DARU Update
12 September 2011
· IN THE NEWS
· EVENTS
· PUBLICATIONS AND RESOURCES
· SUBMISSIONS, CONSULTATIONS AND FORUMS
· FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
· PAID AND VOLUNTARY POSITIONS
IN THE NEWS
New Advisory Group on School Students with Disability
Joint Media Release, The Hon Peter Garrett MP, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth and Senator the Hon Jan McLucas, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carer, 7 September 2011
A new Schools Disability Advisory Council will provide ongoing, expert advice to the Gillard Government on how to provide more support and better services for students with disability.
Minister for School Education Peter Garrett and Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers Senator Jan McLucas made the announcement in Sydney today during a forum with 65 stakeholders from the disability and education sectors.
“Improving services and support for people with disabilities is a key priority for the Gillard Government, and education is no exception,” Mr Garrett said.
“The new advisory council will comprise peak representative organisations from the disability sector as well as academic experts. Membership of the panel will be announced shortly.
“The Gillard Government has a number of important initiatives underway to improve the quality and consistency of support that schools are able to provide to students with disability.”
Initiatives discussed at the forum today include:
· The $200 million More Support for Students with Disability initiative, announced by the Prime Minister in this year’s Budget, with funds to be available to schools next year;
· The development of a nationally consistent definition of disability, which will give Governments a better understanding of current and future needs in the education system; and
· The Australian Government Review of School Funding, chaired by David Gonski, which is examining the funding support provided to schools working with students with disability.
Senator McLucas said improving learning and skills for people with disabilities was a key plank of the National Disability Strategy, launched earlier this year.
“The National Disability Strategy recognises that targeted support is needed to help those people who are at a disadvantage get a quality education both at school and into their adult life,” she said.
“We know that investing in early intervention for children with disabilities before they get to school gives them the best chance of reaching their full potential.
“That’s why the Gillard Government is delivering early intervention programs including the $147 million Better Start for Children with Disability, which provides up to $12,000 for children under the age of 7 to access a range of services and therapies.”
For further information on the forum visit: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/Programs/Pages/NatSchDisabilityStakeholderForum.aspx
For further information on the More Support for Students with Disabilities, visit: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/Programs/Pages/MoreSupportforSWD.aspx.
To read this article online, visit:
http://www.deewr.gov.au/ministers/garrett/media/releases/pages/article_110907_083654.aspx
VCAL Funding Axe Falls on Most Vulnerable
Jessica Bennett. Moorabbin Leader, 7 September 2011
The State Government’s axing of funds for vocational education will hit the most vulnerable students the hardest, local schools and training organisations say.
Last week the Moorabbin Leader reported the Government had cut $12 million allocated to co-ordinate the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning, leaving secondary schools such as Westall Secondary College in Clayton South out of pocket by up to $50,000.
A spokesman for Skills Minister Peter Hall said the funding was to establish the program eight years ago and was no longer needed.
Berendale Special School acting principal Bruce McPhate said almost every student at the Hampton East school completed VCAL rather than VCE.
“Because it is an applied certificate they are out in the community gaining the skills they need and for students with an intellectual disability that’s really important,” he said. “It also helps to break down barriers in the community.”
To read the full story, visit:
http://moorabbin-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/axe-falls-on-most-vulnerable/
National Auslan Interpreter Booking and Payment Service Wins Award
The National Auslan Interpreter Booking and Payment Service (NABS) was recently awarded the Australian Business Award for Public Service 2011. The award recognises the NABS commitment to the deaf community and the professionalism of Auslan interpreters throughout Australia.
The NABS provides a free accredited Auslan interpreter for deaf Auslan users attending medical consultations provided in a private medical practice that either attract a Medicare rebate or are specified health consultations.
The NABS commenced in 2005 and:
· operates a call centre, and a web-based and mobile phone booking service for Auslan interpreters
· has more than 500 accredited Auslan Interpreters available nationally
· books around 18,000 appointments per year
· delivers a flexible Diploma of Interpreting.
In March 2011 the NABS celebrated its 100,000th interpreter booking.
