This high profile panel discussion led by Lauren Henley drew out the priorities from a series of inquiries across the nation to keep people with disability safe from violence, abuse and neglect.
The session opened with a powerful video featuring Jane, talking about what it was like to give evidence to the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child abuse.
High on the agenda was the recommendation from both Senate and Victorian Upper House inquiries for a Royal Commission into abuse against people with disabilities. This was underpinned by Ombudsman Deborah Glass advocating for a single independent body to oversee reports of abuse in the disability sector, which could also form the bedrock of a new safeguarding framework under the NDIS.
Ombudsman Deborah Glass said one of the main points arising from her investigation of allegations of abuse in the disability sector was:
“we simply don’t know the scale of abuse” because there is no single cohesive system of reporting. Rather the oversight system is complicated, fragmented, and confused, involving lots of different bodies – many of which do good work – but therefore resulting in duplication, problems around boundaries, and “no-one actually owns the problem”.
People with disability are not empowered to make complaints about violence and abuse says @VicOmbudsman Deborah Glass #SDAC16
— Alastair McEwin AM (@almcewin) September 2, 2016
Labor MP Maree Edwards outlined the major points of the Victorian Parliament’s inquiry into abuse in disability services and her concern that there was no national quality and safeguarding framework to protect people with disability ahead of the NDIS rollout. It is crucial, she said, to get that framework in place, “to know exactly what service providers need to do” to protect their clients from violence, sexual assault, financial abuse and other risks under the new system.
The panel discussion also highlighted the vital role of advocacy, including the need for outreach advocacy for people with disability living in more closed institutions and of greater advocacy and collaboration across sectors, particularly between disability, women’s and family violence sectors.
Therese Sands said vital issues about the safety of people with disability must also be drawn out through a number of other current or upcoming high profile investigations: the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child abuse, the New South Wales inquiry into the treatment of students with disability in the state’s schools, and the Royal Commission into juvenile justice in the Northern Territory, in the wake of Four Corners’ Don Dale revelations. The need for these inquiries all pointed, she said, to a significant problem in Australia of “systems with violence embedded” and how a Royal Commission could interrogate and hold those systems accountable.
‘We, as ppl with disabilities are immeshed in systems which are violent. We need to hold systems accountable. A royal commission’ #SDAC16
— Jax Brown (they/them) ♿️🏳️🌈 (@mxjaxbrown) September 2, 2016
Patsie Frawley told the conference she sees ‘safeguarding’ as relating to processes, policies and frameworks, not people. “People don’t need safeguarding: what they need is what everyone else needs and wants: the opportunity to express themselves as a sexual person and be respected as a person who can have equal and affirming relationships.”
She highlighted her work on the landmark Living Safer Sexual Lives peer led program for people with intellectual disability and now on developing informed and effective tertiary responses to violence and abuse of women and girls with disability for Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). That work, she said, is “starting to bring into the mainstream an acknowledgement that if we’re doing violence and abuse prevention and thinking about responding to violence and abuse: don’t forget people with disability.”
It remained a continual danger and frustration, Therese Sands said, when places where so many people with disability lived – boarding houses, residential homes etc – were not included in definitions and frameworks for family violence protection and policing.
As Trish has pointed out today We need to call it violence! Not abuse! Violence! #SDAC16
— Jax Brown (they/them) ♿️🏳️🌈 (@mxjaxbrown) September 2, 2016
Lauren Henley sums up in her post session interview with Marie McInerney.
Further information on topics relevant to the discussions in this session include:
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DARU is auspiced by DAV and VCOSS with funding from the Victorian Government Office for Disability
