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Charter for Action on
Disability
People
with disabilities and their families/carers make up a large proportion of
Victoria
’s population, but are a low priority for
the
Victorian Government. Support services are fragmented,
under-resourced,
and often ineffective. They are still organized around programs and
bureaucracies, not around the persons with
the disability and their families. The government’s rhetoric about treating
people with disabilities and their families as valued partners is not reflected
in practice. The
gap between rhetoric and reality is huge.
Urgent action is
needed before the next state election to turn this around. As people with
disabilities, their families, friends and supporters, we call on the Victorian
Government to:
1. Include in Victorian
disability legislation an entitlement
to disability supports, prescribing minimum entitlements to people with
disabilities over their life-cycle, and minimum entitlements to support for
their families/carers.
2. Introduce legislated waiting
time benchmarks for core services, and legal liability to the state for
breaches of the benchmarks, including:
a.
A four week maximum
wait for early
childhood assessments;
b.
A six week maximum
wait for early childhood intervention programs;
c. A
six month maximum wait for emergency/urgent supported accommodation.
3. Introduce rigorous
accountability mechanisms to make government departments and service agencies
accountable to people with disabilities and their families, including:
a. An independent Disability Ombudsman;
b. An independent process of appeal and review concerning departmental
decisions;
c. A ceiling of 35% on the amount that may be taken out of individual support
packages as an administration component;
d. A duty of disclosure to recipients of individual support packages on the
financial administration of packages;
e. A right for recipients of individual support packages to choose their own
financial intermediary.
4. Support the establishment of a one-stop-shop Information Service,
independent of government, to provide access information, comparative service
quality data, and comparative price data on support services, accommodation
services, respite services, health services and practitioners.
5. Table an annual report to parliament on progress in
overhauling the day to day operation of the support system to:
a. remove ideological assumptions which pre-determine what
people with disabilities and their families may choose as their living,
educational and support arrangements;
b. ensure person-centred transferability of information to eliminate the need
for multiple assessments and program duplication; and
c. ensure the effective participation of people with disabilities and their
families as partners in the planning, design and delivery of supports.
6. Introduce
a compliance and enforcement mechanism for making all public places, and services
provided to the public, accessible to people with physical, sensory,
neurological and developmental disabilities.
7. Make available an immediate
supply of 1,000 places/beds/residences for crisis and emergency supported
accommodation for families caring for people with severe and profound
disabilities aged less than 65 years, and 200 accommodation options for
young people currently living in inappropriate nursing homes.
8. Expand by threefold the number of people receiving individual support
packages such as Support and Choice, Home First, Make a Difference, and
Futures for Young Adults.
9. Introduce a Respite
Entitlement assigned directly to caring
families or their agents in the form of a respite service voucher, adjusted
with a difficulty-in-caring rating, giving 6 weeks of respite per year to all
primary caregivers. The Respite Entitlement should be used to purchase in-home
respite or facility-based respite according to the preference of the family.
10.
Introduce a Leave Entitlement assigned directly to people with
disabilities or their agents in the form of a voucher giving 4 weeks leave and
supports per year as a vacation/break from the primary care giver.
Comments
on the Charter are welcome and should be sent to Vern Hughes by
email
or on 0425 722 890.
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