On Monday 23 April 2007, AFDO held a national forum to talk about how to improve disability and community services.
One of the challenges for the community and government is to find ways of meeting the increasing demand for disability services, particularly in the context of an ageing population.

We all agreed that we need increased funding for disability services, but that this was only one part of the solution. The forum talked about creative strategies to make sure that the needs of people with disability are met effectively by disability and community services.

The Minister for Family and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, opened the forum and took the opportunity to give an update on the negotiations about the next Commonwealth-State/Territory Disability Agreement (CSTDA).

The participants at the forum considered three questions:

• What can be done to meet the needs of people with disability and increase the participation of people with disability in the community?
• How can these changes be made? What could be done to improve current disability and community services?
• How can the relationship and links between ageing, disability and health services be improved?

The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations will use the information gathered at the forum when it works with government and other organisations to decide how best to provide disability and community services. It will also use the information when it develops policy in this area.

In the future, AFDO is planning to pull together the good practice examples into a document that provides more information about them and the features that make them such good examples. This will be made publicly available when it is completed.

A complete set of the notes and themes from the forum can be downloaded from the link below