In Sharper Focus 3
PETER GREGORY:
Should we take control of the session and just start? Yeah, yes! Come on, load her up, big boy!
OK, welcome ladies and gentlemen. I'm not the convener of the session but I've decided to take
control. My name is Peter Gregory, I'm from Uniting Care Community, and with us we have Lesley
Hall and David Craig, whose qualifications and organisations are up on the board there.
So, ladies and gentlemen, before I start I'd like to acknowledge the mentors, guides and people from
our first nation's people and others who have been the custodians of the work that I'm about to talk
about and have been generous in their sharing of their wisdom and knowledge as they have sought
to distribute information about how to build capacity in communities.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Peter Gregory and I'm from Uniting Care Community. As soon as I
get this working, because it is not quite working the way that I would like it - there we go - the
Uniting Care Community Practical Design Fund Project focussed on using community networks and
building social capital as a way of supporting people with disabilities to experience social and
economic participation through the use of mainstream services.
Social capital is a resource that comes from developing and maintaining relationships that allow
people to work together and share resources, so they can take advantage of opportunities and
address shared issues. It is a resource of people, not of money.
So, why is social capital important? My best way of explaining that is through this drawing that I
prepared after a series of discussions with people with disabilities and families, in which they spoke
about how they had services in their lives, those services were populated by good and kind people,
and those people did good and kind and worthwhile things. However, during times of crisis they
found that those workers in those services were unwilling to step outside the boundaries of their
service and engage with them in a very personal and individual way during that crisis in order that
they, as a family, could survive the issues that were emerging.
It is in this space, ladies and gentlemen, that I propose social capital and community building as a
significant and relevant place.
So, what are the foundations of social capital? The foundation of social capital itself is people
investing time and effort. It is the result of historical and cultural factors which give rise to
relationships, values, norms that bring people together in networks. It is profoundly and deeply
relational. It is not the property of one individual and it cannot be bought or sold in the marketplace.
This is fundamentally different to many of the other things that we have been discussing at the
conference.
It is a resource that builds community. The foundation of mobilising social capital around people
with disabilities is understanding, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not intended to maintain the
status quo. It is a fundamental principle of community building. It is the belief that inclusion in the
life of our community should be available to all citizens irrespective of the support they require, nonnegotiable irrespective of the support they require, even if they are labelled as challenging, ladies
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and gentlemen, and the desires to find ways to make inclusion real.
What nurtures and sustains social capital is building and maintaining networks, space and time to
connect. This is a slow, gentle inclusive process that does not occur overnight. It relies on trust and
reciprocity. If you heard Fran Vickery this morning with Stella and Melanie, you would have heard
this story over and over. It relies on reciprocity equality, sharing. It requires opportunities for
genuine participation, mere presence, mere wandering, aimless respite is not enough in community
building. It is opportunities for genuine participation outside the label that we have ascribed to
people.
Social capital takes a great deal of time and effort to slowly build and it can be quickly lost if the
networks are broken down. What helps mobilise social capital around a person with a disability?
Firstly, focussing on what that person brings to the life of the community, not their disability.
Support to initiate and maintain as many connections as possible outside the primary social network.
Building out is incredibly important. And connecting to and participating in important social
structures. For example, volunteer organisations, advocacy associations and work-related groups,
vocation and contribution is vital to develop friendships and access different social support
networks.
“What helps mobilise social capital around people with disabilities in communities?” you might ask
quizzically, and he replies, “Telling stories of capacity and contribution.” If you want to change the
culture you have to change the conversation. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
Creating the space for citizens, including people with disabilities, to meet, share ideas and plan
solutions to community issues collectively and inclusively, and on some occasions it is necessary to
have someone dedicated to helping you navigate the community space because there will be
circumstances under which that is difficult for you to do.
So, the resources that we have produced in this practical design fund project attempt to attend to
each of those elements, but they are a basic introduction to the idea of using social capital as a
resource, so that opportunities for people with disabilities to use mainstream services are explored.
