TRANSCRIPT
FAMILY AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Inquiry into social inclusion and Victorians with a disability
Melbourne — 20 March 2014
Members
Mrs A. Coote
Ms B. Halfpenny
Mr J. Madden
Mr D. O’Brien
Ms D. Ryall
Chair: Ms D. Ryall
Deputy Chair: Ms B. Halfpenny
Staff
Executive Officer: Dr J. Bush
Research Officer: Ms V. Finn
Administrative Officer: Ms N. Tyler
Witness
Ms F. Still, chief executive officer, Solve Disability Solutions Inc.
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The DEPUTY CHAIR — Thank you and welcome. Thanks for coming.
Ms STILL — I am Fiona Still, I am the chief executive officer of Solve Disability Solutions. We were
formally known as TADVIC, which was formally known as Technical Aid to the Disabled, so in this
evolutionary era that we are in names are changing and better describe what we do.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Before we start your presentation, I will just go through a couple of things. As
outlined in the guide provided, the evidence that you give before the committee is under the provisions of the
Parliamentary Committees Act 2003 and other legislation and therefore it attracts parliamentary privilege. But
any issue that you talk relating to this outside these hearings is not governed by parliamentary privilege. We also
recording the hearings, and the transcript will be sent to you when it becomes available. The normal system is if
you could give a presentation — I think we spoke about 15 minutes or so — that then gives us lots of time to
ask questions.
Ms STILL — Thank you.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — If you do not mind, if there is further information that perhaps we have not been
able to put to you, if you do not mind, we will write to you and maybe just follow up a few other things?
Ms STILL — That is fine.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Good. Thank you.
Ms STILL — I have been here through the last two presentations because I am also a member of the Aids
and Equipment Action Alliance, and I wanted to make sure that I pitched my presentation to complement theirs.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — I thought you went out, and I thought you looked very similar to the person who
was sitting there a while ago.
Ms STILL — Exact same person. I just wanted to make sure that I touched on different things, or
complementary things, and I did not want that to be the same.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Good idea. Thanks.
Ms STILL — Solve Disability Solutions is an organisation that custom makes equipment for people with
disabilities. Our aim is to enhance independence and quality of life, and how we do it is through filling a niche,
a gap, in the market. What we do is design and construct equipment when there is nothing commercially
available, we modify commercially available equipment to better suit the needs of people with disabilities and
we provide information and advice where we cannot, and that sort of thing. How we do that is through the use
of skilled volunteers.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — It is not part of the funding process?
Ms STILL — We are funded through DHS.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Okay, sorry.
Ms STILL — We are a statewide service, so have NDIS clients as well as DHS clients. How we do that is
we have skilled volunteers. They have got engineering, trade, other specialist technical skills, and we employ
occupational therapists. Working in a person-centred approach in a team with the person with a disability, our
technically skilled volunteers and health professionals come up with solutions. We use a problem-based
approach. People might come to us and say, ‘I want you to make a widget for us’, and we go back and say,
‘That is fantastic. What do you want to do with that widget?’, and start from there. I have been in management
for a few years now, but as an occupational therapist I would not know what wood or steel to use or how long
the screws should be or how strong things should be. That is where the competence of our volunteers comes in,
and together with that person with a disability we can come up with something that is going to meet their needs.
That is what we see as our core competency: the ability to bring that technical skill together with the health
professional skill to solve an individual’s unique problem.
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One of the things that I want to say in presenting about inclusiveness is for us to be able to do our job there have
got to be a whole lot of other structures in place. They are things that the Aids and Equipment Action Alliance
touched on. One of them is looking at that the world is inclusive, and there is that universal design or inclusive
design principle. I am a visual learner; Justin has got it at the moment, this sort of presentation I have included
some visual examples of our work.
Mrs COOTE — I like that wine-tipper. I think that wine-tipper is pretty good.
Ms STILL — Yes, it is great, isn’t it?
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Or even this, there.
Mrs COOTE — Yes, great.
Ms STILL — I think our pictures do tell our story, so I thought that was important.
Mrs COOTE — Yes, and the chopping board is great.
