Afternoon everyone my name is Melissa Hale and I’m the manager of the Disability Advocacy Resource Unit. It’s our pleasure to be with you here today. Welcome to this Advance Your Advocacy Practice session, it’s wonderful to see you all here with us. Before we begin today’s session I’m meeting today on the of the nation, I pay my respect to the elders past and present, also like to pay my respect to all other indigenous people on this call today. We encourage your active engagement with this session, so please make sure your question are put in the Q&A box and we will facilitate a Q&A session at the end of the presentation. People with a disability from a culturally and linguistically diverse background as a cohort are at higher risk of experiencing violence and abuse when they are compared to the general population of people without a disability. They’re also less likely to have access to services. Today we’re lucky to have Shukrullah and  Celeste from Action on Disability in Ethnic Community to talk about the challenges and barriers that CALD  people with disabilities by in accessing services and what you as advocates can do to help overcome these barriers and meet their needs across all service settings. So please extend them a warm welcome.

[Shukrullah] Thank you, Thank you everyone, and first of all I would like to say a big thank you to Melissa and the DARU team for providing us this opportunity to be here and talk to you guys. As Melissa mentioned we are going to talk about the cohort which is CALD people with disabilities that we work with, their challenges and how we work with them to support them as much as we can. So I’ll do a little bit of introduction our agency as well. So, me and my colleague Celeste, we are from ADEC. ADEC stands for Action on Disability within Ethnic Communities. So we work with only clients who identified themselves as a CALD client with the family member as CALD. So apart from advocacy services we also have Aged Care services, disability support and community services so like few other advocacy Services we are funded by Department of Social Sservices and Victorian Department of Family Fairness and Housing to provide advocacy support service for CALD people with disability. Through our work we do work with client from various cultural background and they may have come to Australia many years ago, or they might be here as a recent arrival. They can be refugee, asylum seeker and migrant, so I just would like to make a little bit of definition of each.

Just to explain for you guys, so refugee by UNCR definition, refugee is a person who has fled their own country because they were at risk of serious human rights violation and persecution, that the risk to their safety and life was so great that they felt they had no choice but to leave and seek safety outside of their country. So when it comes to their entitlement to services, including Disability Services, people from a refugee background or refugee, they have like exact the same entitlement as Australian citizen so, and there is a great, you know, level of supports that they can benefit from. However Aslyum Seeker is different. So Asylum Seeker is a person who has left their country and seeking protection from persecution and serious humans right violation in another country, but who has yet, who hasn’t yet been legally recognized as a refugee and is waiting to receive a decision on their Aslyum application. So for an Asylum Seeker unfortunately there’s very very few services that they are entitled for. So, for example, they’re not entitled to access, they’re not entitled to access a lot of Centrelink benefits including disability support pension, carer payment and other mainstream services. When it comes to disability services,
there are few services that they may benefit, and then the third one is migrant. So there is no internationally accepted legal definition of a migrant, and it is mainly refers to people who came to or who go to another country due to work, study or to join family. They may have various Visa types so those Visa types basically determine the eligibility for services, and it can be quite varied. Now here at ADEC we do work with people from various cultural backgrounds. So people who had come from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, China, Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and few other countries. So it may change depends in the in our emerging communities and where you work.

So today as Melissa earlier mentioned in her introduction, we’re mainly going to talk about the challenges that the people face when trying to access services and how we help them to overcome those challenges. There are a few terms that we’re going to talk, or topics, me and my colleague Celeste were taking turns. So we’re going to talk about their challenges when it comes to accessing NDIS, all the way to the review, the process, their challenges to accessing appropriate and safe housing, challenges accessing
education, navigating health system and cultural challenges. We’re going to have two cases study as well, and also towards the end we’re going to briefly talk about what we do and or probably what is the best practice to work with them. Next slide.

Now I’m handing over to my colleague Celeste who is going to talk about challenges to accessing the NDIS.

