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Children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay (SDD) are vulnerable for the development of (future) behavioral and mental health problems. To support children within this target group, knowledge on their social-emotional development is necessary. Therefore, in this paper, an explorative assessment of the changes in the social-emotional functioning of children with SDD over a two-year period was done. Yearly semi-structured interviews with one or more primary caregiver(s) of 25 children were conducted and analyzed on 13 domains of social-emotional functioning, according to an adapted version of the Scale for Emotional Development - Revised (SED-R). This study showed a lot of variation in individual and group patterns of change across the two-year period. Charting the social-emotional development in this target group is challenging and requires further in-depth analysis of individual trajectories as well as more fine-grained and long-term data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Australians living with a disability find themselves recipients of Newstart Allowance when applying for the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Newstart Allowance is designed as a short-term payment for people looking for work, with a lower fortnightly payment and limited medical and transport subsidies compared to the DSP. This paper describes the financial challenges of living with a disability while on Newstart Allowance. With a focus on the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians from two regional towns, qualitative semistructured interviews and focus groups documented experiences of 39 community members and 21 medical and nonmedical service providers supporting clients living with a disability on Newstart Allowance. Four themes were identified: (i) living with severe financial hardship, (ii) challenges complying with the DSP application, (iii) being financially penalised for not complying with Newstart Allowance conditions, and (iv) supporting community members to manage severe financial stress. Although people living with a disability on Newstart were experiencing severe hardship and poverty, there was limited participation of Centrelink-employed social workers within their described experiences with Centrelink. We argue that social workers can work to humanise human service settings and potentially help to mitigate these financial challenges. IMPLICATIONS Indigenous Australians living with a disability experience severe disadvantage and poverty while living on Newstart Allowance. Social workers must be easily accessible at Centrelink customer service centres and to Newstart Allowance recipients to help coordinate service engagement. Newstart Allowance should be increased to ensure recipients can respond to cost of living pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]