Ms STILL — I have got examples, and there are things that have been touched on, so I will not labour
them — things like transport. It was interesting, Peter’s and Natasha’s earlier different perspectives on that. But
a universal or inclusive design is not about people with disabilities, it is not about people without disabilities; it
is about people. I suppose in terms of being socially inclusive, everything we do should just be about people. If
you are breathing, you have a value and we should welcome you in society. If we start from that basis,
everything should flow. Accessible transport is important for that.
The other thing that I am putting, because I am very basic, is the tap. I think it is really nice to step back. I will
explain this for the record. When I first came into disability, places like Solve were making lots of these, in the
first picture. It is a tap-turner that has been put onto a crystal tap, so an old-fashioned tap modified. I am sorry I
do not have page numbers on there.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — That is all right.
Ms STILL — There are similar organisations in every state and we made lots of those. There became a
commercial market for them. Then we went, ‘Oh, in hospitals they have got those great lever taps that surgeons
use and you do not have to turn the tap’. Then we went, ‘Oh, actually, in most of our houses now we have flick
mixer taps’. They are easy to use, they are a normal part of tap furniture. So there is not a need for anything
specialist. We do not ever get any referrals for people having difficulty turning on taps, and if they did, they
would then go to the next level of readily commercially available product, whether it is foot-operated or
automatic — you know, wave your hands in front of it. So our society over time changes and those things
change, and our job is made easier, or our focus changes, because of those things that develop.
The next slide is a picture of a whole lot of commercially available equipment. That is the other thing that
allows us to be able to do our job well: that there is adequate access to funding for equipment that people need. I
am going to give an example from a conversation that my colleague in the ACT and I had with the person who
heads up aids and equipment in the NDIA. We were looking at their benchmarking on the things they provide.
One of them looked like a $200 to $300 benchmark for wheeled walking frames, and most of the off-the-shelf
standard, basic wheeled walking frames would cost in that range. However, there is a range that are stronger or
have single-handed braking or special features that are around $700. When you get down to tin tacks, behind
that benchmarked figure there is play on what would be funded. However, it is not readily accessible
information unless you have the conversation we did. The risk for a service like ours is that someone says, ‘I
can only get funding for $300, so I will buy this inferior product that does not meet my needs. Then I will come
to Solve and have them modify it for me’. We will do a really good job on it, but it is not the same as buying the
one that has been commercially made, has hopefully gone through a standards testing process and is the one that
is best fit for purpose.
Also, in coming to us with that inferior piece of equipment for that person’s purpose and having us modify it, it
is much more expensive for them than the $700 because they have had to pay for our service. They have paid
for our OT costs and product production costs as well. It is a false economy if you like, and that sort of thing
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happens even with people’s access to SWEP funding with subsidies. For us to do what we do well, it is
important that that funding be there.
Mrs COOTE — Can I ask what that is?
Ms STILL — I am about to tell you.
Mrs COOTE — I cannot for the life of me think what that is.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Is it a barbecue operator?
Mrs COOTE — A barbecue operator?
Ms STILL — No, the best way to tell our story is through our people, so I will quickly run you through
these examples. The first one is a guy who came to us after he had had a stroke and his passion was flying
model aeroplanes. They are really expensive pieces of equipment, and he could no longer hold the controls. We
designed this stand for him that can clip around his neck and hold it. It looks beautiful, and the finish on it was
designed by our volunteer. The grey thing is sculpted polystyrene packing foam that he has sculpted and then
painted, so it is very light weight. It is not heavy around this man’s neck, but it means that he can fly his model
planes without the risk of damaging the controller. It is not like the remote control planes that you buy your
children; they are quite expensive. While he really wanted to do it, it also had to be safe.
Mrs COOTE — How interesting!
Ms STILL — I will just run you through those. The next one is a picture of a woman who has rheumatoid
arthritis. She can walk for short distances, but for longer mobility she needs a motorised scooter. This particular
scooter was best for her and her access to be able to get on and off the scooter, but if you look at that side-on
picture, she is not able to reach the controls on the scooter at all. In the picture on the right, she does not have
the reach range. We have done the modification to add an extra extension onto the tiller arms of the scooter so
she can use that back and right in.