The resources are in the form of documents, videos and a workshop and a brochure and they will
appear online in the DisabilityCare Australia practical design fund website.
The first of those resources is a short project report of about 16 pages, where we talk about the
project methodology, the learnings and key themes that emerge from the discussions with people
with disabilities, families and community contributors. Around about 200 plus people participated
with us in this project.
It talks about nine elements of good practice that can assist in leveraging social capital.
The first of these is a small video in a cartoon format that talks about community building. This can
be used by itself or as part of a social capital workshop. We might just go back and have a look at
that again.
We might just go back and have a look at that again.
(Video plays)
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A simple little video just talking about the process of community building. The second part is support
worker training. This is a basic introduction to social capital for support workers, who assist people
with community engagement activities. It is in power point format with presenter notes included
and there is no free steak knives, I'm afraid.
The second video is intended to change the conversation. This talks about Scott and Daniel and their
transition from living in a group home to self-directing their own funds. It can be used by itself to
illustrate that it is possible for people regarded as having complex needs to exercise choice and
control in real terms. Or it is used as part of the social capital workshop. Here is a short excerpt.
MAN ON VIDEO:
This is our home, our life has turned around and I'm excited about the future. I remember the first
morning I woke up, was the first morning I can remember not being woken up by yelling. One of the
big things is having the ability to choose who your support workers are. I manage the roster for our
staff. I've got that all set up in a spreadsheet. I ask all the staff their availability.
WOMAN ON VIDEO:
The changes I've seen are tremendous. They are so much happier. They are free to do what they like.
I'm just amazed and proud to be here to watch the progression that they are going through. It's just
lovely. I don't think that people can realise how much having your own home can be beneficial to
you.
MAN ON VIDEO:
It's a whole new exciting way of thinking. When you start to give people a choice that's the exciting
thing. I'm starting now to explore the idea of just getting out in the community a bit more and I hope
people understand that I can make those choices.
MAN ON VIDEO:
If you've seen the lives of people in group homes compared to the way we live now, there is no
comparison. Self-direction is the way to go for DisabilityCare. If Australia is serious about treating
people with disabilities the same as everyone else.
PETER GREGORY:
And yes, Scott does operate a very complicate spread sheet using one finger movements through a
mouse.
There is also associated with the training ‘What is social capital, where do you find it? booklet, that
includes the panels from the community building video and artwork that illustrates aspects of social
capital. There is also a small ready reckoner version containing the text only, and it is in
downloadable PDF format. We have a series of power points from Jeff Strully who assisted us during
the project to provide a series of workshops that focus on opportunities that exist to support people
with disabilities outside the specialist disability support services and to receive that support through
mainstream and informal supports. These resources are available on the Uniting Care Community
Queensland website in our NDIS section.
Finally, there is a bunch of artworks depicting themes associated with social capital. These appear
throughout the training and information resources and can be printed separately as posters to start
discussion. There is a series of panels from the community building video that you saw and these can
be presented separately. Finally, a bibliography of references used to present the project and
prepare the resources.
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Ladies and gentlemen, that's our presentation on the practical design fund project using networks
and building social capital. Thank you very much.
CATH HALBERT:
Thanks, Peter. I think that was a terrific presentation and I'm really looking forward to having a look
at that resource, because what we are talking about today is I guess a bit of the missing link that
really hasn't been discussed very much presently in this conference. I think with all the impetus in
terms of getting DCA up and running on Monday and the focus on people's support packages, the
area that we are talking about today, which is community building and local area coordination hasn't
really had much discussion and I think it's really important that we start discussing that.
Before I continue I'd like to acknowledge, too, the traditional owners of the land and pay my respect
to their elders past and present.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme promises to revolutionise the lives of people with
disability. Its full implementation will see people with disability move from being passive receivers of
support and largely segregated from the community to being able to pursue their goals in order to
facilitate their full inclusion in the mainstream of community, including economic and social
participation.