[Celeste] Thanks very much for the introduction Shukrullah yeah as Shuk said my name is Celeste and I’m an advocate here at ADEC. So I’m going to go into a bit more depth about some of the challenges that we face when trying to help our clients to access the NDIS. Now the barriers start before someone arrives in Australia because while the UNHCR or the department do information sessions where they cover a number of different information, such as housing and centerlink, they don’t talk about the NDIS. So this is regardless of the fact that they may be aware that people have a disability because of their assessment, so it’s highlighting a major gap in information when people with a disability from a CALD background arrive in Australia, because for a lot of these people in their country of origin they will have no services or disability services. So because of that they’re not aware of their right to access services or how to access services. Now there’s also added barriers that a lot of people could arrive in Australia with no English. Some may be illiterate and some may also struggle with technology. So a lot of information about the NDIS and disability services is only available in English and only available online. So this is meaning that a cohort of people who face these barriers are excluded from accessing services without the right intensive support. So that’s where we come in, to help people. So a big issue that we face is a lot of people can arrive in Australia with no diagnosis for their disability. So to gain access to the NDIS and a number of services, you actually require a diagnosis and even if someone does have a diagnosis from overseas this will not be seen by the NDIS as a diagnosis that could help them access the NDIS. So the person has to go through the Australian medical system to get an Australian diagnosis. Now this can take a lot of time. Some assessments take years and it’s also very expensive. So essentially people are arriving in the country and no matter the severity of their disability, they have to start from scratch. Now similarly a lot of people will have no reports when they arrive and also if they do have reports again, they’re not going to be seen as helping people to meet those criterias of trying the treatment options and people have to start from scratch. A really big issue that we face is that some people arrive on temporary protection visas or bridging visas and this makes them ineligible for the NDIS. So regardless of the severity of their disability, while their visa is processed they’re left with no support. And while families do the best that they can, they’re often not able to afford the therapies that the person needs, or the medical equipment and treatment. So while a person’s waiting sometimes years for their visa to be processed, their condition can decline and also family members are at risk of repeated strain from manual handling, care
or burnout. So the only other options would be HACC PYP who do accept temporary visas, however they will reject a case if it’s too high needs. So the only other option is to be admitted to hospital for an indefinite stay. Another thing we see a lot in this sector is the difficulty of accessing the NDIS based on trauma and pain diagnosis due to the permanency criteria. So we work with a cohort of people who have actually become disabled from their prolonged and repeated experiences of trauma and sometimes torture. So their conditions are so debilitating that they cannot participate in society and they will require lifelong support. However accessing the NDIS based on trauma and pain is near impossible because we can’t prove that the condition and the resulting impairments are permanent. So what we’re seeing is that we are helping people through systems that are completely un-trauma informed and this process can be re-traumatizing. And then the people making the decisions that are denying access to the people who need it the most actually have no idea of the reality of the severity of trauma symptoms. It’s also not an individual issue,
it’s a systemic issue because trauma just doesn’t fit into these rigid criterias of permanency. So once someone gets access to the NDIS there’s further barriers. So regardless of someone’s English proficiency they might get limited or no support coordination hours, and this leaves them not knowing how to navigate the NDIS and barriers they face could be, they don’t know how to look up medical practitioners, they don’t know how to book appointments, they don’t know how to make their funding last, they don’t understand Plan reviews. So it’s meaning once they get the NDIS sometimes they’re not able to utilise it. There’s also a lack of bilingual workers and people who work in a culturally appropriate way, and we see that within, you know, sometimes LACs might send our clients very lengthy emails where the language isn’t adjusted at all, with links, and the client may not even understand what they’re saying. So they’re not calling to check in to see if the client understands. So this is something that’s quite common in this sector. Further there could be cultural barriers to accepting services from a stranger or a person from a different gender. There could be no funding for an interpreter in their plan, meaning that they can’t even access the medical services they need, and also they might not be able to use their funding because they have other pressing issues, such as they’re looking for a house, or they have no transport. So those are just some of the common things that we face. And now I’m going to pass it over to Shukrullah to talk about some challenges when helping clients to access safe and appropriate housing.

