Disability Research Initiative Forum
‘The future of disability research at the University of Melbourne and beyond’
Thursday 27 April 2017
Melbourne Brain Centre
Kenneth Myer Building
30 Royal Pde, Parkville
disabilityresearch.unimelb.edu.au
Program
9:00 / Registration / Foyer9:15 / Welcome
Dr Anna Arstein-Kerslake (DRI Academic Convenor and Lecturer, Melbourne Law School)
Prof Jim McCluskey (Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research)
Prof Mark Hargreaves (Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research Collaboration & Partnerships) / MBC Auditorium
9:35 / Disability rights-based research at the University of Melbourne
Overview of the DRI’s origins and achievements
Dr Anna Arstein-Kerslake (DRI Academic Convenor and Lecturer, Melbourne Law School)
Reflections on the DRI
Prof Bernadette McSherry (Foundation Director, Melbourne Social Equity Institute)
The Scope/University of Melbourne partnership
Prof Keith McVilly (DRI Academic Chair and Professorial Fellow in Disability & Inclusion, School of Social & Political Sciences) / MBC Auditorium
10:10 / Introducing the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for Disability and Health
Prof Anne Kavanagh (Head, Gender and Women’s Health, Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health) / MBC Auditorium
10:20 / Panel A: The role of research – participation, inclusion and the realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities
Chair: Dr Piers Gooding (Research Fellow, Melbourne Social Equity Institute/Melbourne Law School)
- Jen Hargrave (Women with Disabilities Victoria)
- FrancesQuanFarrant (People with Disability Australia)
- Jody Barney (Deaf Indigenous Community Consultancy)
11:00 / Morning tea / Dax Centre Gallery
11:30 / Concurrent sessions: showcasing DRI research
Theme 1: Human rights, participation and engagement
Chair: Prof Katrina Skewes McFerran (Professor, Music Therapy, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music)
DrSue Olney, Georgia Katsikis Vas Kasidis, ‘Choice, control and the NDIS’
Prof Barbara Creed, ‘Empathy and portrayals of mental illness in Australian visual culture’
DrCathy Vaughan, ‘More than the sum of my parts: understanding intersectionality through the eyes of women with disability’
DrGrace Thompson, ‘Visual attention and emotional engagement in children with autism spectrum disorder’
Alex Holland, ‘Disability Human Rights Clinic at Melbourne Law School’
Alana Roy, ‘Developing methodologies to engage people who are DeafBlind in research and policy consultation’ / MBC Auditorium
Theme 2: Accessibility, inclusion and the built environment
Chair: Dr Jennifer Fitzgerald (Chief Executive Officer, Scope)
NanoLangenheim, ‘Topographical community accessibility modelling or people with mobility impairment’
Alicia Yon, ‘Access, participation and inclusion: the gender/disability/violence nexus and the role of integrated planning policy in addressing the right to adequate services’
Rikki Mawad Maree Ireland, ‘Disability Access to Justice Consortium’
Dr Jesse Olsen, ‘The effect of workplace adjustment characteristics on recruitment and retention of people with disability’
Dr Andrew MartelDr Georgia Warren-Myers, ‘Market forces or forcing markets: questioning the viability of a consumer-based choice approach to sustain innovation and value in accessible housing’
Assoc Prof Elaine Wong, ‘Crowdsourcing of mobility hazards to enhance the safety and independence of the vision-impaired’ / Dax Centre Education Room
12:35 / Concurrent sessions: roundtable discussions by theme
Theme 1: Human rights, participation and engagement
Chair: Prof Katrina Skewes McFerran (Professor, Music Therapy, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music) / MBC Auditorium
Theme 2: Accessibility, inclusion and the built environment
Chair: Dr Jennifer Fitzgerald (Chief Executive Officer, Scope) / Dax Centre Education Room
Discussion points:
- Where do you see avenues for further research on this theme? Are there some areas missing?
- Are there areas that could use central University of Melbourne support to get ideas off the ground?
- What are the barriers to interdisciplinary research and how can we overcome them?
- How can we ensure that research is responsive to the community?
1:15 / Lunch / Dax Centre Gallery
2:10 / Panel B: Discussion and Q&A – disability research issues and priorities for the future
Chair: Yvette Maker (Research Fellow, Disability Research Initiative)
- Jen Hargrave (Women with Disabilities Victoria)
- Prof Keith McVilly (Disability Research Initiative/School of Social and Political Sciences)
- Therese Sands (People with Disability Australia)
- Dr Jennifer Fitzgerald (Scope)
2:50 / Panel C: Discussion and Q&A – stimulating and supporting disability research
Chair: Dr Anna Arstein-Kerslake (Academic Convenor, Disability Research Initiative)
- Prof Brendan Gleeson, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute
- Prof ThasNirmalathas, Melbourne Networked Society Institute
- DrRoss Coller, Director, Campaign, Advancement Office
- Micheline Lee, PhD student, Melbourne Social Equity Institute
3:30 / Close / MBC Auditorium
Projects & partnerships
For many years medical and technological researchers at the University of Melbourne have produced high-quality and impactful work that has helped many with impairments here in Australia and around the world.The DRI builds on their important work by increasing support for our researchers who are focused on changing the social, economic and physical environments that create disability. By supporting research, policy and education using a rights-based approach and the social model, we hope to achieve change in our city, state and beyond.
