The 2022/23 Annual Report was launched on 2 November at the Annual Public Forum. The report shares highlights of the work we are doing to resolve the issue of younger people in aged care. Using the Summer Foundation strategic priorities to structure the report, it details the achievements and work in progress from the Research team, the Housing Hub, UpSkill and the Co-design team.
Highlighting our achievements
The Summer Foundation welcomes the emphasis on inclusive housing in the Disability Royal Commission’s final report.
As part of our continuous efforts to enhance and streamline our services, UpSkill training will now be delivered by the Housing Hub.
About 860 people participated in the Summer Foundation’s 10th Annual Public Forum on 2 November.
This included 160 people who attended the forum in person and about 700 who were online to focus on how home and living supports can be transformed to truly meet the needs of people with disability.
The NDIS Review final report was made public on 7 December. Overall the scope and scale of recommendations from the NDIS Review are welcome. The Review clearly articulated the design flaws. Change will not happen overnight.
Welcome to our last newsletter for 2023.
The year ends on a high with the state and federal governments agreeing at National Cabinet to work together to improve the lives of people with disability, and the release of the NDIS Review final report and recommendations.
It is heartening to see the government has laid the foundations for the radical changes to the NDIS that are needed. See our perspective on the recommendations and what will happen next here.
Taken together, the NDIS Review and the Disability Royal Commission recommendations have the potential to transform disability housing. You can read more about this in my recent article in The Conversation here.
On the latest episode of Reasonable & Necessary, Dr George speaks to Alastair McEwin, former Commissioner, Disability Royal Commission about what the findings and recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability will mean for the disability community.
“I have had my head in the report ever since it was released and was more than keen to speak to the man who had spent the past 4.5 years devoted to this important piece of work,” Dr George said.
“We discuss a new disability rights act, changes to the disability discrimination act, segregation in education, the phasing out of group homes and much more.“
This episode is part of the Reasonable & Necessary podcast series.
Welcome to the October edition of Summer Foundation Focus.
It’s a particularly busy time of year for us as we ramp up for our Annual Public Forum, which is being held on Thursday 2 November.
The Housing Hub has launched an SDA Eligibility Checker.
It is an easy-to-use online tool where you can answer 10 questions or less to check if you are likely to be eligible for Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA). Results are instant and you can ask for a Housing Expert to discuss your housing options in greater detail based on your results.
The final countdown is on to the Summer Foundation’s 2023 Annual Public Forum.
Transforming supports at home: Making it work for NDIS participants is the topic for the event on Thursday 2 November.
A thought provoking report, “Redesigning the NDIS” has called for urgent and radical reform of the Scheme.
The Building Better Homes campaign we have been leading to make homes more accessible for all Australians took a major step forward at the beginning of October.
We met Andrew last year and since then have been working with him on a number of projects. Sharing his voice, experience and insight he is helping to educate and improve outcomes for people with disability.
Andrew spoke with Louise recently to share a bit more about himself.
Andrew, tell us about yourself?
My name is Andrew, I’m a Nurungga man from Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, now living on Dja Dja Warung country in central Victoria. I’m an Aboriginal man living with a number of disabilities namely Parkinson’s disease and a number of major health issues as well.
Where are you living now and where are you planning to move?
I am living in a home unsuitable for my needs. It is a classic example of where things not only can go wrong, they can go wrong with major consequences. Aboriginal people have poorer health and disability outcomes and over the past 4 years my physical deterioration has been significant.
I have now been approved for SDA 3 levels higher than what I had initially been approved (improved liveability) and will be moving to a home that is high physical support. I am planning a move to the coast to a new SDA.
How do you feel about that move?
It’s great, but unfortunately it has taken severe physical deterioration and a change in federal government for bureaucrats to join the dots to make things work the way the system is supposed to work. I am quite capable of advocating for myself but it concerns me that there are a lot of people with disabilities and others that don’t have capacity to do that.
You recently spoke with (NDIS Review co-chair) Professor Bruce Bonyhady, what did you talk about?
It was a chance for him to hear directly from me the concerns that I have been raising with the NDIS and the NDIA for a number of years. And the aged care system too, as that was the system I was originally placed in many years ago. It was a fight not to get into it in the first place, it was a much easier fight to get out.
Why were you placed into aged care when you were a 50-year-old man?
Well my understanding is that there was contact made from state-based DHS to state-based aged care services that they felt because my Parkinson’s disease was a deteriorating condition and because I am an Aboriginal man, I would be better suited to a system that I was ultimately going to be remaining in. Which of course defeats the entire purpose of the NDIS in principle.
Without listening to anyone, without listening to Aboriginal people who they know have poorer health outcomes, they used exactly that to put me into a system that I didn’t want to be in and that was the aged care system.
You are an Aboriginal man, why is the Voice to Parliament important to you?
It is important to bring about change so that people will have to listen. The reality is that once this gets into the Constitution, and I am confident it will, any parliament on any day will have to listen. More people who have the authority to bring about change will listen and get on with it. Talk is cheap, talk has been there for years, talk is cheap until the referendum hopefully changes that.
We have always been told we have a voice and we are listened to, but in my 58, 59 years, it is clear to me that Aboriginal people don’t have a voice.
I am confident a Yes vote will help the Commonwealth make sound decisions to ensure Aboriginal people get the support and services they need to live better lives and hopefully in time longer lives.
Andrew explains why he thinks a Voice to parliament is important in this video below:
Andrew also shared his story in our Young people don’t belong in aged care – Our stories page here.
For many years, the Summer Foundation has focused on improving housing for people with disability in Australia. We have done this because housing for people with disability has long been grossly inadequate.
The Department of Health and Aged Care is consulting on the foundations for a new Aged Care Act. One of the proposals is to close the door to aged care for people under 65.
The Summer Foundation recently commissioned Indigenous artist, Nakia Cadd, to design a piece of art that we will include on all our documents.
The Summer Foundation and our social enterprise, the Housing Hub, host a range of face-to-face and online workshops for a wide range of audiences Australia-wide.
Welcome to our latest newsletter.
It has been a busy few months at the Summer Foundation as we celebrate the launch of a new co-design project. The purpose of the project is to co-design resources to build the capacity of NDIS participants, providers and supporters so they can exercise better choice and control over their supports.
The theme for this year’s Annual Public Forum on Thursday 2 November is Transforming supports at home: Making it work for NDIS participants.
The Summer Foundation has secured funding for an NDIS Quality & Safeguards Commission led project to build the capacity of NDIS participants.
An independent review panel was set up last year to look at the design, operations and sustainability of the NDIS.
Brendon waited for 918 days to get the correct level of funding to continue living in his 1-bedroom specialist disability accommodation in Queensland.
Xavier was stranded in hospital for 12 months after flying over the handlebars of his bike and breaking his spine, leaving him a quadriplegic.
Since 2006, the Summer Foundation has been working to get young people out of aged care. Much of our work over the past 15 years has been around changing the systems that lead to young people with disability having to live in aged care. In recent months though, we have kicked off a new program designed to directly support young people living in aged care to explore alternative housing options.
Summer Foundation researcher, Dr. Megan Topping, recently received her doctoral thesis examiners’ reports for her PhD thesis, “Treat You Like a Person, Ask You What You Want”: A Grounded Theory Study of the Quality of Paid Disability Support for Adults with Acquired Neurological Disability.