Disability Inclusion Needs Action Now
Things are about to get interesting in the world of Disability and Disability inclusion
The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability held its final sitting last Friday and they are providing their findings to the Governor-General on Thursday 28 September 2023. The inquiry has taken nearly four and a half years, had thirty two major hearings, received over 7,900 submissions, held 1,785 private sessions and has shared the real life experiences of over 1,500 people with disability, with statements such as:
- “Being black in this state [WA] was hard, but being black and in a wheelchair was a nightmare because absolutely no-one sees you.”
- “As someone with a learning disability, I’m not stupid. I’m quite intelligent, and I work outside the box … I actually consider my learning disability a gift.”
Professor Bruce Bonyhady AM, the NDIS review co-chair has also been on the media circuit talking about the long-awaited outcomes of the NDIS review, which is due to be completed in October 2023. Both processes are very much driving to the fact that disability is more than just the people on the NDIS. It’s more than a budget line item. It is a responsibility for every single one of us to review our unconscious biases and look at how we can make the world a better place for its largest minority group.
Professor Bonyhady stated on 6th September “Roughly one-in-five Australians live with disability – but only one-in-fifty Australians receive an individualised support package from the NDIS. The vast majority of people with disability are not in the NDIS – and never will be – because they do not need an individualised package to meet their needs or fully participate in the community if attitudes change and mainstream services are accessible and inclusive of people with disability”.
In reference to the NDIS, Professor Bonyhady states “People are trying to squeeze their lives into lines in the NDIS price guide”. One of the changes he is proposing is the process for people to get their NDIS Packages: “The first step would be information gathering. The focus here would be on support needs rather than the price guide. What activities do you do? How much support do you need to undertake them? And how often do you need those supports?”
But in my opinion, this scope is too shallow. There is a real data gathering opportunity here. And as the weathered saying goes, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. People with disability, particularly those with significant disability have often been told what is and isn’t available to them. Even if something is advertised as being accessible, many people with disability will give a very different presentation of how accessible it really was. So, by focusing in on what do you currently do and how are you currently supported, we are missing the much bigger picture of how do we change attitudes and make mainstream services more accessible and inclusive?
Where should we focus our energies as a community first? The Royal Commission took aim at the aviation industry by writing to CEO’s and saying they need to do better. What about the other industries? What about the industries where people without privilege are often left to live a life or disconnection and less than?
Historically, Only NDIS Service Providers have had to interpret, adapt and live by the rules set by the NDIA, but these two reviews are hinting at recommending systems that promote the value of equal citizenship for all. This means mainstream businesses will soon be in the fold. Professor Bonyhady suggest that the NDIS market is not delivering enough of the right supports in the right locations, let alone creating value or innovation and I think that might be because we are still looking at it like it is an isolated industry. It intersects with virtually every industry in Australia, particularly those consumer driven markets.
We need targeted regulation and we need a better quality and safeguards framework – and those regulations and that framework need to be updated and expanded to include foundational supports as well as the NDIS. But for this to work we apparently need new inter-governmental agreement between the Commonwealth and States and Territories. Part of me wants to go on a tangent here and talk about how we have a minister for the NDIS but not a Minister for Disability, but I feel that response limits our own personal accountability to do things differently. The longer we sit back waiting for Royal Commission and reviews and the government to formalise changes, the longer people with disability continue to be relegated to the shadows. We all need to take at least a tiny bit of action now.
Professor Bonyhady has heavily relied on the recently released work of Dr Simon Duffy and Dr Mark Brown titled “Redesigning the NDIS – an international perspective on an Australian disability support system”. The report begins by clearly stating they want to encourage debate within the Australian disability sector, while also providing a much needed international perspective on the Australian system.
Australia is currently ranked twenty first out of twenty nine member countries in the employment participation of people with disability
In a land where we maintain everyone ‘gets a fair go’, we can and should be better than this. 44% of the complaints received by the Australian Human Rights Commission relate to disability discrimination. Studies have shown that at least 255,000 Australians with disability have avoided going to restaurants, bars or cafes in the last year, purely because of their disability.
In the words of Dr Duffy and Dr Brown “We need to understand that people’s ability to live a life of equal citizenship and reasonable security is determined by more than the money or by the services people receive. The quality of our lives is primarily shaped by our relationships, communities, gifts, passions and ability to combine all of these into a life of meaning”.
If every single business owner in Australia, including NDIS Service Providers (who will likely be the first to feel the wrath of the Disability Royal Commission findings) took a ‘marginal gains’ strategy to improving the lives of people with disability, we will see significant improvement in a very short time.
What do I mean by marginal gains? They are the small things you can adjust by only 1% to 2% such as:
- Is there acknowledgement of disability inclusion in your strategic plan?
- Do you have a reasonable adjustment policy, that means every leader across the business has the tools to allow people to bring their best and whole self to work every day?
- Do you look at your recruitment and promotion statistics to see if you have representation from minority groups?
We have recently completed a piece of work with a major Australian airport. The employees of this airport were so passionate about disability inclusion but didn’t feel like they were making enough progress. Our role was to independently review what they had done to improve the experience for people with disability, identify the ‘low hanging fruit’ and then helping them to craft their pathway to a fully inclusive and accessible airport. They were already doing a lot but there was an underlying belief that massive success requires massive action. In our work, we emphasised that this won’t necessarily work for something as nuanced as disability inclusion. The experience of disability is as varied as that of being human. A disability action plan is often where organisations seek to start, but this is itself a major defining moment.
I suspect one of the outcomes from the Royal Commission will be the recommendation that all Australian businesses of a certain size will have to have a disability inclusion action plan.
Everyone can start now by:
- Asking questions.
- Building your data sets.
- Understand what are the baseline value drivers that will resonate with both your staff and your customers/potential customers.
- Start the conversation.
I cannot emphasise enough that this process needs to be undertaken by both NDIS Service Providers and mainstream organisations. Without collaboration and innovation, people with disability will continue to fall through the gap. To help foster innovation Supporting Potential are seeking to establish a true innovation hub that combines people with disability, disability service providers and mainstream services providers.
If you would like to be a part of this initiative, please pop your details into the attached form.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SPinnovationhubeoi
For information on the NDIS and many other aspects of the disability sector please reach out Contact – Supporting Potential