Seedfunded projects 2015-2017
Choice, control and the NDIS (2015-16)
With funding partner Melbourne Social Equity Institute
Led by Helen Dickinson – School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts
The introduction of the NDIS heralds the potential for the most significant changes to disability services for over a generation. However, the experience from other systems that have implemented individualised funding schemes suggest that it is often challenging to design systems that facilitate true choice and control for people with disabilities. This project engages people with disabilities as co-researchers. The project examines the early experience of the NDIS, and explores the degree to which the scheme has been able to facilitate true choice and control for people with disabilities. The project also seeks to identify what additional information and supports are required to better enable choice and control.
Empathy and portrayals of mental illness in Australian visual culture (2015-16)
With funding partner Melbourne Social Equity Institute
Led by Barbara Creed – School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
Empathy is known to be an essential ingredient for reducing negative perceptions, misunderstandings and changing social attitudes around highly stigmatised groups such as people living with psychiatric disability (otherwise referred to in the literature as mental illnesses). Film and television (termed herein visual culture) play a critical role in this. This project examines the ways in which mental illness is portrayed in Australian film and television and the role of visual art in representing lived experiences of mental illness. Art, screen-based education programs and digital storytelling projects that empower mental health consumers to tell their own stories will be examined to explore the role of visual culture in the development of individual and communal empathy and how it may reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.
Optimising visual attention in children with autism spectrum disorder: a comparison of singing and speech (2015-16)
With funding partner Melbourne Neuroscience Institute
Led by Grace Thompson – Melbourne Conservatorium of Music
Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk of social isolation and limited social development due to difficulties with eye gaze and visual attention to people. While previous studies indicate that children with ASD may have a preference for music over other stimuli (Buday, 1995; Thaut, 1987), little is known about whether this preference translates into better attention during music participation. This pilot project will generate new understandings about how music (songs) compares to speech (story telling) in promoting visual attention and emotional engagement for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Topographical community accessibility modelling for people with mobility impairments (2015-16)
With funding partner Melbourne Networked Society Institute
Led by Marcus White – Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
People with mobility impairments face inequities navigating the urban environment. Accessibility modelling tools currently openly available to the community do not account for physical barriers such as stairs or topography.This study will develop and test novel digital design and modelling tools combining animated pedestrian accessibility, topographical mapping and flexible three dimensional modelling exploiting spatial datasets from Australia’s open source geospatial laboratory (AURIN).The research will develop prototype tools to allow people with mobility impairments, disability groups, and urban planners to model and understand accessibility in their community, providing tools to design and advocate for more inclusive urban environments. The research is immediately relevant to the disability community, and will be increasingly relevant to the wider community as the population ages.
Market forces or forcing markets: questioning the viability of a consumer-based choice approach to sustain innovation and value in accessible housing (2015-16)
With funding partner Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute
Led by Andrew Martel – Construction Management and Housing, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
The project tests the key assumption underpinning the NDIS's Housing strategy. Is a market based mechanism that promotes consumer choice able to initiate and support the significant levels of innovation in residential design and construction required to make mainstream residential dwellings in Australia accessible and usable by occupants living with a disability? The project examines how innovation is developed in the housing industry currently, and the prospects for an NDIS led industry transformation. The project team includes industry partners from the development industry and disability support service providers, and academics from the architecture, construction and real estate disciplines.
Crowdsourcing of mobility hazards to enhance the safety and independence of the vision-impaired (2015-16)
With funding partner Melbourne Networked Society Institute
Led by Elaine Wong – Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Melbourne School of Engineering
The World Health Organization predicts that there are currently 285 million people worldwide that are vision-impaired, with a staggering 82% aged 50 and above. We are currently investigating the first portable vision device to specially detect non-protruding obstacles such as potholes and descending curbs, which are genuine fall risk factors for aged vision-impaired persons when using wheelchairs and walking frames. Through the DRI funding, we aim to enhance the device's potential by integrating a critical feature of being able to automatically upload and download hazard locations through a user-friendly mobile app interface. Specifically, every time a hazard is detected, the device will interface with the mobile phone to upload its location to a database. Uploaded hazard locations will be stored in a central database in a hosted environment and will be automatically retrieved and displayed on the mobile phone when the user approaches a hazard. That is, a user of the device will be alerted of a known hazard should he/she approach the hazard. Using crowdsourcing, we therefore aim to establish a comprehensive hazard database. Collectively, the device and its database of known hazards will positively impact the independence and significantly reducing the fall risk of a growing group of vision-impaired persons.