Two of the objectives of the NDIS as contained in the legislation are to promote the provision of high
quality and innovative supports that enable people with disability to maximise independent lifestyles
and full inclusion in the mainstream community.
Also to raise community awareness of the issues that affect the social and economic participation of
people with disability and to facilitate greater community inclusion of people with disability.
David and I today are going to talk about how do we facilitate greater inclusion of people with
disability? What does this look like? How is it done? What are some of the things that have been
successful in the past and what are some of the things to avoid?
One of the main ways that the NDIS will facilitate inclusion is through local area coordination, and
according to DCA they define local area coordination as working with participants and their families
to build capacity, to exercise choice and control and to support them to achieve goals by building
new community networks and accessing support and services in their community.
The LAC will also work with local organisations and communities to build awareness and improve
opportunities for people with disability to access and actively participate in community activities.
However, to be successful the LAC should work across three levels. One is on the individual level.
One is on the community building level. And the third is on the structural change level.
At the individual level, the LAC would link people into local activities and assist with ensuring these
activities are accessible and welcoming. At the community building level, the various communities,
the individual is involved in, would be strengthened to include people with disability.
I have to emphasise the words ‘various communities’ because no person just belongs to one
community. People belong to a multitude of communities, and communities within communities, so
someone from a non-English speaking background might be involved with their particular ethnic
community, but they might be a gay man and also be involved with the gay community and gay
activities. I think we have to recognise this, because it is very multi-dimensional.
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At the structural level the environmental barriers that restrict people with disability in accessing the
community need to be changed, and we heard a little bit about this this morning and yesterday. For
example, accessible transport, access to buildings, etc.
So, for full inclusion to occur we need to be addressing these three different levels. Part of building
communities is the development of social capital and Peter, I think, gave us a very good explanation
about what that is, so I won't repeat that. However, we can measure social capital in a number of
ways, and these are people who have intimate relationships. People live in integrated environments.
People participate in the life of the community. People interact with other members of the
community. People perform different social roles. People have friends. People are respected and
people are connected to natural support networks.
Now, there are many different ways that people do measure social capital but that is one of them.
So, social capital is one way of expressing what the end results look like for people with disability
when they are fully included. Now, the question is how can the NDIS assist with this? What are some
of the barriers that may be there? What are some of the pitfalls that we have seen happen in the
past? What are some of the things that we can build on that have already been happening? I'll hand
it over to David.
DAVID CRAIG:
Thanks, Lesley. In addition to Lesley's acknowledgement of the traditional owners I'd like to add an
acknowledgement to those disability activists that did so much in the early days to pave the way for
so much of what we’ve had prior to today and have been talking about a some of these things for a
long time. In particular, Lesley Hall first came to my notice as an activist campaigning to blockade the
Miss Australia quest fundraising for my employers, the organisation I worked for, and it was great to
join her at other barricades on other issues down the track.
LESLEY HALL:
We are still friends.
DAVID CRAIG:
I was on your side back then. I was just working on the inside. It was an appalling, unethical way of
raising funds for people with disabilities, or anyone for that matter.
I was lucky to be thrown into a role where my passion for social change was fostered in a disability
area which was a conservative world by radical volunteers who had become paid workers because
they created such a storm out of taking people out of their own time to experience recreation in the
community in the mid to late ‘70s, when very little of that kind of support was offered, if any.
I was fortunate. I had a bit of a scary thought here, as Peter got up to talk, I had not met him before.
I’d seen him around the conference. I didn't realise that greying haired men with pony tails have the
same sorts of passions about the same sorts of things, so I've found a soul mate. I'm trying to do a
dot point presentation in seven minutes of something that takes a lot longer to talk about, so forgive
me if the things we talk about are really just scratching the surface. I hope they are pointers to or
provocations to make you read more, think more, talk more and do more of this kind of social capital
building, because I think it's been a period of time in the last 15-20 years where we have been
abandoned what work was commenced in the ‘70s and ‘80s in this space.