[Shukrullah]: Thank you so the challenge to access housing is far more greater for people people as a refugee than the mainstream community, and this is because they don’t have any paid employment. They don’t have any references, they don’t have any rental history in Australia. So you can imagine how hard it is to secure a private rental house with none of those just relying on Centrelink payments. So that is a huge challenge. So there are very limited support service to help them to access housing, but it is very limited .
So as Celeste mentioned they lack English skill, literacy, knowledge about the systems and information. So and now the era, the time that we’re living in situations of housing or a crisis situation, it is almost impossible for them to secure their house. So when they do secure a house, the challenge for them is that if they have a child with disability, or a family member with disability who has to use wheelchair, they can’t find that safe house for that, so it is so hard for them to find a house where there’s no step, where’s no stair so they can use wheelchair. So they just except whatever it is and then the challenges start for them to use it or to live safely especially for those who is very vulnerable and with a very high need. They can modify those housing and this is because they either have very insecure housing and you know 99 or 100% of them they live in a rental housing, so it is a great challenge. They may have access for funding to access in a modified, you know, bathroom or let’s say a wheelchair access, but they can’t utilise that fund and this is because they live in a temporary housing and they either can’t or they’re not allowed to you know to do those modification. Other option for them is public housing. In public housing, as we all know, it is so hard for people to access public housing given the lengthy wait list and for them to to be able to register and be able to be offered public housing, it is just beyond their access. In this slide I’m going to talk about their challenges to accessing appropriate education. So when it comes to, you know, registering for education, you know as an ordinary family here in Australia, if we have a child with disability the child would go to kinder and then or a child care, and then assessment will be, you know, completed and then it’s school helping the families to go through those processes, including doing an assessment of IQ test. But for a refugee family or a CALD family this process is not there. So you will have a family of four with two kids with intellectual disability or Autism, just arrived here two months ago, or let’s say six months ago, they haven’t gone through those assessments and what they’re going to do, they will go to mainstream school, it could be either a language school or a mainstream school, so having that disability and challenges as a child, you go to mainstream school, you don’t have appropriate, you know, support there and there is no appropriate resources in the school, it’s not helping the kids and it’s not helping the school and the staff, so it’s a great challenge for the whole systems to provide appropriate education for those kids. So what we’re going to do, I will probably later on talk about it, but it is a great challenge for the family and for the children to access a proper to school. They end up staying in a mainstream school till all those assessments completed and then they will be, you know, referred to special school. The other issues that, especially adult with disabilities have, is that they don’t have, or they don’t have access to, education settings where they will be supported. For example, if they’re non-verbal and they have hearing or vision impairment, they simply can’t access education. Either it’s going to be English or it’s going to be a diploma in TAFE. So accessibility is a great issue for people with disability when it comes to, you know, tertiary or TAFE education. But for those that are very new in the society, and haven’t had any formal education before, that is a much larger challenge than anyone else. Now as a refugee they may be able to, you know, enroll for child care, or they they can put their child in the child care, and they’re entitled for those free child care through English program. But due to limited services for the child care, parents they have to wait till, you know, there’s a vacancy available enroll the child and then be able to go and study. Other problems with, or barriers for family member, mainly carer, is that they are overwhelmed by level of care that they have to offer for the family member, and they miss out education. So as a carer they are providing care 24/7 and they just simply don’t have time for themselves to go and study. It can be either English or other education. And then people who is deaf and and who cannot, you know, communicate the great challenge that they have, they even don’t understand Auslan language and they only communicate through their their own, I guess, Auslan language. So and this is a great challenge for us as a service provider and also other services that they were trying to connect. When they go to a doctor for example, for an assessment, Auslan interpreter will be there but the problem is that they can’t communicate. They don’t understand fully and there’s only family members that they rely on. So that family member is not only going to be utilised as a carer but as an Auslan interpreter for that family through out of their life unfortunately. So and that’s a huge challenge. And the next part is about challenges to accessing health services. So living in a war torn country or a refugee camp a lot of them experience violence or living in a war zone, and that means the majority of them they may have trauma. So and that is a huge issue in terms of their health. So a lot of them, they have trauma and when they come to Australia. So the second point is that there is a great level of unfamiliarity with Western health system. So I mean for us as a professional we understand how challenging it is to, you know, navigate the health system here in Australia, but if you can imagine people who are just here for a year or so, very limited English, and very limited information about the health system it is like a nightmare basically, to navigate a system. And then a lot of the clients with disabilities they also come with unmet health needs. So they have to go through the process to make further assessments about, and diagnosis, health issues that they have and they end up you know going through the complex process of getting assessed. And a lot of health services that offer support for them unfortunately do not utilise interpreter services, and that makes a huge challenge for them to understand. So often they go and you know sit in in the doctor room but after that they just leave confused, don’t know what happened, what’s going to happen next. Language and literacy issue that Celeste my colleague touched on. So and then the next point is about different culture understanding of disabilities. So they may have a child with disability but the family may not think that they the child may suffer from a disability. And they may not come to you to seek support for that. So there is often a different concept of you know disability. It could be, you know, related to, you know, shame or guilt, or it could be just, you know, other things. So and the other part is of course cultural stigma. So of course it is here in Australia when we work with the mainstream society it is there as well, but when you work with people from a CALD background this is in a greater level. So the next part that I’m going to talk about is medical practitioners then when they’re providing support for client, not all of them necessarily explain the diagnosis for them and assuming that the people understand their diagnosis. And this is causing a bit of harm for the people because they simply don’t understand, and it needs to be explained and that’s not happening much unfortunately. So further challenges,
here is the cultural challenges that I’m briefly going to talk about. Of course we service people from various cultural background and they can be quite different one to another. So it’s not just, you know, one culture of course, it is thousands of cultures within, you know, the communities that you work with. So, but the majority of them the majority of them when it comes comes to seeking help for people with disability, their understanding is that it is family responsibility to provide care for people with disability. They do not have often the expectations that an external service including, you know, a scheme by government for example NDIS or other service providers should come and help. That’s how, you know, they see things, they say no this is our family responsibility and as a family member we have to, you know, provide care and support. It can be good and bad things, but that’s how we, you know, learn well by working with them. The second point is cultural views of disability based on home countries experience. So a lot of them they haven’t had any services, they haven’t had any support for people with disabilities and they haven’t experienced any support back in their home. When they come to Australia they are, you know, kind of assessing similar situations so, and they don’t expect. I talked about a stigma, so cultural misunderstanding, so for example offering a support worker may be interpreted as believing they’re not able to care for the family member, and it may bring shame to the family if they have a, you know, support worker come to the house and support the family member. And then the acceptance of opposite gender for support worker is a challenge. So not all of them will be willing to accept that support and it’s, I guess, a matter of how you’re going to, you know, have the discussions with them and explain to them, you know, how you’re going to do that. Reaching out for support, so the communities vary from, you know, one to another but there are a large number of things that they may be feeling uncomfortable to ask for help, and that’s a huge challenge for us as a service provider. If they don’t tell you, you don’t know and you assume that they don’t need, but they do need that so it needs a bit of far assessment and, you know, building a good relationships and trusting relationships and then they might bring those issues to you and then you, you’re going to work with them. Now my colleague Celeste, she’s going to talk about, or she’s going to through cases studies.