Disability and poverty in Cambodia (2015-16)
Led by Barbara McPake and Michael Palmer – Nossal Institute for Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dental and Health Sciences
This study estimates the economic costs of disability and their impact on poverty in Cambodia so as to inform the design of disability-inclusive policies and programs in accordance with the Government’s obligations under the national Law on the Protection and the Promotion of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2009).
More than the sum of my parts: understanding intersectionality through the eyes of women with disability (2016-17)
Led by Cathy Vaughan – Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
The experience of disability interacts with that of other socially constructed identities, including those based on gender, ethnicity, sexuality and age. These interactions shape individuals’ relationships, experiences of discrimination, and access to a range of community resources. This project will involve collaborative development and piloting of approaches to understanding how diverse social identities interact to influence the perspectives and experiences of women with disability in Victoria, specifically in relation to sexual and reproductive health and rights. The project will also foster dialogue with stakeholders to identify priorities for further research and implications for disability (and other) policy and practice.
The effect of workplace adjustment characteristics on recruitment and retention of people with disability (2016-17)
Led by Jesse Olsen – Centre for Workplace Leadership, Faculty of Business and Economics
This project aims to investigate the effects of workplace adjustment characteristics (such as timeliness and appropriateness) on the recruitment and retention of people with disabilities within an organisation. The Centre for Workplace Leadership (CWL) has been in partnership with the Australian Network on Disability (AND) to create an Access and inclusion Index which will be used by AND and employers to measure the extent of their access and inclusion for people (both employers and clients) with disabilities. The Index will go “live” on 1 July 2016 and will be leveraged towards achieving the project aims.
Experiences of discrimination and bullying against Australians with disabilities (2016-17)
Led by Anne Kavanagh – Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
The aim of this project is to describe the extent of bullying and discrimination experienced by Australians with disability, and the impact of these on their social and economic participation, as well as their health and wellbeing. The findings will inform the development of two grant proposals. The project is being conducted with the Attitude Foundation. The Foundation aims to relieve discrimination experienced by Australians with disability and shape a new understanding of disability.
Social inclusion for young people affected by psychosocial disability in Uttarakhand, India (2016-17)
Led by Michelle Kermode – Nossal Institute for Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
A multi-disciplinary team from the University of Melbourne and India will support the implementation of rights-based, peer-led, community-based actions among young people affected by psychosocial disability in North India. Aiming to promote social inclusion, the project comprises Youth Wellness groups, parent groups, youth advocacy workshops, and the formation of a district youth forum. Qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to evaluate the impact of the intervention. Likely outcomes include strengthened parental and community support for young people with disabilities, greater participation by young people with psycho-social disabilities in existing Disabled Persons Organisations, and strengthened state engagement with disability, mental health and youth. The project design is sustainable, with a strong potential for replication/scale-up in other parts of India and beyond.
Women and disability: stand-up comedy as a tool for advocacy (2016-17)
Led by Mary Luckhurst – Directorate, Victorian College of the Arts
Working with Women with Disabilities Victoria (WDV) and Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF), this project uses the vehicle of stand-up comedy to research and develop a new inclusive model to identify, communicate and profile women’s disability rights. The aim is to model stand-up as a new tool of human rights advocacy for and by women with disability, and to explore the foundation for further research on stand-up as a major international developmental tool for disability rights.
19 stories of social inclusion: lessons from the lives of everyday Australians on belonging, disability and community contribution (2016-17)
Led by Piers Gooding – Melbourne Social Equity Institute and Melbourne Law School
“19 Stories of Social Inclusion” tells the story of 19 individual Australians living full lives in their communities. The project explores what it means for people with disabilities to be “socially included”, and what it means to exercise the right to live independently and be included in the community, in line with Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The materials will be publicly available to serve as a resource for government and civil society, including policymakers, people with disabilities, families, professionals, academics and students.
Ethical fashion and preventing violence in Bangladesh (2016-17)
Funded by the DRI through the MAEVe 2016 seed-funding round
Led by Rimi Khan – School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
While employment in the garment industry is claimed to offer Bangladeshi women a pathway out of spaces of domestic violence, women in garment factories still experience significant levels of physical and sexual abuse. The rise of ‘ethical fashion’ enterprises presents an alternative route to women’s social, cultural and economic empowerment.This project examines the role of ethical fashion enterprises in Bangladesh in the primary prevention of violence against women by (1) investigating how such enterprises contribute to increased respect and recognition for women’s labour, and (2) asking whether the benefits of ethical fashion are individual and localised ones, or whether they contribute to a broader, systematic infrastructure for the prevention of violence against women.
Listening for (a) change: identifying strategies for preventing family violence through dialogical research with women with refugee backgrounds (2016-17)
Funded by the DRI through the MAEVe 2016 seed-funding round