I particularly found the challenge of listening to the discourse in the community, and I'm a bit on the
fringe of it at the moment, but it does concern me when I hear the kind of talk by providers in their
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sort of networks around preparing for a marketplace approach and setting up the business and so
on, because I think that we forget that all the organisations, mostly, that are in the not-for-profit
space have origins in the voluntary effort and passions of active citizens who set up these things to
do something better than what was offered and have ended up pretty much becoming the same as
the things they were dissatisfied with. Alan Fells did a review of the community sector organisations
and what's happened to them in Victoria in his report, Strengthening Community Organisations
Project highlights the way in which we went from representing and advocating for our communities
that set us up to being bought or shopped by government through the tender process to do their
bidding rather than that of the community.
In this process we as agencies have been the vehicle for disconnecting people from their
communities, particularly as people relied on their support.
Volunteers over time, from being dynamic, energetic people – I’ve got to say, when I first started
working, volunteers were crazy, radical people and they scared me so much I was afraid to take pay
for what I was doing, compared to what they did for nothing. But I discovered later that they had a
freedom I didn’t have. I was paid. And it’s an exciting freedom which we have suppressed under risk
management and all sorts of other constraining mechanisms. We have disempowered and
suppressed them and placed them under the thumb of the organisations interested in playing it safe,
and it is a huge area for reinvestment and re-energising what we do, much more than volunteering.
In fact, more recent discourse around this talks about active citizenship and it describes
volunteerism as a weak option, because they are still in some ways under organisational control and
structures. Active citizens can act freely, and if you were aware, for instance, as a found out working
in aged care that a citizen has every right to walk in an aged care facility, chat to people and take
them out for coffee, and not have to ask anyone anything unless that resident is under a
guardianship order. In Victoria, up to 40% of people living in those settings have been placed there
without their consent. Many young people with disabilities aren’t particularly keen on where they’ve
been placed out of desperation, so choice and control and energy that comes from people that have
passion is important, and citizens offer this.
Consumers of specialist disability services have become addicted to service delivery. We’ve fed them
the kinds of things we want them to keep coming back for. It is not that removed from the kind of
drug addiction scenario we see with people that get caught up with that awful situation in their
personal lives.
Right from early childhood the focus on medical treatment and cure avoids the wider, more holistic
view of social and friendship development, the things that build and connect people in a strong way
to their communities. Going through the special schools to see that they are still building special
schools and segregated settings, so the continuity of segregation continues right through early
formative life, through to then adult life in sheltered day centres and workshops which keep people
separate from their communities. What hope is there that people can be connected and part of their
communities while we continue to deliver that kind of segregating support?
Recreation, which is the area I worked in, I'm passionate about, has been lost altogether. We have
things like community access, which is meaningless. It leads to community tourism, wandering
around the community. Far too many buses parked in parks not knowing what to do, staff poorly
informed and led on what could be a really good life and their work is boring because management
and organisations and the sector as a whole has abandoned the excitement of adventurous living
that recreation provides.
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Things like sensory rooms, the institutionalisation of the senses. Life is very sensory out there. Go to
a footy game, even if you don't understand what is going on with the scores, it is a very sensory
experience and very exciting for people that like that kind of thing. To run these special rooms shows
you how the professional world has captured and used their tricks and magic to lock people up in
rooms to have the experience of life.
Communities have been excused from their responsibility because the specialist disability providers
seem to occupy that space. I liked Graeme Innes’ thing about living on the edge because you need to
get out of the way. We need to get out of the way and live on the edge and work on the edge so
there is room for much more action, I think, for people with disabilities.
What can we do? Recreating the capacity of communities to be a site for participation, contribution
and inclusion. I'd like to look at it at three different levels. For the individual with a disability and
their family, it means being at the centre of their personal plan as a driver or co-pilot. Someone said
a CEO here today earlier. “The expert in my own life, a dynamic process, life is exploration.” I worry
about plans because they lock you in a bit. The cleverness of plans that allow you to have a plan, and
going out to explore all the options, I think that's a good plan. Don't get too caught up in tying down
the detail that locks people up. Using people's personal gifts and capacities to make a contribution
to win support and respect. When people do things that other people in the community recognise
they are the things they like doing, it wins them respect, it gives them connection. We fail to do that
as well as we might. There is good practice but it is very much on the margins and not in the
mainstream of what I see in service provision.
