One of Canberra's last remaining providers of respite care is closing its doors to people with high needs, as advocates warn funding shortfalls under the NDIS are becoming a "looming crisis" for the ACT.
Changes recommended after the 2015 boy-in-a-cage scandal have again been the subject of time blowouts, a delay ACT Education minister Yvette Berry blamed on the need for collaboration across several arms of government.
An expert panel called for wide-ranging reforms to how schools handled children with complex or challenging behaviours, after a 10-year-old boy with autism was locked inside a cage at a Canberra school.
SOfASD made a submission to the ACT Assembly Standing Committee on Health, Ageing and Community Services for its Inquiry into the Employment of people with disabilities.
The submission concludes:
Little is known about employment outcomes for autistic people in the ACT. It is likely that employment outcomes for autistic people are as dismal in the ACT as they are nationally.
Disability policy and programs will not deliver equitable outcomes for autistic people until programs recognise ASD is a distinct disability.
SOfASD made a submission to the ACT Students with Disability Review.
Executive Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a distinct type of disability; it is not a sub-type of intellectual disability or developmental delay.
The number of autistic students, that is students diagnosed with ASD, has increased to a point where there are now more autistic students than students with intellectual disability. Between 30% and 50% of autistic students also have intellectual disability.
The director of a Canberra-based disability advocacy group is calling for more support to allow students with disabilities to be moved away from segregated classes and into mainstream classes.
Jan Kruger, the director of Imagine More, said segregated classes are setting disabled students up for failure, and urged for more funding to allow them to better integrate into mainstream classes with their peers.
Ms Y Berry MLA Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development GPO Box 1020, Canberra, ACT 2601
Dear Minister
School is starting in 2017 again without discernible progress toward services and support for student with, or at risk of developing, problem/challenging behaviour.
On the 25/2/2016 the former ACT Education Minister wrote to our organisation saying "Senior psychologists are highly experienced in behaviour management". SOfASD wrote back (4/4/2016) asking: