The ACT Council of Social Service and ACT disability directed organisations have come together to call for adequate resourcing of community contributions to the new Foundational system of disability supports in the ACT.
The new system stems from the report of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Review with cuts to the Scheme already being felt by Canberrans with disability. Disability groups have flagged key priorities through a shared submission to a consultation on foundational supports which closes today.
ACTCOSS CEO Dr Devin Bowles said that “as we pointed out across the ACT election community organisations in the ACT are already experiencing unprecedented demand for their services. Following the pandemic and amidst cost-of-living and housing crises, the community sector has never been more stretched, and its work has never been more important. The ACT for Community campaign highlights these challenges and calls for the ACT Government to recognise the community’s needs, the rising demand for services, and increase funding in line with population growth.
“We do also know that there are some subsectors under specific pressure to adjust, cope and respond to additional, specific reform pressures and this is the case for disability right now. The risk of insufficient planning for foundational supports is that they fail to deliver and contribute to unsustainable pressures across the board from community housing, family and children’s services to legal aid”, Dr Bowles concluded.
Advocacy for Inclusion Head of Policy Craig Wallace added that the disability sector is “under mounting pressure in individual and systemic advocacy work due to demography, myriad NDIS changes and the aftermath of the Royal Commission, multiple reform approaches, expanded expectations, the continued fallout from COVID, and high demand for disability advocacy.
“We are already seeing a reduction in services and supports for people with disability in Canberra due to the NDIS changes meaning there is an urgent need to ramp up work and get it right. Unfortunately we are not being resourced to help with this and it has become impossible to meet Government and community expectations to engage on it all. We are already withdrawing from work just to keep above the waterline”, Craig Wallace said.
Kat Reed from Women with Disabilities ACT agreed noting “we need funding for people with disability and our nominated organisations to engage in the construction of the new foundational support system. This includes funding and support for disability directed organisations to audit, stocktake and surface capacity to deliver Tier 1 information, referral and advocacy.
“To create good services we need them designed and delivered right here. NDIS has taught us much about the risks of outsourced interstate providers with low ACT knowledge or delivery capacity. ACT community has specific needs that we cannot leave to the Commonwealth or national organisations to know how represent adequately.
“Through our shared submission, we advocate for State- and Territory-based strategies and capacity building in order to create a locally attuned and dynamic foundational support system. Foundational Supports should be person-centric, localised, accessible, available, and entitlement-based.
“Some of the gaps that need close attention are supports that help people move out of, and stay out of, segregated and closed settings and acute places like hospitals or nursing homes. We also need to invest in community development and social participation initiatives especially for isolated groups like older women. Lastly, we need capacity building supports with a gendered lens, addressing the systemic gaps to ensure that women, girls and gender diverse people have access to the supports they need”, Kat Reed concluded.
Shannon Kolak, CEO of ACT Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability said:
“The shared submission from our groups focuses on the role of the ACT Government and the need for genuine and sustained involvement of community organisations in the design and implementation of this new system. It also speaks to the need for the new system to learn from the mistakes of the NDIS as well as not replicating the worst features of the old State systems.
“For instance, we are calling for foundational supports not to be means tested and not to create additional barriers to accessing them. Foundational supports must also add to the support ecosystem and address known gaps by genuinely reaching new groups of people for supports, not just those no longer on the NDIS.
“Some of our priorities are better mental health support for people with disability, including people with intellectual disability, funding for people requiring intensive wraparound supports plus work to ensure the continuation of some services that do not thrive in a market-based system”, Shannon Kolak concluded.
You can read the Shared submission from AFI, WWDACT and DSID here: https://www.advocacyforinclusion.org/foundational-supports-consultation/
Contacts:
Craig Wallace Head of Policy AFI – 0477 200 755
Shannon Kolak, CEO ACT DSID – 0408 646 857
Kat Reed, CEO WWDACT – 0468 324 695
Dr Devin Bowles, CEO ACTCOSS – 0413 435 080