We must be very careful to not let funding suppress the initiative and the passion and the capacity
for individuals to take control and take responsibility for acting to save their own lives or even to find
a meal – as Hazel referred to rabbits living in hutches. They had not had to act to save their life or
even find a meal. They were crippled and disabled by their care. People want to live a good life full of
meaning, adventures, purpose. Friends, how many agencies make a promise they will help you find a
network of friends and circle of support of people that want to be in your life without charging you
for it or sending you an invoice? That's a challenge for us as we move into this market space.
Contribution to peer support and advocacy for others, the over-individualisation and the person-byperson kind of stuff can isolate people with disabilities from other people with disabilities who offer
them powerful peer support. Families too of people with disabilities get a lot of power from coming
together and sharing their ideas and comparing notes on what service providers do and don't do and
which ones will be good and which ones won't. This is an important new area for people to engage
in.
The support worker needs to listen and take directions. Sometimes this requires a very deep and
respectful kind of listening. Someone described this as listening with the eye, the ear and the hand.
It is a way of talking about particularly those people that require so much more support for us to
understand what it is that makes life good for them.
To develop the capacity to work co-productively and co-creatively with the people you support. We
heard great examples from Judith Snow of how some of her workers dance her life with her, and the
sense of being as well as doing is really important.
The ability to support and foster friendship and social networks and get out of the way. Too often
the support workers are the pain or the problem. A mother this morning described integration aids
as being the major barrier to a person participating in an inclusive school, and that's a big challenge.
The evidence says that doesn't work and we need to find better ways of resourcing inclusion.
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Commitment to doing whatever it takes. The best program I heard about had a motto ‘We'll do
whatever it takes’ and they spent three to four months trying to find one thing that people with
significant cognitive impairments liked, and then they spent the rest of their time finding ways they
could make that a life-centering interest that connected them to their communities.
That kind of work is the kind of work we need to re-engage in. Confidence and commitment to work
within the community and not just to play safe and stay in the centre or in your groups with other
staff. It takes some adventure and risks, but that's the kind of support that people need.
We need to make sure that you join a vibrant community of practice with others who share your
passion. It is so frustrating to see great workers held down or kept down by their agencies who want
to do really good stuff. Some of them may create these new boutique agencies. They walk out of
their current employers, set up new services. That might be a new creative opportunity for them in
the future.
Choose an employer that will nourish, support and challenge you to be a great support worker,
because you're entitled to that. You don't get great pay but you deserve to have a really good job.
The service providers need to be careful between choosing the market strategy or going back to
their community roots to see which one adds most value to the lives of people with disabilities.
That's an interesting challenge at this particular time.
Avoid the easy lazy way out of running a weekly schedule of programmed activity. Don't plug people
into clubs in the community, because they are easy options. You need to really engage with the kind
of life sustaining support of relationship building, community connections through shared interests
and hobbies, passions, footy following, whatever it is. There are millions of things out there. Don't
expect your staff to be the experts in photography, art and all those things. They are the experts and
should be the experts in how to provide inclusive disability support. The expertise in all those
activities out there is in the community. It's not hard to find. There are plenty of people passionate
about every kind of thing imaginable under the sun, collecting all different kinds of things. They
make TV programs about that variety.
We need to develop the capacity to support and create the kind of people and kind of community
places and events that make for a good life for people with disabilities. That might mean shutting
down the cost of running segregated and separate infrastructure and using the infrastructure that
exists in many of our communities where other people go. We need to avoid the production line of
the service system. I'm worried about people being passed along from a planned facilitator to a
service coordinator, to a local area coordinator, to something else and there’s this disconnect that
happens across that process. Finding people that can work from the person to the community and
build the bridges and know what it is that can connect up people in the community with the
individual’s interest is the kind of skill we need to develop.
