And they call themselves "professionals"

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Services suck for every disability group in the country of Australia, which is the whole reason behind the NDIS. Having said that it does depend on which state you are in as to what you get. As for getting him into a group, well that would be one interesting one, given that there are parents of adult children in ALL states who have been in waiting lists for more than 30 years and still cannot get a bed in a group home for their child. I am also yet to know of any state that provides any supported accommodation to anyone that does not have an intellectual disability. I would question what respite care you are getting, whether you are registered with your states disability services and the like. I am not for one second saying it is enough, the fact is even if you are entitled to services all that happens is that you get shoved onto waitiing lists anyway. As for missing out on early intervention I was the same. I am now 37, it is not as though I managed to get anything provided to me as a child and I did not even get teachers aide support. I was simply sat in a mainstream classroom, and told I would be ret*d for life. Contrary to all advice my parents moved to my older siblings elite private school in year 9. Within 2 days they had a specilaised teacher working with me and that teacher was finally able to unlook what was inside of me. I have to this day the speech skills of a 4 year old, and rarely if ever speak as I simply find it too difficult, the receptive skills of a 10 year old, but once I learnt to read and write at the age of 15 I finally found a way in which I could communicate with the world. I am incredibly grateful that I had the chance to go to that school and to find that teacher that was willing to spend needed with me, and that was done out of school hours. If it was not for her, I would not be who I am today. Having said that I was beaten and raped by my parents and it was all justified on the basis that it was treating my autism.

I personally find the amount of money that goes into teachers aides quite pathetic. Not just in terms of numbers of hours provided, but also in how useless they actually are. A child with a disability needs a teacher who is trained to understand how they learn. A child who is blind does not seem some untrained person sitting next to them. They need a teacher who can read braille and who can explain to them why that set of dots is an A and the like. A child who is deaf needs a teacher who can communicate in sign language and can understand how a deaf child learns. A child who is intellectually disbabled needs a teacher who understands how they learn and can help them to reach their full potential. A child with a profound intellectual disability does not gain from sitting in a year 12 chemistry class and nor can a year 12 chemistry teacher or the like possibly know how to prepare an appropraite education for them. I agree that children should be included in mainstream schoools where this is appropraite for them, but it needs to be done with some specialised assistance and the like. No teacher can ever know how to teach every single disabled child. Every child is different, add in a disability of any sort and it coufounds things even more.

No one has ever recieved early intervention until a few years ago. And disability services suck everywhere. That does not mean that laws do not say that you are not entitled to services. The difficulty is getting hold of the few services that do exist and fighting for those and without lawyers that is incredibly diffiuclt. I have had autism advisors tell me that no services exist for me, but I have been able to find what I do have now and to also find lawyers to help me to get the services that I am legally entitled to in my state.

HACC services do exist in ALL states of Australia and at an absolute minimum you should be able to get a few hours of respite care a week from them. From there it would depend on your state as to what you are entitled to. As for Autism advisors I personally do not trust them. The one thing they could suggest required that I have a full time carer on the carer's pension and that was a social group once a month that I would not have coped with anyway. One really does wonder sometimes where half of them get their jobs from.

ALL children and adults with Autism are entitled to a mental health care plan for 12 sessions per year with a psychologist or occupational therapist for anxiety related to the Autism. Autism is also considered a chronic condition and does entitle you to the 5 sessions per calander year of the Enhanced Primary Care Plan, which can involve speech therapy, as well as OT and Psychology, and other things, but they are the usual for Autism. And those under the age of 15 are entitled to the extra 20 sessions per lifetime for children on the autism spectrum. I am well aware that these things are pittances in comparison to what is needed, but being able to access the OT and psychologist now, which I could not do years ago, is much better for me. Is it enough, of course not, but it is something and it does help me. I do know that both the Occupational Therapy Association of Australia and the Australian Psychological Society have a list of accredited autism specialists which is where I found the ones that I work with.

There are many states that are now providing an individualised budget for those that are considered to be eligible for services and this allows the person and/or their loved ones to decide what to spend the funds on. No the amount of money they get is rarely if ever enough, but at least they are being given choices as to what they want to do with the funding allocated to them. I am in the process of getting onto the waiting list for such a package. It is also what is being suggested under the NDIS. That instead of so called professioanls saying this person needs this, etc, the person and their family can decide what to do with the allocated funding. What tends to happen is that once they turn school age, at most they get provided with respite, but this way, you could choose to fund therapy instead if you wanted to. No you should not have to choose between them, you should get what you need, ie. both,, but at the absolute minimum you should be deciding how that funding allocation is spent.
A funding allocation for a group home placement could for instance be spent to help you support him to live at home or independently. WHY should government officals who know nothing of the day to day, and us as people, decide what we need and what we are offered. I can assure you that some offical sitting behind a desk 100 km away cannot possibly know what I need to support me to live my life, and above all it is my life and I should be able to live it how I want to, with reasonable levels of support provided to me. It is my life and it should be my choice. I sort of accept that funding is not adequate, but I hate it when they then try and decide what they will and will not fund. Give the amount of me, and yes I will prove exactly how it spent, and it will be for disability purposes, but let me decide how it is spent. What one person needs is not what another needs and it is definately not what they want.

From what I know and hear the worst states in Australia are SA and NSW, but there are horror stories in other states and everywhere else. There are people everywhere who seem to get what they need and others who seem to get absolute nothing at all.