AFDO 2010 Annual General Meeting

AFDO’s 2010 Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday 30th November from 3:00PM to 4:00PM in the Hayden Raysmith Room, Level 4, Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

For more information, please contact office@afdo.org.au

Advocacy and Research Training for Cambodian ALAF Recipients

On September 23rd and 24th, AFDO staff held two days of workshops for Cambodian recipients of Australian Leadership Award Fellowships (ALAF). The Cambodians came from many different backgrounds, including Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) specialists, government representatives and people from Cambodian Disabled Person’s Organisations (DPOs).

AFDO staff spoke about research and advocacy, policy and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Speakers were also invited from Women with Disability Victoria and Reinforce to talk about how research could work in a practical way.

The eight delegates ended their time with AFDO by filming a DVD about some of their thoughts about how research, policy and advocacy could work to make the lives of people with disability better in their country.

Australian Disability and Development Conference Report - From the AFDO Office

In September 2010, AFDO staff packed up and moved the office to Darwin for a week to attend the Australian Disability and Development Consortium Conference on mainstreaming disability in development.

Lesley and Leah arrived on Monday 13th December, and spent the next day doing some consultations for the Productivity Commission Inquiry at the Royal Darwin Hospital.

The conference was a huge success by all accounts. Sessions focused on mainstreaming disability inclusion across the Asia Pacific region, with representatives from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Cambodia, Bangladesh and many other countries talking about work in their nations. Representatives from funding agencies such as Ausaid and the Disability Rights Trust also spoke about their perspectives on disability inclusive development.

The self advocates held a stall throughout the conference, promoting the Include Me! Project and the Victorian based Self Advocacy Resource Unit (SARU). They’ve provided their own report about how they found the conference.

Lesley, David and Leah also attended a roundtable after the conference to look at ways forward for disability development work and research. The roundtables provided feedback on a range of issues for a team of researchers and development workers, including CBM Australia, the Nossal Institute and the University of Sydney.

Australian Disability and Development Conference Report - Self Advocates

On the 14th of September another group arrived including Heather Forsyth (Board Member), Janice Slattery (self advocate), and support workers Jacqui Ward & Brenda Lacey. The plane trip took four hours. It was a long flight.

When we got to Darwin we went straight from the airport to Government House to have drinks with the HON KON VATSKALIS MLA MINISTER FOR HEALTH.
The conference started on Wednesday morning around 7.30am for REGISTRATION and the workshops were at 8.30am the conference was held at DARWIN CONVENTION CENTRE on the WATERFRONT.

Day 1: Opened by Josh (an Aboriginal person with disability)

Janice & Heather sat at the Include Me table. We showed people the website and gave out cards. People were interested in the website and we also gave out DVDs & pamphlets and we had to get extra printed.

Janice & Val Edgar (Support Worker) worked with AFDO last year to research how to include people with intellectual disabilities and ABI in conferences & meetings.
They were supported by a steering committee. From the research the steering committee developed the Include Me! Kit which includes a Website Presentation & a DVD.

Afternoon session wasn’t bad also not easy as well they were complicated.

Wednesday night there was COCKTAILS WITH THE CROCODILES AT CROCOSAURUS COVE, and we all had photos taken with Snakes and Crocodiles.

Thursday morning was a very good session there was a panel of four people talking Pauline Kleinitz from CBM-Nossal Institute Partnership for Disability-Inclusive Development and Thurza Sullivan World Vision Australia who I found very interesting.
Joel Viriala, People with Disabilities Solomon Islands and he was very good and interesting he spoke about what disability people are doing in Solomon Island, they are doing training like Reinforce do here so we swapped details.

Next Lesley Hall (CEO AFDO) spoke about Include Me website.

Lesley introduced the team that did the Include Me! Website and put the Include Me! Project together.
Thursday afternoon was hard to understand.

Apart from the conference we got to look around, and they have a night market which we had a short look at and we had a conference dinner which was held at the DARWIN SAILING CLUB with Ted Eagan AO, and Heather had her photo taken with him and it was a very good night.
Friday morning we flew back home, very, very early.