We need to understand how paid supports and in-formal natural supports work together. It takes a
lot more thought, research and consideration and requires more sophisticated management and
service development, but it is where you will make or break the capacity to deliver what individuals
of disabilities want from you.
A couple of quotes that I found particularly inspiring for me when I was sometimes challenged. John
Wolfgang Goethe said "Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of
women and men". The other one "Whatever you can do begin it. Boldness has genious, power and
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magic in it. Begin it now".
There is the concluding statement, are you going to do that Lesley, or shall I do that?
LESLEY HALL:
Thanks David, that was terrific. We are going to throw it open to any questions or comments, to
Peter particularly, or to David or I. I think it is really - I think one of the things I always like to say to
people, it's really good if you reflect on your own lives and work and say "Who are my friends and
how did I make those friends? Where did I meet those people? Where did I meet the person that I
have a relationship with?” Because I think then if you do that, and you get some understanding of
the importance of a whole range of community activity for people, and statistically most people
make friends through things like work, or through school, or some other type of activity like that. If
people with disability, if they have had segregated lives they haven't had those sorts of opportunities
to make those sorts of friends, and to form relationships.
Does anyone want to make a comment?
SPEAKER:
Hello. My name is Anita. I'm from Perth and I'm here with Susan and we are representing a group
called Universe. I've heard a lot this weekend about what services are going to provide, as far as the
NDIS being rolled out, and this is the first real community-based collective capacity, person-centred
idea that I've heard all weekend. Please clap very loudly.
(Applause)
For me the NDIS means innovation. We have moved from medical, patient, service, client. Now we
are going into innovation – just member of our community. I want to commend you for what you
have said today, and I'm so passionate as well about everything that you've spoken about today, and
I think you deserve another applause. Thank you.
(Applause)
DAVID CRAIG:
Risk management is a culture in our organisations and our society. It is the greatest institution we
have created for people with disabilities once we pull the walls down on the brick ones, we have
locked people up. We need to be adventurous and challenge what that's about. People with
disabilities and their families and their supporters need to be at the forefront of bringing about that
change, because that will release a lot more choice and freedom.
SPEAKER:
In response to your generous comments, from my perspective we have had a couple of cracks at this
and have missed the boat. Disabilities Services Act, we had the opportunity to do some good pieces
of work, and we failed by not building community capacity. Institutional reform, we had the
opportunity to do the same, we missed the boat. In my opinion, the fundamental game changer is
that people are present in community, and the light is shone on them, and through that discourse
with people who are marginalised we discover something about who we are together.
In doing that we discover that we are not all perfect and all knowing, and, in fact, those who we
formerly regarded as clients and welfare recipients actually have something profound to say to us as
citizens. That's really, really significant.
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SPEAKER:
My name is Les. Thank you, Peter, Lesley and David for sharing that with us. Can I make a comment,
rather than a question, because I've got, you struck accord with everything you were saying in
relation to the journey we have had. Is it OK if I make a comment at this point?
We managed to get Adam out of a segregated setting and got him into a regular school. Since 11
years old he has been totally in the community with everything he has done. His personal plan, and I
was really thrilled to hear you talk about personal planning at this session. I've got a foot in both
camps, not only Adam's dad but also part of a family organisation that actually supports him and we
employ staff and so on, so I'm in both camps. I spent most of this morning and yesterday going along
to the other sessions with the service providers and honestly, there was very little mention of actual
personal planning as such. They talked about it but didn't really quite get it.
If I can quickly share one thing that we experienced not so long ago. Adam has got an innovative
housing grant to live in Venus Bay by Phillip Island. I visited the community house as part of his
planning, to see what sorts of supports we could get for Adam down there as we were putting his
plan together. I met with the lady at the community house. The first thing she said to me was that
"That's really nice, but we don't have things for people down here with disabilities". At which point I
looked at her and said "That's OK, tell me what you have got". To her credit she got it. When you're
in places like community houses in very small communities they have an incredible amount of
resources, knowledge and people that really are able to come on board and support you. This is still
a work in progress but it actually does work and the benefits really show. There is no way back at
this point.
