The evaluation was undertaken over four years by a consortium comprising the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, supported by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. This report is written by Kristy Muir, Ilan Katz, Christiane Purcal, Roger Patulny, Saul Flaxman, David Abelló, Natasha Cortis, Cathy Thomson, Ioana Oprea, Sarah Wise, Ben Edwards, Matthew Gray and Alan Hayes

Social Action Partners: peer support for children and young people with intellectual disability and their families in Victoria

This project used a social action research approach with two groups of Victorian children and young people with intellectual disability aged 9-22 and their parents. The groups conducted research and provided peer support about their experiences with self-directed disability support. The intentions were to build capacity among children, young people and families for the transition to a policy context of self-directed support under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and to build capacity within the disability community for self-direction, strengthen peer support and develop research competence. Three facilitator organisations ran two workshops with each group. Data was generated and collected through discussion, artefacts from the workshops, feedback forms, demographic surveys, notes written by the facilitators and teleconferences with the facilitators. The findings cover the extent to which children, young people and parents had used self-directed disability support and their thoughts about its future possibilities for them, as well as children and young people’s reflections on their participation in school, work, volunteering, relationships and their aspirations for the future – for children and young people, funding and support were a means to achieving their goals in these life areas. The findings also cover the experience and outcomes of information sharing, mentoring, role modelling and the opportunity for dedicated dialogue and discussion time available in the groups formed for the project. The project’s findings have policy implications for children, young people and parents’ access to self-directed support options in the future; their control over managing their support; how to better cater to information needs; the importance of peer support, information sharing and opportunities for discussion in developing capacity for self-directed support; and the need to focus decisions about support arrangements on the aspirations of children and young people.  For more information, visit the SPRC websit