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The quality of paid relationships is key for effective support, yet little is known about how people receiving and providing support understand and experience the relationship. This paper reports on recent research that explored the role of relationships with paid support workers in strengthening the rights and wellbeing of young people with cognitive disability in Australia. The research used photo-rich participatory methods with 42 pairs of young people and their support workers and drew on Honneth's recognition theory to specifically explore experiences of being valued, respected and cared about in their work together. The findings point to the importance of these connected aspects of recognition in paid support relationships, highlighting both the presence and absence of these, as well as experiences of misrecognition. The implications of recognition for strengthening support need close consideration in an international context characterised by personalisation of support, resource constraints and inquiries into poor practice. Relationships are key to good quality support. We wanted to know whether and how paid support relationships between young people with cognitive disability and support workers in Australia contribute to feeling valued, respected and cared about. Young people felt valued when the worker noticed what they did and found ways to help them achieve what they wanted to do. They felt respected when they could make decisions about choices and control over their lives. They felt cared about when they felt personal warmth, they were listened to, they felt their views mattered and they trusted each other. When young people felt harmed, they felt it deeply. The worker often did not intend to cause harm with their words or actions. The careless harm sometimes was from unequal power in the relationship. The inequality sometimes took away the voice of the young person. Sometimes the support worker also felt like their voice could not be heard. The research is important because how we feel about being with another person is key to how we know who we are. It develops the self-esteem, self-respect and self-confidence of the young person and the support worker. Knowing this matters for improving the quality of personal support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parent-carers need support to continue to care for their child with significant disability in their home. There has, however, been little evidence that respite interventions have consistent or enduring beneficial effects on carer well-being. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study which adopted an Appreciative Inquiry philosophy to interview parent-carers of children with significant intellectual and/or developmental disabilities on how formal support services have helped them maintain their health and well-being, and disability support staff on how they help such parent-carers foster their health and well-being. We conclude that better communication and collaboration between service providers and users, more targeted training of workers, and embracing a person-centred and family-centred approach to respite services are needed. In addition, clearer definition and communication of the scope of respite services are required to best support families of children with significant disability in their home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People living with intellectual disabilities have a right to be safe from abuse and neglect and have a right to be included in the decision-making process determining safeguards that will affect them. However, the research evidence that could underpin good professional practice in terms of co-producing safeguards against abuse and neglect directly involving people with intellectual disabilities is largely missing. This article, based on qualitative research involving semi-structured interviews conducted during the first half of 2014, seeks to strengthen this evidence base. It reports on the prevention strategies identified by 12 adults with intellectual disabilities about how to stay safe and compares these with the findings of similar research. The article suggests that a comprehensive safeguarding approach comprises both life course-focused safety training and access to assisted decision-making. The article argues that given the plethora of risk situations encountered by people living with intellectual disability, assisted decision-making should take the form of a co-creation process that is situation specific and grounded in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some research suggests that disabled people are more likely to be sexual minorities than non-disabled people, but this evidence comes mainly from younger or older populations. We used data from a large survey of Australian men aged 18–55 to examine the relationship between disability and minority sexual orientations. Results from our statistical analyses suggest that a larger proportion of disabled than non-disabled men are sexual minorities. Our estimates showed that disabled men were at least twice as likely as non-disabled men to be attracted to females and males, not experience sexual attraction, identify as bisexual, identify as homosexual and have female and male sexual partners—relative to the likelihood of female-only attraction, heterosexual identity and female-only sexual partners. Findings provide new information about sexual diversity in disabled versus non-disabled Australian men, which can help inform inclusive service provision and identify avenues for future research about sexual minority disabled people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender has often been overlooked in the lives of people with intellectual disability, resulting in a limited understanding and service response. This is in part due to a lack of knowledge about the way people with intellectual disability negotiate and build a gendered identity. In this article we present research undertaken with six young women with an intellectual disability who worked with the first researcher to co-develop some stories from their lives. We show how, facilitated by an innovative method which focused on meaningful engagement, the women told stories of richly gendered lives and subjectivities. Their stories showed how gender can be a desired