[Celeste] Thanks Shuk, yeah so I’m going to be talking about two of my past cases that really show some of the barriers that our clients can commonly face. So the first one’s about Wei. So Wei’s from Burma, he has depression, chronic back pain, a suspected traumatic brain injury, he’s also had a history of alcohol abuse issues and he has a history of chronic trauma as a result of the war that broke out in Burma. Now him and his wife lost multiple family members during the war and they spent many years in a Thai refugee Camp before they immigrated to Australia on a humanitarian Visa with their daughter in 2019. So while Wei was on duty at the refugee camp he fell off a 5 meter fence and he was unconscious for over 24 hours. So since this time Wei’s wife said that he was never the same and he started to exhibit behaviors that he hadn’t previously to the fall, and he also had chronic back pain. So Wei’s wife is his full-time carer and we can’t do anything without his wife. So the case was sent to ADEC when we was rejected from the NDIS and DSP and then my role was to help with these re-applications. So a barrier that I faced in this case is that Wei speaks Karenni and it’s a really rare language and it was so hard to get an interpreter and really hard for other medical practitioners to get an interpreter. So it left him on many occasions being unable to access medical services. One day his wife was speaking to me saying he’s in so much pain he can’t sleep, but he can’t go to the doctor because they can’t get an interpreter. So in this case I booked an interpreter through our company and attended the appointment with the client. So this is just showing the extra length that sometimes you have to go so that people can access services. So how I worked on the case is that I made all referrals, I filled in all the required documents, I made sure all the medical documents were passed on to Medical practitioners and the care team. I made appointments for the client, reminded them of the appointments, booked interpreters and I was the key contact between the case. So eventually Wei was referred to Utopia health who had a Karenni interpreter, so he was finally able to access health care, and then he was also referred to a clinical psychologist who works a lot with the Burmese community and in certain cases she does cognitive assessments free of charge and she did did that for this client. He was also placed on a wait list to see the Royal Melbourne Hospital neuro-psychiatry clinic for further inspection of the suspected TBI and the GP filled in function charts for DSP. So once the cognitive assessment was completed Wei was diagnosed with a moderate intellectual disability and then the applications for disability support pension and NDIS were resubmitted and he was successful. So the case is currently exited and I’m just waiting for a meeting with the NDIS and then I’ll also start the case again in October when he has a meeting at the neuro-psychiatry clinic. So this case shows the complexity of working with people from a CALD background when they have a complex presentation of medical issues, and they’re also not able to access services because of the barriers they face and that added layer of speaking a very rare language. So what it also shows is the difficulty of trauma and chronic pain diagnosis, meeting the NDIS criteria that’s regardless of the severity and the long-standing nature of these diagnosis. Now the second case I want to talk about is Abdul. So Abdul’s a six-year-old boy from Afghanistan and he arrived in Australia with his parents and siblings on a 449 temporary protection Visa. So this made him ineligible for the NDIS and a range of other disability services. So When he arrived he was undiagnosed, but he was unable to walk, he had breathing issues, he was non-verbal and he exhibited a number of behaviors. So Shiaq his father told me that in Afghanistan they went to all of the top hospitals and spent a lot of money trying to get a diagnosis and treatment for their child, but they weren’t able to find a diagnosis. So when I first got the case, because they were ineligible for a number of services, I linked the family with multiple emergency relief organisations that provided vouchers, material aid. I also picked up adult nappies for the client and dropped them off at the house, because the family were on job seeker and the nappies that Abdul needed were costing them over $100 a week. I also helped Shiaq the father with a submission to the Disability Royal Commission and also helped him with an interview, so this gave him a chance to express his experience and speak about the difficulty of getting a diagnosis and treatment for disability in Afghanistan, and also how hard it is when you arrive to Australia on a temporary protection Visa, making his child ineligible for support and that risk that it posed to his child. He recommended that everyone with a disability be placed on a priority list to be processed, or they get access to the NDIS immediately. So once they did get permanent residency I helped them with the NDIS ECI link application. So I gathered all documents and took them through the whole process, right to linking them to a support coordinator and plan manager. Now Abdul was still waiting for his confirmed diagnosis via the genetic testing and his only diagnosis at the time was global developmental delay. So this only counts as a diagnosis for the NDIS up till seven and we submitted Abdul’s application one month before he was seven. So this shows that regardless of the severity of the disability, if we were one month later Abdul would have been rejected and had to wait many years for his diagnosis by genetic testing. Now I also help the family with carers payment and allowance, I help them with social housing priority lists based on urgent medical needs, I also helped them to get a permanent Medicare card and refer them to Refugee legal for help with Visa support for their family still in Afghanistan. So this case shows the difficulty of getting a diagnosis and treatment for disability in countries like Afghanistan, regardless of visiting the top hospitals. And it also highlights the barriers that people face when they arrive to Australia on a temporary protection visa and how they can be left with no support. So now I’ll hand it back over to Shuk to talk a little bit more about what we do.