The next one is a lovely one. A man came to us who has an Orthodox Jewish background, and as part of one of
his religious ceremonies he has to be able to don the Tefillin. It is a leather box that contains biblical scrolls, and
during the ceremony he has to be able to take it on and off. He is not able to raise his shoulders up at all to be
able to do that.
Mrs COOTE — I know I have been having this ongoing thing today with my shoulders but I have not been
coming to you — —
Ms STILL — We can help you get your jackets on and off.
Mrs COOTE — Yes, that is exactly the problem.
Ms STILL — We made this wooden frame for him. It was really important to him that he did it. He did not
want assistance in that process. He went on a pilgrimage to Israel, and because he was taking this with him we
had to write a statement for customs to say what woods had been used so he would be able to do that. It is
lovely.
Mrs COOTE — Fabulous!
Ms STILL — The next picture is an adaptation of some cross-country skis. The little boy is at the Icehouse
where we tested this out. His family goes skiing every year, and as he has got bigger they have been having
difficulty transferring him from their car to the ski lodge. They asked us for assistance to design something they
can put him in straight from the car in his wheelchair and slide him to the ski lodge. We made it. We did not
know if it was going to work and so the Icehouse was really lovely in letting us try that on its ice-skating rink
before it opened one morning.
Mrs COOTE — Did it work?
Ms STILL — Yes.
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Mrs COOTE — Great. How exciting.
Ms STILL — Fantastic. To give you a flavour that they are the things that are not commercially available,
they are allowing people to do things that we would take for granted. The young man in the next picture has had
an acquired brain injury. He lives in the city and his family have a country property and on weekends he goes to
the country property and he wanted something to do — one of his occupational roles when he was on the farm.
He has this extreme four-wheel-drive wheelchair and we did this wheelbarrow that hitches onto the back of it so
he can go and collect kindling and things for the fire.
We run a program called the Freedom Wheels modified bike program, which modifies standard children’s bikes
with a range of components that enable them to ride bikes. It is for children with fairly mild disabilities, up to a
range of components that can be put on for children who might have severe cerebral palsy. They will ride at
different levels. This young lady is 11, she has cerebral palsy and it was just fantastic. She learnt she was
independent at riding a bike and she said to her mum, ‘Can I take myself to school?’. Her mum said, ‘You can,
but to get around at school you need to use your crutches’. So they immediately came back and asked us to do a
modification so that Alicia could take her crutches to school with her. What we did in the second picture is
attach those PVC piping tubes to the framework. Her crutches go in there and she rides to school with her peers.
She is absolutely independent. They are really real life examples. The next one is my most favourite.
Mrs COOTE — It is gorgeous.
Ms STILL — Helen came to us and said, ‘I want to be able to take my bins out’, and the very lovely OT we
had working with us did a whole lot of research and said, ‘I’ve asked around and in the case of people with
spinal cord injuries 99 per cent of them ask their neighbours and they just put them out for them’. Helen said,
‘That is lovely for them. I live in a retirement village, and my neighbours are all old and decrepit like me. I need
to be able to get this out myself’. So we designed something. We learned more about wheelie bins than we care
to know, but they are a feat of modern engineering. You cannot modify them because the possums will get in or
the smells will get out or cats and dogs will get into them, and we had a lot of trouble getting approval from the
local council. We had a design that meant that we had to modify the bin, and the council just never answered
any of our phone calls — ‘Oh yes, leave it with us’. It got to that point.
Mrs COOTE — Even better.
Ms STILL — Our lovely volunteer said, ‘We can’t wait for this’, after waiting for six weeks and he came up
with plan 2, which was to have this arrangement where the bin was not modified at all. When we went back to
the council and said, ‘It’s okay. We have come up with this’, the council said, ‘Oh, that’s really good because
we did not know how to tell you no. We didn’t want to say no, but we couldn’t say yes either’. The lovely story
with Helen is that she came back to us a few years later and she now has a wheeled walking frame. She uses the
scooter for long-distance mobility, but she needs a frame as well and we modified that hitch so that it can carry
her wheeled walking frame with her as well.