and productive subjectivity, and how consideration of gender can help to identify resistance and agency in their lives. Their stories illustrate how gender is necessary in forming a comprehensive understanding of the lives of women with intellectual disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deinstitutionalisation must extend beyond the closure of institutions to individualised support to people with intellectual disabilities and societal change. Castellani suggests that closure processes may be incompatible with effective deinstitutionalisation. This article draws on findings from two Australian studies of institutional closures to explore tensions in the closure process that occur in the policy context of applying managerialist principles to the delivery of services, and examines how these processes hindered or furthered the aims of deinstitutionalisation. It suggests closure can divert attention from planning for individualised support, the needs of staff may conflict with those of residents, transition plans may be disrupted by organisational imperatives and that little attention may be paid to broader community development strategies or micro‐level planning of the nature of staff support. The article reiterates the danger of equating institutional closure with deinstitutionalisation and the need to focus beyond the imperatives of closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to adequate, safe, secure, accessible and affordable housing is a fundamental human right and one stipulated in the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Australian adults with disabilities experience housing disadvantage including homelessness, poor-quality housing and housing unaffordability; however, we lack a comprehensive comparison of the housing circumstances of people with and without disabilities and differences by impairment type. We analysed data from a nationally representative sample of 11,394 working-aged Australians collected in 2011. We found that people with disabilities experienced disadvantage across all housing indicators, and people with intellectual and psychological disabilities fared worst. These findings suggest that there is a housing crisis for Australians with disabilities, which may intensify with the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. There is a need to develop long-term housing solutions that promote independence, are accessible and affordable, and that consider location and neighbourhood context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing recognition that legal responses to domestic violence can only be effective if those who implement the law – for example, child protection workers, police and magistrates – are also effective. This article draws on the narratives of women with intellectual disabilities to analyse their experiences of engaging with the legal system as a response to domestic violence. In particular, the article considers whether they have access to appropriate support to utilise the remedies afforded by the law on an equal basis to survivors without disabilities. In considering this we draw on the concept of supported decision-making, an approach recommended by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the dynamics of support observed in the networks of nine adults with intellectual disability, developed by families who had committed to achieving a ‘good life’ for this person. Network members, including the person with a disability, participated in this longitudinal ethnographic study. Three principles that underpinned their work were positive and respectful relationships, mentorship and providing opportunities and expectations. Participants worked actively with other network members to develop higher levels of autonomy and social participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a small in-depth research study with five women who have an intellectual disability. Recognising the potential limitations of narrative approaches an inclusive arts-based methodology, supplemented with semi-structured interviews, and was employed to enable the women to speak for themselves about issues that were of interest to them. Thematic analysis of the data showed that the women experienced practices of social and emotional exclusion, and inclusion, in their everyday lives. While disappointing, this is not surprising. Of particular interest to the researchers were the women’s strategies for living with, and sometimes resisting, such practices. We suggest that further research which elicits such resistant practices and working with women to strengthen them could be useful for people interested in notions of inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the adjustments made to include people with intellectual disabilities in mainstream services. Drawing on in-depth interviews with both people with intellectual disabilities and mainstream service managers in four urban regions in Australia, the paper points to three modes of practice that are operationalised, to different degrees, when people with intellectual disabilities seek access to mainstream services: a commitment and adjustments to support inclusion of a wide range of marginalised people (diversity and inclusion ethos); adjustments to support inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities more specifically (differentiated adjustments); and, personal support for service users with intellectual disabilities. We argue that these three modes, at the service level, correspond in complex ways with three broader approaches to social inclusion: mainstreaming, differentiation and individualisation. Rather than contradictory modes of inclusion, our analysis suggests these approaches should be understood as complementary. Some mainstream services that value 'inclusion' make adjustments to their service in order to better include people from different marginalised groups. Such adjustments have mixed outcomes for people with intellectual disability, whose specific needs are not always met. Some mainstream services operate separate activities for users with intellectual disability. This helps them manage behavioural and communication challenges, and can help people with intellectual disability experience a sense of belonging. But separate activities also limit opportunities for full inclusion in the mainstream. Often people with