For more information about the NABS, phone 1800 246 945 or visit their website at;
http://www.nabs.org.au/01_what_is_nabs.htm
For more information about the Australian Business Awards 2011, visit:
http://www.businessawards.com.au/
Call for Ban on Sterilising Disabled
Michelle Griffin, The Age Social Affairs Editor, 7September 2011
The federal Disability and Sex Discrimination Commissioners Graeme Innes and Elizabeth Broderick have called on the Attorney-General to ban the sterilisation of children - unless there is a compelling medical reason - regardless of whether they have a disability, and of adults with disability without their informed consent.
''It is the [Human Rights] Commission's position that [sterilisation] shouldn't occur apart from therapeutic circumstances,'' Mr Innes said. ''Even if it is occurring, there should be court supervision, and that is not happening in many cases.''
The sterilisation of intellectually disabled women and girls is seriously under-reported, Mr Innes said, and the Human Rights Commission has anecdotal evidence that girls are still being sterilised by doctors who bypass regulations requiring them to apply to courts for permission. Mr Innes is working with the Family Court of Australia and all the guardianship boards across Australia to update the numbers of officially sanctioned sterilisations.
''The numbers from the Family Court will be low, and when we get the data back from the guardianship boards, it will be relatively low,'' Mr Innes said. ''Is that because it's not going on or that they're not being asked? I think it's the latter.''
Mr Innes said he was talking to the Attorney-General about unifying sterilisation regulations, which vary from state to state.
Under-reporting was found to be widespread the last time sterilisation was researched, in 2001 by Women With Disabilities Australia, and also in 1997, when the Human Rights Commission last examined the issue.
Families and carers still ask for sterilisation because they do not realise they have other options, according to Carolyn Frohmader from Women With Disabilities Australia
To read the full article, visit:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/call-for-ban-on-sterilising-disabled-20110906-1jvx8.html#ixzz1XE3xCPw8
Disability Rights Fund Receives AUD 1.2 Million from AusAID
Media Release, Diana Samarasan, Director, 6 September 2011
The Disability Rights Fund (DRF) has announced the receipt of a grant of AUD 1.2 million (USD 1.28 million) from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). This grant provides ongoing support for grantmaking to disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs) in the Global South to advocate for their rights.
“This contribution underscores the Australian government’s ground-breaking commitment to disability inclusive development,” stated DRF’s Director Diana Samarasan, “and supports Australian Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd’s, recent declaration that, ‘enhancing the lives of people with disabilities has been incorporated within the core development objectives of the aid portfolio.’”
Utilizing the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), DRF supports the human rights advocacy of DPOs in the Middle East, Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union and the Global South. The Disability Rights Fund is a unique organization advised by a global panel whose members come from five continents and reflect a broad cross-section of the disability community. Advisors work with donors to oversee the grantmaking process.
AusAID’s Director of Disability Inclusive Development, Rosemary Mckay, who is attending the Conference of States Parties on the CRPD stated that, “The DRF is a very important partner for AusAID as it helps us to reach small and emerging DPOs allowing them to have their voices heard, many for the first time. AusAID’s assistance has enabled the DRF to open grantmaking to countries in our region including all Pacific Island countries and Indonesia. For example, a grant of $30,000 in 2010 to the Papua New Guinea Assembly of Disabled Persons enabled them to successfully lobby for CPRD signature and to build momentum for ratification by expanding knowledge about the Convention among people with disabilities in rural areas.”
Mental Health Issues
The Age is conducting an investigation into Mental Health. Below are 2 of the stories that have appeared in the paper this week.
Mental Health Care Inquiry
Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie, The Age, 6 September 2011
Premier Ted Baillieu last night ordered a wide-ranging inquiry into dozens of patient deaths inside Victoria's mental health system.
The inquiry follows a report in The Saturday Age exposing the high rates of unexpected and unnatural deaths in the state's mental health wards, and raising serious questions about standards of care and allegations of cover-ups.
The Age published new revelations about the use of electric shock therapy in Victoria, with documents showing how hundreds of mentally ill people are forced to undergo the procedure without their consent.
Mr Baillieu's office last night announced that the state's Chief Psychiatrist, Ruth Vine, would investigate the way the state's health services handled all unexpected, unnatural or violent deaths involving mental health inpatients between January 2008 and December 2010.