SPEAKER:
I'm Fran from Newcastle. Two years ago I went to a disability conference in Melbourne. That was
just starting, that was the first stage of this beginning, and I think that everything has been excellent.
The update has been great and the information has been worth it, so I say “Wow, thank you.”
SPEAKER:
I have a question for Lesley. When you started talking, you were talking of, I think you used the term
there were going to be local area coordinators. It sounds like the existing Metro Access Program we
already have in Victoria. I wondered, do you think the two roles are duplicating each other and the
second part of the question is whether it is local area coordinators or Metro Access? One of the
issues I found is actually connecting directly with people with disability, you always feel like you are
one removed. At the moment, dealing with providers, and if you've got any suggestions on how we
could improve what would be, I suppose, more of a move to direct connection.
LESLEY HALL:
I don't know if there is anyone here from the agency that will add to what I've got to say. I think the
Metro Program might end up morphing into DisabilityCare. I'm not sure whether those discussions
have been held, but certainly the local area coordination at this stage will only happen in the Barwon
region, until there is a full rollout of the scheme metro access and deaf access will certainly continue
in Victoria and things like ability links and local area coordination will continue in Western Australia
in whatever facets and forms it has in the other states. Can you add anything to that, Cath?
SPEAKER:
In the Hunter Valley they will soon be having the local - they are going to be setting that up in July.
They are in negotiations at the moment for that area as well. That's going to be the same as Barwon.
It is not all over Australia yet.
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SPEAKER:
The final comment will be how much those roles actually get down to taking the person to the
community, which I don't think happens in a lot of those initiatives. You can create spaces in the
community if you don't get to the community, who gets you there, what kind of supports knows how
to do the facilitation of relationship building, and so on. That’s the interface that’s often missing.
SPEAKER:
We have got rejigging to do on the local area coordination model at the moment. It is top-heavy, a
bit bureaucratic, the kind of stuff that we have been playing with is a bit more about getting
alongside people, and their families, sitting in the lounge room and yarning, particularly people who
have been subject to the traditional system and just want to yarn a bit about possible futures, with
no agendas, no service delivery, no money stuff to complicate it. Just what is possible, how might we
go about doing that? Who are some of the other people that have done it? Just to ease in. So rather
than kind of encapsulating it in a bureaucratic model that puts more boundaries about it.
Because I think this transition into a paradigm shift is going to be about people with disabilities and
families having access to the information that they need, so they can take control, and if anybody of
you are familiar with Free Air and the work in South America you know - give people knowledge and
education, giver them authority over their own lives and they run with it. People need time to let go
of some of the shit that they have been exposed to.
SPEAKER:
My concern is that the people who most needed to hear all the wonderful things you said today are
in other rooms. I go to a lot of these conferences and there is always the big general discussion, you
know, very high level, and then the service providers all split off into one room and the people with
disabilities split off into another. It is just a shame that the people who probably most needed to
hear what you said didn't, and I just wonder how we somehow try and improve communications in
future, because service providers are all in another room right at this moment talking about service
improvement. Sorry, not all, sorry.
(Ruckus in the audience)
LESLEY HALL:
I think there are some here. My organisation, the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations,
we are very committed to this thing, and we will continue to engage with the agency around making
sure that they really get this aspect, this community building, this building of social capital, they have
already invested in projects such as the Uniting Care one, so we are committed to making sure that
they don't lose sight of this. The focus has been up until now on doing the plan, getting the supports,
but we know that the plan and the supports isn't going to work if the other side of the equation isn't
there. I'm sure a lot of us will continue to advocate for that.
SPEAKER:
Thank you, all. You have just about missed afternoon tea. I hope you get something when you get
down there.
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