[Shukrullah] Yeah thank you Celeste. So I think she already mentioned about the the works that, you know, we’ve been doing through those case studies that highlighted here. So in short we have to do a lot of work compared to, you know, people who may know things to do it themselves. So of course, you know, we have to apply the best approach to help them to be their own advocate, but it is very early for a lot of them to be able to do it by themselves, and that’s why there are, you know, needs for very practical support in order to help them, you know, in the ways that they can access support. So a lot of time we do provide intense support. You can, we can be like a case manager while we’re not, but it requires to be helping them in every stage of the services that they may need help. So I put the NDIS access here as an example. We help to fill out the access form, then we help them to go and obtain diagnosis, we help them to be referred to professionals, and there are times that we go and sit in their consultation session with the doctor and explain their needs to the doctor. We go there and ask the doctors that they need this assessments, and they need this referral. We book an appointment often for them and go and attend those appointments. We also make followup, lots of followup, you know it’s going to be required, lots of prompt and also of course you’re going to work with the care team. You’re going to be a liaison between the client or the family and the medical practitioner, or it can be school, or it can be case manager at some level. We, you know, play key contact for LAC or other NDIS the representative. So we attend appointment with the LAC, we also liaise with the LAC and NDIS even after their planning meeting. And and of course we try as much as we can to refer them to Local support coordination after they get a plan approval. So it requires a lot of outreach one-to-one assistance and a follow-up support. We work not only with the individual but a family, so the family presence is quite a strong and we have to work with the family unit as a whole, and there are families with two or three people with disabilities. So of course, you know, the best way would be to work as you as a family unit with all. Now the other process that we do have in place is that because of the barrier, because of their English you know skills issues and literacy, we do not have a very, you know, complex intake process. So we make it quite simple. If they just telephone us and tell us, we just need their phone number, date of birth and their consent and then later on
we gather information as much as we can. We do have drop-in service for them and the other point is language support. So interpreters, that’s really the key for every communications that you’re going to make with them. If they don’t understand they don’t tell you often and that’s important to use appropriate interpreter, the language that they speak. There are communities that, they may have multiple dialect for example people from Burma and it’s really important to check with them what dialect they speak, and what interpreter they require, and if they prefer a gender. So that’s really important to do this check-ins with them before you offer any support. And now I hand over to my colleague Celeste.