Reflection: Janice thought that even though some of the speakers were hard to understand, the conference was interesting like finding out what people were doing in other countries and their cultures.
Report By Janice Slattery

Heather enjoyed the conference, I liked meeting people from different countries and learning about their culture.
Some of the conference was hard to understand.
Include Me! Heather thought the Include Me! table was good. Heather & Janice found they could talk about the Include Me! Project because they understand about being included in conferences.
Report By Heather Forsyth 

External Committees

AFDO is represented on the following committees:

Accessible Cinema Advisory Group, Australian Consumer Communication Network’s (ACCAN) Standing Advisory Committee on Disability Issues, Australian Electoral Commission Disability Advisory Committee, Australian Railway Association Code of Practice Working Party, Aviation Access Working Group, Centrelink Impairments Table Review, Centrelink Service Delivery Advisory group, Disability Employment Services Reference Group including the Evaluation Strategy Working Group, Insurance Council National Consumer Reference Group, Medicare Australia Consumer Consultative Group, National Disability Workforce Project Industry Reference Group, Telstra Disability Forum, National Disability and Carer Alliance and the NDIS Campaign Committee.
Recently we have also received invitations to be part of Support for Students with Disabilities and Special Needs Working group and the Inclusion for People with Disability Through Sustainable Supported Employment Advisory Group. Our representatives on these two groups are yet to be determined.

For more information about these groups and how you can provide your feedback, please visit the External Representatives page.

Include Me Project

In partnership with Disability Resource Centre and Tthe Helen McPherson Trust, AFDO has been working on a project called Include Me! The project was to find out about the problems for self-advocates who want to participate in meetings and conferences.

Self-advocates are people who have an intellectual disability or acquired a brain injury and stand up to speak both for themselves and for others.

The project found that there are many barriers, including:

- People using jargon which is hard to understand
- Fast speed of conversation
- Feeling uncomfortable about speaking up when things are hard to understand
- The high cost of going to a conference
- The need to use public transport to get to a meeting or conference

Things which can help are:

- Having plain English hand outs sent out in advance
- Having a support work on site to help
- Asking presenters to use plain English

AFDO used the information gathered from the community and created a website for information to help both conference-organizers and self-advocates alike at www.includeme.org.au. The Include Me! Project will be officially launched on 30th November.

New Federal Government

With the announcement in August that the Australia Labour Party (ALP) have a minority government in Canberra, people with disability have been looking on with interest at the changes in federal politics.

Bill Shorten, the former Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers, has moved on from the position and has now taken a spot as the Assistant Treasurer. Taking his place as Parliamentary Secretary is Jan McLucas, Senator for Queensland.

“I am very pleased and honoured to be appointed as Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Queensland and Parliamentary Secretary for responsibility Disabilities and Carers in the Labor Government.” Jan McLucas said.

“I am pleased to have for Disabilities and Careers, having worked closely with the sector. I look forward to re-establishing those relationships and working together in the future."

More changes have been made in parliament with the creation of a new ministerial portfolio for Mental Health and Aging, Mark Butler MP.

Over $182 million has been promised by the government to the disability sector, and the possibility of a National Disability Insurance Scheme remains open. AFDO has already begun the work of building relationships to make sure that the promises made are kept, and that positive work continues. In the months since the election result was announced, AFDO staff have met with Senator Jan McLucas (Parliamentary Secretary for Disability), Senator Mitch Fifield (Shadow Minister for Disability) and Senator Rachel Siewert (Greens disability portfolio) to discuss key matters of interest. These included:

- The National Disability Insurance Scheme
- The National Disability Strategy
- Work to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Productivity Commission Inquiry Update

Productivity Commission: The Productivity Commission is funded by the Australian government but is independent by law. It studies how changes in Australia will change how we live.

Inquiry: In this article the word is used to describe the Productivity Commissions study into disability care and support.

Submissions: means the issued raised to the Productivity Commission during the inquiry.

Consulting: Consulting means asking people to say what they think. In this article AFDO has been talking to people in the country about the inquiry. They have also helped other groups talk to people with disability about the inquiry.

The Productivity Committee first round of submissions has come to a close. AFDO has been helping rural and regional organizations with their consulting. Second submissions open in April 2011, with the final version of the document given to Parliament in July, 2011. `

As part of the Productivity Commission’s study of disability care and support, AFDO consulted in rural and regional areas as the first round of submissions came to a close in August, 2010. AFDO’s submission can be read here.

AFDO also assisted organizations across Australia to do their own submissions.

A draft of the Commission’s findings is going to be made available in February 2011. Following that, a second chance to raise issues will happen in March and April. The final report will be presented to Parliament in July, with the government’s response due by law 28 days later.

For more information concerning the Productivity Committee inquiry, please visit
the Productivity Commission website.