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

Making mental health services better for people with intellectual disability

This is an Easy Read of the report 'Consultations to develop the Intellectual Disability Mental Health (IDMH) Strategy', developed to be accessible and provided in multiple formats

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

Factors that help people with disability to self-manage their support

Disability policy in many countries encourages people to self-manage their disability support funds, yet few people do. This is also the case with Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Little is known about who chooses self-management and how they sustain it. This project explored the conditions and resources conducive to self-management in the interests of the person with disability. It used Katzman and Kinsella’s typology of self-management work to analyse the current conditions that facilitate or hinder self-management. The research demonstrated unequal take-up of self-management, particularly by location and disability type. Often, a family member self-manages on behalf of the person with disability. Conditions and resources people needed to sustain self-management included prior experience and socio-economic advantage, or resources to fill these gaps. Implications are that resources such as advocates, peers, organisations or support coordination can help fill the gap between people with and without personal and social advantages

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