There are two more. The last one is a student who played trombone. He had a spinal cord injury and now has
paraplegia, and he is in the school band. He wanted a way to be able to independently transport his trombone
with him.
Mrs COOTE — That is fabulous.
Ms STILL — It drags along beside him, but it jack-knifes around so that he can get easy access to his
trombone. He is completely independent at taking it around school.
The last one is quite an old project. It was our 10 000th project. It is a lovely one to have as our 10 000th. Tim,
the man in this picture, is a cabaret performer. He sustained a spinal cord injury as he was about to start at the
dramatic arts institute in Western Australia. He sustained quadriplegia. He wanted to act and sing in a local
production in Geelong where he was not in his wheelchair. He has got the most magnificent voice and
personality, and he said, ‘I want people to focus on me as a singer. I don’t want to be the person with a disability
who sings well. I just want to be the person who sings well’. So we designed this spa bath that was mobile.
Mrs COOTE — That is fabulous.
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Mr MADDEN — Very Moomba.
Ms STILL — As they described it, these lovely wenches wheeled it on and off stage, he was hoisted into the
bath and he sang, and that was the focus.
Mr MADDEN — Very good.
Ms STILL — Our volunteer who made it was a lovely elderly gentlemen. He is at pains to say he did not
choose the paint scheme. That was not his; that was all the Geelong Musical Society.
Mrs COOTE — That is fabulous. That is so good.
Ms STILL — For us to do that, we do not want our volunteers making things for people with disabilities
because it is too expensive to buy the commercial product. I believe with a passion that we need to make sure
we do not make things if there is a commercial solution. It is a market where we want to have viable suppliers.
People in the marketplace are very demanding on our suppliers — they want a lot in terms of customer
service — so we owe it to them to not make things just because we can do it cheaper, and then that allows us to
get on with these things. The examples I have chosen are things that really show people participating in their
community but there is never going to be a commercial market for those. They really are one-off areas of need.
That is sort of the context that we put it in.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Just a little thing, it seems like you sort of know about each person. In terms of
inclusion, it seems that the person with the disability or their family and you all work together, basically; it is
not just Solve providing something for them. Do all the people who work with your organisation interact and
know the people — —
Ms STILL — I am a good storyteller. A person who requests a service from us, works with an individual
occupational therapist would take them on as the project coordinator and manager of that project and work with
them on an individual basis.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — Okay, so just one on one and then the other stuff is done somewhere else.
Mrs COOTE — Can you tell me something about the funding. One of the things, as you heard from the
others, about the [inaudible] and the SWEP — we know what the problems are with the SWEP — —
Ms STILL — I am sure everyone tells you often.
Mrs COOTE — I sign letters daily, as you can imagine. The issue is that we have got such a little to go such
a long way, as you know.
Ms STILL — Yes.
Mrs COOTE — What about the additional costs of this? The man with the remote-control planes et cetera,
and the bike modifications — how much extra do all these people have to pay over and above what we were
speaking about before?
Ms STILL — It varies, but 53 per cent to 60 per cent of our funding is covered to date — it is a block grant
from DHS. We fundraise to make up that difference, and our charge to clients is for the raw materials that are
used in the production — and volunteers can charge 40 cents per kilometre for their mileage — and that is the
only charge to clients. Under an NDIS system it will be very different; that same money will need to be
recovered, but it will be recovered directly from NDIS.
Bronwyn’s question to Inclusion Melbourne before about volunteering and the cost of volunteering was
interesting. That is one of the things that we are having to do a lot of work on — looking at how we figure that
into our costs. We have had discussions with NDIS about how we are a service provider but we are also a
supplier of equipment. There will be a few — not many — people who will be allowed to charge under both
those systems under NDIS, and Solve and other TADs around Australia will be in that group. We have to look
at what that costs, too. Whilst the volunteer has provided their input free of charge, it is not free for us as a
service to provide that volunteer labour. We have similar things to those Daniel talked about — we have an
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induction program, we provide a newsletter monthly, we have regular in services and monthly meetings in
regional groups and all those things we have to do to address similar issues.