[Celeste] Thanks Shuk, yeah following up on from that, as Shuk was saying we understand the specific needs of people from a CALD community and that’s taking an individualised approach and working with people in an individual way that’s really flexible, a lot of outreach, and really helping people to overcome their barriers. So it’s also really important when working with people from a CALD background to build rapport, because with rapport comes trust. So what that might look like is when doing outreaches, you know, I’ll share tea with my clients, I’ll ask how their families are, because also, as Shuk said, when you’re working with CALD communities you’re often working with a whole family as well. So another really important point is that we act as educators for people who are arriving in Australia, and we educate them about the system which can help them, really help them to settle in Australia, because when you arrive it’s so confusing and and this acts as early intervention, because if they have this knowledge and skill now it’s so their journey to settlement is so much easier as opposed to if they don’t, and it could get till eight years down the track, and it could feel like they’re still newly arrived because they never got the right Intervention when they did arrive. And as we’re were saying, we really do put in that extra time to help people overcome the barriers that they face so I just want to talk a bit about working in a culturally safe way. So when working in this space, what I found for me is really important and in general is to never make assumption about someone’s capability before assessing their individual capacity. So here it’s important to remember that being a refugee or Asylum Seeker means is that someone’s life has been torn apart by war, or they’ve been persecuted in some way. But it says nothing about their individual capacity, and that shows by the huge array of clients that we work with. And examples of that is that I might have some clients who are illiterate, they speak no English, they have no understanding of the system and need a lot of support. But I might work with clients who have a PhD, who speak perfect English, and have worked in politics. So this is where it’s really important to do an individual’s assessment, so that we can work with people in an individual way based on their capacity. I also like to remember to never assume that someone is traumatized just because they have been through adversity or hardship or war. So how people respond to these experiences are very different. There’s a cohort of people that have been severely traumatised and there’s also a cohort of people that have built a lot of resilience, and they have a very stable mental health. So this is again an individual experience as we’ve already covered. It’s so important to reach out to clients, because in my experience the clients who aren’t able to express what they need, don’t know who you, are give you yes or no answers, they may need more help than people that express their needs and tell you what they want. So that’s also an important thing as a worker to make your assessment on. And it’s important to keep a line of communication with all the practitioners and the care team, just to avoid confusion, and to make sure there aren’t double ups, because it’s common that the client isn’t going to be passing on information to the whole team or they might be confused by what person is doing what job. Another thing is to check for understanding, because people they might be too polite to tell you that they don’t understand what you’re saying. So here it’s so important to check comprehension and then adjust based on their comprehension. And as we’ve already spoken about, extra work and time might be needed to help people overcome their barriers. An example of that is that I might need a consent document signed and I’ll have to drive an hour to a client’s house because they don’t know how to print and scan a document and they don’t know where to sign. So it’s really important to have that patience and to put in that extra time when working with people from a CALD background. Something I also like to remember is how lucky we are to have our broken system. So I find it’s a very polarising space to work in, that at one hand you’re facing a lot of bureaucracy, and challenges, and barriers and difficulty, but then I’m also working with people that often in their country they have no system. So the fact that we have a system, even if it’s broken, I’m constantly reminded by the client’s gratitude for the services and for our help, that we are lucky to have this broken system. So thank you everyone so much for listening and I really hope that you learned something. So now me and Shuk will be answering some questions.

