Victorian Disability Sector Awards Transcript: Lifetime Achievement Award winner – Denise West, Scope Kew

I have a nephew who was born with profound deafness, a hearing impairment, and I guess part of the work that we did with him around learning sign language as a family was something that attracted me to disability. Oh, once you're in it you don't go (laughs). I love it. You know, it's the people, it's the families, it's actually the colleagues that we have within Scope, and I think for me it's also working alongside people with disabilities and continuing to learn and to look at how we can do things better to support people with disabilities.

Communication is a basic human right, and I think that if you can't speak then you are

at risk of being marginalised, not being included in community life, not having the same access to employment, services, to citizenship opportunities. So it is really important and for many people who've got communication difficulties their language may be different to yours and I, and it's really important I think for the community to recognise that as a valid form of communication, and also for people to be communicated to in a way that's respectful and recognises that they've got something to contribute.

To start seeing that symbol out and about, and being recognised, feels like a bit of a life-long work, but you know we'd like to see it, you know I've got staff on my team who'd say 'I want to see it across the world' and I say 'Well, that's a great vision, let's just start with Australia'. But it's really reaffirming, and I think it really reaffirms the importance of services and communities to be communication accessible, and that is for everyone. It's about good customer service, it's about being prepared to communicate respectfully, and give people time to get their message across, and whether they've got a disability or not, shouldn't make a difference.