I have been at Solve now for 13 years, but we had people — our older volunteers, who have now retired
because they were quite old — who grew up in a welfare mentality: they knew what was best, they knew which
nails or screws to use. You might know that — that is fine — but you have to work with the client. If they come
to you and say, ‘Make me this widget’ and you know it is the completely wrong widget, it is our role as a
service provider to sit down and say, ‘No, we are person centred’. We need to talk to the people; we need to find
out what they want to do. If they have got an idea, we need to value it. We need to say, ‘Have you considered
something else?’. That is educative, because it is not instinctively necessarily for all people — you wish it was,
but it is not — to say, ‘Don’t say, “That is a stupid idea”; say, “That has got some merit, but have you thought
about doing it this other way?”‘.
Mrs COOTE — How do you choose the people? You must have a lot of people come in.
Ms STILL — Or attract them.
Mrs COOTE — Exactly. What is your cut off?
Ms STILL — They are volunteers, so — —
Mrs COOTE — No, I do not mean the volunteers; I mean people coming to you for modifications. Do you
accept everybody?
Ms STILL — We have an intake.
Mrs COOTE — Apart from saying, ‘You can get this commercially’?
Ms STILL — We would need to look at whether we can come up with a solution that is safe and fit for
purpose, so looking at that. We will consider any application that has come to us. I will give you an example,
and it is one of those things that is not clear. Our clients and our responsibilities are different. We do lots of
modifications and adaptions for parents of children with disabilities. It is very clear that our client is the person
with the disability, but it is also very clear that professionally we have to ensure the safety of that child. If it is a
parent with a disability who is looking at access to a cot, we also have mandatory Australian standards that we
have to ensure that we modify within. You have got to balance all of those sorts of things.
Mrs COOTE — Who do you knock back?
Ms STILL — We knocked back someone who wanted to have an accessible hot-air balloon. I did have
some conversations with CASA.
Mrs COOTE — I can understand this.
Ms STILL — Unfortunately it was not within the client’s price range as well, because you would have to get
CASA approval to do that as well, and the safety of getting in and out. When we started it, it has been one of
those legislative changes and also a growth in area. We do not do car modifications. Anything that is modified
in a car has to adhere to Australian Design Rules and has to be signed off by a VASS-accredited engineer.
Certainly we can modify things that ensure that they do meet Australian Design Rules, but we then have to
employ a VASS-accredited engineer. It is cheaper for the client to have gone directly to a specialised
service that does that that has its own engineers.
Mrs COOTE — Thank you very much.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — In terms of attracting volunteers, are there a lot of people out there? How do you
do it?
Ms STILL — We wish there were more, Bronwyn.
The DEPUTY CHAIR — How do people know about it?
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Ms STILL — Our volunteers are a lovely group of people. They are generally the more introverted of the
world, and they have to hear about us at least twice — word of mouth and local media. Local papers are our
best way of getting people, and the best thing is not if the person — the engineer or the retiree — sees it; the
best thing is when their wife sees it and says, ‘I think this would be good for something’.
Mr MADDEN — ‘This would be good to get you out of the house’.
Ms STILL — One example. We have a lovely engineer who works with us and has done fantastic work on
projects but also on our modified bike scheme. He built his own Segway because he was a little bored, and I
think his wife went, ‘Oh, my God! What is he going to build next?’.
Mrs COOTE — They are tricky to ride, those things.
Ms STILL — And build — the gyroscope — but he was very clever.
Mrs COOTE — It is great when you get used to it.
Ms STILL — She said, ‘I think you could use your skills in a better way’.
Mrs COOTE — Fantastic.
Mr MADDEN — I think you have covered most of the areas, but I am very impressed with Jules and James
here in the magazine.
Mrs COOTE — I know.
Ms STILL — It is fantastic. Isn’t it great?
Mr MADDEN — It is like their excellent adventure or something. That is a very impressive story, but the
accessibility you have given them to be able to get around the world.
Ms STILL — They are planning America next.
Mrs COOTE — You can see it there, with all the luggage on board.