[Melissa] Thank you very, very much for that. When I visited your your organization last year, I was struck by how much, how above and beyond this organization goes for their clients and it’s because you have to, because we do indeed have that broken system but your team really does go above and beyond for all your clients Thank you so much for such a brilliant presentation. Everybody please keep the questions coming in the Q&A chat box, they’re coming thick and fast, and then we will what we will do is if we don’t get through all of them today we will send them through to you to answer and then we can publish them on our resource section of our website. So the first question was, will we have access to the slides, yes, so we will work with ADEC to put the slide pack on our website, along with an online learning tool, as well as some answers to the questions that we have today. So the first question that I’m going to put to you is what percentage of asylum seekers or refugees and migrant would have a disability.

[Shuk] The latest statistics that was released by Queensland peak body for people with disability from CALD background it is 9% out of 22% expected. So it is well below than in our mainstream community for sure. But that’s just a snapshot, or a sample, that we can basically say it might be similar in Victoria or maybe in a higher differences in a way that very low representation.

[Melissa] Thank you, next question. In relation to diagnosis what’s the best way to reach out and make an initial appointment? Does that need to be first with ADEC team prior to seeing a specialist, or the team to help in making arrangements regarding that.

[Celeste] I’ll answer this one, so when people arrive they have a case manager, and the case manager should often link them to a refugee health service. Now they’ll do their own assessment of the person and from there be able to make referrals. So it’s really important to liaise with the case manager and then the refugee health team to make sure the correct referrals are made. But you can also, you know, do it on your own or through a GP as well.

[Melissa] Thank you. The next question, I understand that migrating to Australia is more difficult if you have a disability or a family member that has a disability. Is disability a factor when officials are viewing legibility for asylum Seekers.

[Shukrullah] I didn’t get the question Melissa, can you say that again sorry.

[Melissa] Sorry I understand that migrating Australia is more difficult if you have a disability, or a family member has a disability. Is disability a factor when officials reviewing eligibility for asylum seekers.

[Shukrullah] It is yes or no, so often if you come to Australia as asylum seeker and you have a child with disability, the child with disability may fail the test of what they called public interest or health character test. But there is a way that they can bypass it and grant a visa. But if they live overseas and they are in a refugee camp, and they are granted a refugee status, having a disability may not be a barrier to access a Visa. But if you are migrating here in Australia as a family member, and you have severe disability, you will get a rejection. And it’s just based on the cost associated with the person with disability in Australia. But they can of course appeal that, and they might get an approval, but it is a challenge in issues to get a Visa as a family member.