The investigation follows The Saturday Age's revelation that 36 Victorians had died in mental health wards during that period.
Dr Vine will examine each hospital internal inquiry into the deaths and whether all recommendations for improvements by health services or the Coroner were acted on or ignored.
''The Chief Psychiatrist will report back the findings of these investigations to the Minister for Mental Health by the end of 2011,'' a statement from the Premier's office said.
The Age was yesterday inundated with responses and information from Victorians regarding their concerns about the state of the public mental health system.
The inquiry comes as The Age has learnt that hundreds of mentally ill Victorians forced to undergo electric shock therapy without their consent are being given far more sessions of the controversial treatment than those who choose it voluntarily.
In 2009-10, 1111 Victorians received electroconvulsive therapy, a procedure that induces seizures by delivering an electric current to the brain, in the public mental health system.
Of these, 377 - or about one third - were deemed involuntary patients who did not consent to the treatment commonly known as ECT.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show involuntary mental health patients received more than half of the 12,968 ECT sessions administered in the public psychiatric system last year.
Victoria is the only jurisdiction in Australia that allows treating psychiatrists to administer ECT without consent or external review.
ECT remains one of the most divisive and controversial treatments in psychiatric care. Proponents argue that it is an effective way to fight depression and a safe alternative to drugs that have dangerous side effects. Critics claim ECT causes memory loss, headaches and confusion.
Victoria's Mental Health Minister, Mary Wooldridge, last night told The Age that new mental health laws would be introduced ''to put in place better safeguards and clinical checks to ensure appropriate use'' of electro-convulsive therapy.
Victoria's Mental Health Legal Centre said new laws were needed to better protect mental health patients and to ensure nobody was forced to undergo procedures such as ECT against their will.
"The Mental Health Legal Centre is of the view that ECT should only be performed with the full, free and informed consent of the person,'' said the centre's lawyer, Catherine Leslie.
''Involuntary ECT is a serious infringement on a person's human rights.'' The use of ECT in Victoria's public and private psychiatric services has increased sharply in recent years.
In public mental health services, its use has increased by 12 per cent since 2003-04, according to Department of Health figures. Private ECT sessions in Victoria have increased by 71 per cent during the same period, Medicare figures released to The Age show.
Dr Vine recently attributed the rise in private ECT treatments to an increase in psychiatric beds in the private sector and more patients choosing to use the procedure to combat depression. Dr Vine said ECT was a safe and effective form of treatment.
''The biggest issue (with ECT) I have to say is the difficulty we have in shaking community perception about this being in some way negative when for many people it is a very effective treatment,'' she told The Age.
But a recent international review of ECT cases by psychologists found the treatment may cause permanent brain damage and long-term memory loss.
The study's lead author, John Read, of the University of Auckland, examined placebo-controlled studies and concluded shock therapy had minimal effects for people with depression and schizophrenia.
The review, published in the journal Epidemiologia e Psichiatra Sociale last year, found almost all ECT patients suffered some amnesia. ''For a proportion of those people some of that memory loss is recouped over time,'' Associate Professor Read said.
''However, we are now seeing that for a significant proportion of people that brain dysfunction is permanent. ECT can, for a minority of people, produce some very short-term benefits; it can lift people's mood quite quickly.''
''Mental health is the only area of medicine where you can be forced to receive a treatment against your will. It borders on discrimination, I'm talking about medication as well,'' Professor Read said.
To read the full article online, visit:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/mental-health-care-inquiry-20110905-1juiy.html#ixzz1XE4Ykpu7
State Urged to Act on 'Shocking' Death Rates in Mental Care
The Age, Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker, 5 September 2011
Victoria’s disabilities watchdog has called for urgent reforms to address the ''shocking'' number of people dying in the state's psychiatric facilities - 36 over two years - amid fresh revelations about the mistreatment of mentally ill people.
The Public Advocate, Colleen Pearce, says more needs to be done to prevent unexpected, unnatural or violent deaths in the mental health system - and to ensure grieving families and the public are told why such deaths are occurring, and at such a high rate.