Victoria Arrell

Carer of a person with disability

Victoria Arrell

Our son has complex support needs and as mentioned in several other submissions this is an area that is under serviced. It took us several attempts to find an advocate that would help us with our particular situation some years back. One organisation said that there was nothing they could do, one said that we needed to change our expectations of our son, without actually talking to him themselves and sent us out some pretty booklets and leaflets to convince us to do so. This was not helpful. Our request for more support for our son, not less was supported by all the various professionals in his life. For us, we needed an advocate that was strong, knowledgeable, committed and passionate about helping people with a disability. We found this at Action for People with Disability. Our concerns were listened to and our son’s complexity of needs were understood. We found Christine Agius (his advocate) had a very good knowledge of Government policy, law, disability and has displayed a genuine commitment to helping our son over many years, so it is very concerning to hear that this organisation could have it’s funding cut in two years time.

I would also like to advocate to have advocates that deal in the specialty area of law due to the over representation of people with intellectual disability and mental health issues in our gaols. As far as we have come towards standing up for the rights of people with disability there is more that needs to be done.

Thank you for giving the public an opportunity to express what we have found to be working and not working in Advocacy.