intellectual disability require their own personal support to be able to use mainstream services. Some mainstream services rely on such personal support as their main strategy to include people with intellectual disability. Other mainstream services work collaboratively with personal supporters to promote inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on an ethnographic study of the closure of a large institution for people with intellectual disabilities in Australia. The research involved 20 months of field work including participant observation in a locked unit at the institution, 120 interviews with those closing the institution, staff and families involved with people living there. The researcher was also involved as a participant observer in the closure of the institution. The paper argues that deinstitutionalisation is a problematic process because it necessarily involves a tension between two incompatible discourses: one concerned with the `rights' of people with intellectual disabilities and the other with their `management'. This tension leads inevitably to compromises in the practice of deinstitutionalisation. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of this argument for future institutional closures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media sources can influence and shape attitudes and beliefs towards others. This study explored newspapers depictions of autism. All articles which included keywords relating to autism published in 2016–18 in Australian newspapers were read, coded, and categorised. In 2016, 428 articles relating to autism were published, 532 in 2017, and 391 in 2018. Only 7% of all articles demonstrated a high content focus on autism; most (59%) were heavily focused on opinion and less than 1% included first-hand perspectives from individuals on the spectrum. Over half the articles focussed upon health and medical issues (33%) and profiles of people on the autism spectrum (25%). To minimise the spread of misinformation around autism, the paper concludes with advice for those writing media articles related to autism. Newspapers provide a public account of autism and those with autism, therefore, media portrayals and what aspects of the condition are reported, inform public perceptions. Newspaper articles predominantly focus on the health and medical aspects of the condition, emphasising a 'cure' or treatments for autism. Articles tend to single out individuals with a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, through media depictions or characterisations. Media articles reviewed often only mentioned autism but did not explain or discuss the details related to the syndrome and rarely included the expertise of qualified practitioners. Only 1% of all news stories included first-hand perspectives from individuals on the autism spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key goal of the NDIS, the federally funding individualised funding scheme for people with a disability in Australia, is to facilitate an ordinary life for them in their communities. This study examined family perceptions of the contribution NDIS made to create an ordinary life for their adult member with intellectual disability. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 families. The families found this to be a complex process in that while the move to the new funding system supported some elements of a life more aligned to that of similar aged peers, there were also a number of missed opportunities. The opportunities that were available to the adult with intellectual disability were affected by stakeholders' differing views of disability. NDIS presents an opportunity to continue to build towards enabling people with a disability to make their own choices and, with support when needed, build a life similar to their peers. The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is the new federal individualised funding scheme for people with a disability in Australia. The National Disability Insurance Scheme gives people with a disability their own funding. This helps them to be able to make their own choices about what they want to do and what support they need. The National Disability Insurance Scheme hopes to support an ordinary life for people with a disability in their communities. This study investigated how it is working for adults with intellectual disability. It showed that it is a complicated process. Some aspects of the National Disability Insurance Scheme are working well but there are missed opportunities. There is a need to keep talking about how people think about disability so we can understand the impact different views have on the National Disability Insurance Scheme planning and outcomes for adults with intellectual disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a study seeking to examine the experiences of people with intellectual disability in a sporting context. The research design employed an online, interviewer-completed questionnaire in both a standard and an easy English version designed for administration by a third party for those requiring assistance to respond. Questions sought both quantitative responses about levels of participation and qualitative responses about constraints experienced and benefits received from participation. The results of the study show high levels of participation reported by people who are independent or have lower to moderate support needs, whereas people with high to very high support needs had substantially lower levels of participation. Constraints are examined for both those who participate in sport and those who do not. For those who do participate, the benefits were identified as overwhelmingly social in nature, including belonging, companionship and achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines findings from a qualitative study exploring the experiences of young adults with disabilities regarding their perceptions of interpersonal discrimination on public transport in two Australian states. Interpersonal discrimination by members of the public included contests for accessible seating, receiving unwanted physical assistance, bullying and intimidation. Participants reported that transport staff engaged in verbal abuse and hostile interactions including questioning the young person's disability. These experiences appeared to be influenced by narrow perceptions