Mr MADDEN — Yes, it is pretty remarkable.
Mrs COOTE — It is fabulous.
Mr MADDEN — It is more than just about local. It takes people out of their comfort zone too, which is very
important, because you offer opportunities for people to go beyond where others might imagine they can go.
Ms STILL — And coming back to a lot of the stalwarts of the NDIS that is thrown around, what is an
ordinary man or an ordinary person test? An ordinary man now would expect that they could have an overseas
holiday, so it is facilitating that to happened. If you look back 40 years ago, that was a luxury item. It is still
quite a luxury, but it is a more realistic goal today.
Mr MADDEN — So that ordinary person test is a good one.
Ms STILL — Yes. There is another thing I did not go into but is a point I wanted to make, because I was
thinking about it when you were talking to the Aids and Equipment Action Alliance about accessible housing
and the costing and all that sort of thing. I want to leave a thought with you about that. For social inclusion it
should be more than all of that. People can go and visit wherever they want.
Mr MADDEN — That is right.
Ms STILL — So you can go and see your friend. In terms of government, we have to look at it from a cost–
benefit point of view, but if we build it into the design of things, I can invite you back for a drink. I do not have
to go, ‘You’ve got a wheelchair, so you can’t come to my house’. It is that more inclusive society.
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Mr MADDEN — Absolutely. That is interesting, because we did have some statistics from the ABS which
say that with people’s pastimes now, if you had some form of disability or access complexity, people are
attending church less and volunteering less, but they were also visiting and eating out more and doing those
sorts of things and visiting family members or having visits from them. Those are all important things.
Ms STILL — Years ago we modified a ramp for a woman whose Mum had had a transport accident. The
week before that transport accident she had bought a new house in Strathmore. It is a lovely house, but it had
three steps to get into it and a really steep driveway. The house did not need to be modified for mum — because
she did not live there all the day — but the daughter wanted, understandably as we all would, for her mum to be
able to come to visit. The longest portable ramp did not accommodate the camber on the drive, so we just made
a very simple modification that completed that, we designed it and it was made commercially by a checker plate
steel company, but it meant that mum could visit her daughter.
Mr MADDEN — Yes. Very important.
Mrs COOTE — That is my point about the aged care. The reality is that if you have got it right across the
board, it does not matter; everyone can be using it, whether you have got a pusher — —
Mr MADDEN — Or you have a broken leg.
Mrs COOTE — Whether you are aged care or have a disability, it is the same for everybody. It was like the
issue of the iPads et cetera. It is not now some clunky huge thing; it is what everybody uses. Hopefully we will
see more and more of that. Like the bikes and things you have done, you would have to look twice to see that
they had been modified, which is just great.
Mr MADDEN — Fantastic.
Mrs COOTE — It is fabulous.
Mr MADDEN — Yes, that is great. Congratulations. Fantastic. It is a great story.
Mrs COOTE — I love the idea that you do not say to someone, ‘You can’t do that’; it is, ‘Yes, that’s a great
idea, but have you thought of’.
Ms STILL — Yes.
Mrs COOTE — It is a fabulous approach.
Ms STILL — Yes. You have got lots of things — dignity of risk, duty of care and all of that. As OTs we
have got professional responsibilities, but people have the right to choose, but we also have the right to say,
‘You have the right to choose, but it is at that level where we can’t give you even a safe option’. It is being able
to put all those things in perspective.
Mrs COOTE — That is fair enough. What has been the one that you have found most innovative?
Ms STILL — Gosh! That is a hard question. As I told you, my favourite one is the wheelie bin.
Mr MADDEN — Yes. I like that. That is a good photo there.
Ms STILL — It is a great photo, but it is a great story. This woman who has got severe arthritis and
osteoporosis — ‘That is not good enough; I need to be able to do this myself’.
Mr MADDEN — The great thing about seeing that is now I know I will be taking out the bin for the rest of
my life.
Mrs COOTE — We will send it home tonight.
Mr MADDEN — Exactly. Thank you very much. That was great.
Mrs COOTE — Thank you. That was terrific, Fiona. Thank you so much.
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Committee adjourned.
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