[Melissa] Right, thank you. How far out of Melbourne do you ADEC travel for clients.

[Shukrullah] We service Victoria wide so, or Melbourne wide.

[Melissa] Great, so the next question. Is Carer Gateway perhaps an available resource for migrating people, carers, family members? Carer Gateway.

[Shukrullah] They do offer some respite care support and it’s really worthwhile to refer them, because as we discussed earlier, so they are the carer, they are very overwhelmed with the level of support and care that they provide for the family member. And while they’re waiting for their NDIS applications to be processed, Carer Victoria or Gateways, they are the only few options that they can use for as respite care.

[Melissa] I think I’ll go to one last question. I’m curious to understand what you both think about the workforce challenges for migrant workers.So we know that many people arrive in Australia, and they’re underemployed, so they may have trained as dentists for example in their country of origin but faced a lot of red tape in expense for retraining here in Australia. So what is your thoughts on improving employment opportunities for migrants in Australia, or more specifically those with disabilities?

[Celeste] Yeah we see it a lot, and it can be such a difficult experience for our clients that they’re arriving from countries where they’ve already trained, and they’ve had a profession, and again as we were talking about it feels like they’re they’re starting from scratch. And then also, a lot of them, if they don’t have English so getting into the workforce in Australia is so so difficult and there needs to be a lot of improvement on the support to get people into the workforce. Now I know there are some trainings available, but something I really advocate for would be having a course that makes the study that you did in your home country it means that you can practice here. So I know there’s some things available, but it just needs to be a lot of a clearer pathway, and also not so expensive, because we’re missing out on so many skilled workers when they’re coming to Australia and having to start from scratch again. And then, you know, if they’re not a citizen they’re having to pay for the courses again, which are extremely expensive. So this is really a point that does need to be improved and we see it a lot in our line of work.

[Shukrullah] Yeah just that, sorry Melissa, a large number of them, though they may have you know trauma and difficulties in obtaining works and or education, but they do have a great level of resilience. So if they’re given a bit of support, they do far better than a lot other people, and it is just the willingness for them to work and contribute back to the society is a huge thing for a lot of them, and of course they may need assistance but they can, you know, give it back in a different way.

[Melissa] Thank you for that. I think I will end the session on one last question for both of you. If you could improve one thing about Australia system for migrants, refugees or Asylum Seekers what would it be?

[Shukrullah] I think it might be, to be more, there should be a little policies to be more human towards people with disability. So they shouldn’t really judge people with disability with other people who may not have disabilities the same. They should have a little bit of funding to access for assessment, for diagnosis, that can make a huge difference to their life. They don’t need to wait for many months and years to get a diagnosis when they have very obvious disabilities. That may help massively.

[Celeste] I think there really needs to be a lot of improvement for housing, because what we’re seeing is there’s such a lack of support and as Shuk was saying, if people are arriving and they have no rental references, they’re not employed at the time, or they can only get Centrelink because of their disability, or being a full-time carer, it is so difficult for them to get a rental house and it’s something we’re seeing across the board. So there really needs to be some government incentives that are helping people to get houses and also giving real estate some incentive to accept them, because this is something that we’re seeing when people are arriving in Australia. Everyone is struggling to find a house and social housing,, you wait so many years. So that’s really a baseline level need and particularly for people with a disability that really needs improvement in the sector.

[Melissa] Thank you so much, so much work for us all to do collectively, but I just want to extend my gratitude to both of you, Shukrullah and Celeste, for everything you do every day and also for the session today. So the rest of you, just so you know, the resources will be available on our website, and when they are up and ready we will let you all know. So thank you all very much, thank you for coming, thank you to the interpreters and have a great rest of the week, bye bye!

[Celeste] Thanks everyone, thank you Melissa.

[Shukrullah] thank you everyone, thanks Melissa. Bye, thank you, bye.