of disability, visibility or otherwise of the young person's impairment, limited understanding of the needs of young people with disabilities, and the age and gender of the person behaving in a discriminatory way. The discriminatory experiences were reported to have had a negative impact on the social and economic participation of these young adults in their communities. The participants of the study disclosed diverse experiences of interpersonal discrimination by the travelling public and transport officials. Interpersonal discrimination impacted on some of the young adults' capacity to move about freely, as they sought to avoid exposure to prejudicial attitudes and verbal abuse. Heightened concerns about getting to and from activities safely affected the young adults' willingness to use public transport for their daily activities. Eliminating day-to-day interpersonal discrimination that young adults with disabilities experience on public transport requires legislative, policy and societal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that social determinants are crucial to health outcomes. However, the link between how social determinants contribute to health inequalities for people with disability has often failed to be acknowledged. For example, Australian disability policy has paid little attention to social determinants of health, despite people with disability faring particularly badly on a range of outcomes. This paper identifies barriers to policy action on the social determinants of health for people with disability in Australia. Data obtained from interviews with key disability policy stakeholders are analysed using a micro, meso, macro level policy analysis framework. Our analysis identifies a "services drift" acting as an important barrier to policy action, where attention is focused on health service access rather than broader social determinants such as housing, employment and education. We also identify issues in how disability policy is made that hinders action on social determinants of health. The environments people live, work and interact in like their housing, employment and education, have been shown to be more important for good health than having access to health services, yet these areas are often neglected in policy for people with disability. Using interviewees with people involved in disability policy in Australia this article aims to explore why these areas are neglected in policy relative to the focus on access to health services. Reasons for focusing more on health services compared to other policy areas include people's attitudes towards disability such as thinking about it as a medical problem rather than a social problem. There are also issues with how disability policy is being made, such as a lack of consultation with people with disability, and a lack of co-ordination between government levels and departments. Identifying these policy barriers is an important step in finding ways to get more policy action on improving the environments people with disability live in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the experiences of a small group of socio-economically disadvantaged people and their attempts to access disability welfare under Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). We interviewed 32 individuals with some form of disability who were potentially eligible to apply for the NDIS. Our research revealed that only a small proportion of a sample successfully applied to the NDIS, with our interviewees characterised as 'hard-to-reach' because of their socio-economic disadvantage, social isolation, and lack of adequate support. Reflecting on the many and varied experiences of this group, we consider our interviewees to be at risk of further marginalisation in the absence of effective measures to engage and support them. We recommend ways to bring the hard-to-reach group within the ambit of the NDIS, as well as possibilities for future research. This article reports on the experiences of people who have attempted to engage with Australia's national disability support scheme. Only a few people within our sample had successfully applied for support under the national scheme, with others either unaware of it or unsuccessful in their applications Many in our sample were effectively excluded from the scheme due to the complexities of disability, social exclusion, and financial hardship. Further research in this area is critical so that the problems faced by people in the hard-to-reach group, with respect to accessing the national disability support scheme, can be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, younger people with a disability who require a high level of care have limited accommodation options, insufficient funding and community-based support to assist them to remain living in the community. The research presented in this article is an exploration of the experiences of younger people with a disability living in residential aged care facilities in Australia. This study aimed to gain insight into the psychosocial impact of placement in a residential aged care facility and identify strategies the younger person with a disability utilises to adjust to their living environment. Key findings from this study based in the State of Queensland, Australia, indicate that younger people with a disability living in residential aged care facilities experience significant loss. Loss of relationships with family and friends, loss of independence, and loss of connection with the broader community were common themes identified in this study. Participants countering the losses exercised strategies such as resilience and adopted resilience-enhancing methods. This article explores the experiences of younger people with a disability placed in residential aged care facilities in Queensland, Australia due to their high care needs being unmet in a community care setting. The research supported previous studies that found younger people with a disability placed in residential aged care settings experience multiple losses. These may include loss of decision-making, loss of relationships, loss of role and purpose, and loss of independence. The participants of this study were found to have limited access to the broader community in which they live and it was identified there was a lack of age-appropriate activities available to them within the aged care facility where they resided A key finding from this research was that the participants employed resilience in order to make meaning and identify benefits to balance their grief with the loss they experienced due to living in a challenging environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the use of a mobile technology platform as experienced by people with disability, their significant other and service providers. An interpretive qualitative study design was adopted involving observations and interviews. The data were analysed using the combined lenses of the social approach to disability and the PHAATE model which represents the factors for consideration in service design for assistive technology. The findings suggest that the adoption of the technology by those in the study could be characterised by a typology of users. The implications of the typology are discussed together with the influencing factors that affected social participation and disability citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Residential aged care providers often face difficulties in meeting the needs of residents with a lifelong disability. In this article, I explore these issues from the perspective of signing Deaf residents. While previous studies have documented a number of issues around staff training and communication for Deaf residents, there remains a dearth of literature considering the root causes of these problems. Drawing on interviews with a variety of service providers, this article suggests a number of ways current practices might be improved as well as discussing funding changes required to ensure Australian Deaf residents do not fall through the cracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For those labelleddisabled, disability rights are synonymous with human rights, not merely a sub-category. In this paper we consider disability rights in terms of the right of people labelled with learning difficulties to be actively involved in research. Examples from an inclusive participatory action research project undertaken in partnership with people labelled with learning difficulties demonstrate how the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was operationalised using photo-voice to facilitate accessible research, analyse findings and promote social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments continue to face challenges in implementing effective strategies to increase social and economic participation of people with disabilities. In a recent OECD high-level policy forum on Sickness, Disability and Work, the main policy message was the need for a culture of inclusion; with a dual focus on short-term active policy interventions and long-term structural reform. This paper examines policies in liberal welfare states that encourage people receiving disability benefits to participate in the labor market. Examples from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia of active labor market programs aimed at moving people with disabilities from workfare are analyzed in the context of international disability rights and neoliberal discourse. The paper explores the extent to which new approaches to activation policies are facilitating parity of participation and factors that impact the effectiveness of these policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paradigm in disability supports is shifting away from institutional services and professional control towards self-determination and community involvement of people with disabilities. The assumption that the best way to provide disability supports is for government to give money to agencies or services, rather than directly to people with disabilities and their support networks, is being challenged. This article reports on findings and themes fruit: a Canadian study that investigated individualised funding projects from different parts of the world. Ten of fifteen of the most 'promising initiatives' were selected for wore detailed study and analysis. Projects analysed were from Canada, the US, and Australia. Themes emerging from the study included tile fact that values and principles mattered, a policy framework provided coherence and equity, infrastructure supports for individuals were separate from service system, the facilitator-broker role differed from case management, allocation of individualised funds was designed to be equitable and accountable to the funder and person, and a `learn as you go' philosophy maximised positive outcomes. This research project demonstrates that individualised support and funding, when embedded in the new paradigm of disability and community, builds capacity of individuals, families and communities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Quality of life’ experiences for people with disabilities who are highly dependent on services that are delivered in home-based environments are strongly influenced by the nature of their interactions with service workers. Service workers may not be aware of the felt attachments of people living in services because their own lives are relationally enriched. Role descriptions of service workers, which focus on task-orientated service, rather than relational serving, distances them from the people they serve. It is more difficult for people living in services to expand their social world and relationships with service workers may be the only validating relationships in their lives. Human service delivery involves relationships between people, which necessarily address ethical questions. This paper discusses findings of a study involving 14 agencies in Western Australia, which provide living environment services for young people with disabilities and older adults, to gain insight into service users’ daily experiences and their perceptions of quality in receiving services. Immersion in different models of services over a 2-year period, and inductive analysis of interview data, has found that relationships between service users and workers lie on a continuum, with mutually supportive relationships between service users and workers at one end, and physical and psychological abuse at the other. Experiences were variable in single service contexts, highlighting the problems of using currently employed extant measures to evaluate quality in living services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]