No caseworkers, no care and no system to catch those who are falling down, and no addressing of the violence in the disabilities system…
The awful occurrence at Bondi was an abrupt cruel interruption to the Australian otherwise happy and perfect, albeit ordinary lives people have come to know in this society. However, if there had been a system for mental health to follow up those with mental disorders, and not let the mentally needy slip through the system - is it possible that none of this tragedy needed to happen? Where are the case workers in mental health system? Is there a system? Or are the mentally lost left to their own devices. It seems the case.
Similarly in disabilities there are no caseworkers to follow up those with disability who do not have a parent advocating for them who cannot fill out all the questions for a new ‘plan’ from the ndis to prove they have a disability – yet they are left with no one to care if no family is around them. They often end up dying alone as Peter Harris did and his sister found he had died when she lived in another state – no one was looking after him, so he did not receive medications or supports for food to help him live. IN the pandemic many with disabilities died and no one cared. Those with disabilities do die in terrible circumstances because the NDIS fails to look after them properly always treating disabilities as a lucrative business. Money on their minds the Australian politicians such as Bill Shorten pretend to care and then do nothing about those who are struggling in the system.
Time for the government to take stock and actually care about those they say they support. Caring not just for the successful in society, but those who are not ‘perfect’ or in the success machine of our society. Never mind this so called national mental health crisis as Albanese now proclaims, caused by Bondi he says, which seems out of touch. There was always a mental health crisis in Australia the Prime Minister just never bothered, cared or addressed it. Albanese means then the mental health of people with nice normal lives who have now been affected by a terrible event that could have been avoided.
Where are all the case workers? Where is the framework of accountability? There is none in disabilities – parents cope alone. There should be case workers in disabilities to help parents and those with disabilities and case workers in mental health to follow up and help support those who need it. The NDIS system now putting out the autistic kids to dry expecting another system for them promised by Bill Shorten. Really? I hope so.
The Australian government dismantled mental health places of care but did not put a better system in to catch those who wandered the streets with no supports or went homeless. Now with a higher cost of living mental health of all are affected by the pressures of trying to live and provide for their families and their children. Disability children’s families included who are already living on the edge trying to look after the demands of their disability child and adult child and expect to prove they have a disability now without a diagnosis? Ludicrous and cruel to do this to parents. I hope there is a better system for the autistic and not just something the politicians say to sound good as they did with the NDIS shutting down everything else to make everyone switch to NDIS for their disability needs – now they say there should be other supports outside NDIS! You don’t say.
Meanwhile parents of disability children are chilled to the bone, when their own child is harmed in a school by a teacher or in care, or a day program – we try to protect our children and they are attacked by workers who are untrained and of bad character. Not trained at all or trained too little. They hurt our children,n and the NDIS does not care but relegates all complaints to we will work with the providers to make them better.
The NDIS machinery designed to make money not to care at all with the contrary policies of Bill Shorten - no longer have a diagnosis, yes you need diagnosis, no you don’t. Yes you can have funding, no you cannot. Saying they will make providers accountable but there are no penalties, no punishments no shutting down. If someone dies even then the providers are not not shut down - parents are worried every day of their lives for their vulnerable children who will hurt them when there is no framework of accountability in disabilities? How will they survive when we are not here to advocate for them will they die alone like Peter Harris or Ann Marie Smith with her long time worker neglecting her to death. NDIS is not caring enough, not human enough and needs to bring back the case workers to catch those who cannot fill out the forms who cannot help themselves.
In America recently a bus aide worker was arrested and charged for abusing autistic children on the school bus
https://www.kxan.com/.../video-colorado-school-bus-aide.../
A bus aide worker was caught on camera punching and stomping on a severely autistic child in the bus and the article notes “Kiarra Monte Laron Jones, 29, a paraprofessional who worked for Public Schools, has been charged with one felony count of third-degree assault against an at-risk person in connection with the March 18 incident, according to court records. Jones was seen on the video punching an at-risk student and pushing, hitting and touching him in an unwelcoming way, according to the affidavit.
The child’s mother, Jessica Vestal, spoke at a press conference on Tuesday, demanding accountability from the Littleton school district.”
The article also noted that this had gone on for a while but that the school had failed to investigate when complaints where made to them. “According to the law firm, the alleged abuse has been happening for months, with signs dating back to September 2023. The affidavit also says that there was footage of three assaults occurring in February and March.” The boys mother also said that there were repeated incidents which could have been prevented had the cctv camera footage been routinely inspected.
Noted in the Denver Post “The abuses of special needs children continue to occur because school districts treat this community as a burden rather than a blessing,” attorney Mohamedbhai said in a statement. “School districts routinely fail to train and support those who work with special needs student populations. Choices of where funding goes reveal value choices and school districts lack expertise and compassion to protect our most vulnerable student population.” (Hernandez, Denver Post, April 9th, 2024)
At least there were cameras on the bus, for Vestral’s son to have his abuse discovered and stopped and the worker to be charged. It was noted that the public schools board said there was nothing on the CCTV footage out of the ordinary when in fact there was abuse noted also in the Denver Post, so they were covering it up it appears.
CCTV is not being used in the classrooms of special needs children in Australia, there are no protections like this, whereas in Louisiana America, parents have lobbied and had the backing of a Senator to put a bill through to make it mandatory in that state in all special needs classrooms. Australia lags behind and politicians are simply not interested in protecting special needs children. Where is their heart?
Here in Australia no abuse is being caught and no abusers can be charged for the simple lack of evidence especially when our children are nonverbal by not have cctv cameras to catch all the abuse, violence and negligence. The NDIS quality commission (not independent investigation at all) does not properly investigate anything unless forced by a death situation or the media itself.
Noted in another article of the bus aide’s abuse (Mariah Maddox , family and parenting, 15 April 2024) ‘The parents of the children explained that they noticed "significant shifts in their child’s behavior and noticed physical injuries on their child, including unexplained scratches, bruises, a lost tooth, a broken toe, a black eye, and other deep bruises on their bodies and feet," starting in September 2023. In January 2024, they contacted the school with their concerns.
"They did a sham investigation in which they looked at one ride," said Ciara Anderson, an attorney with the firm. "They did no other investigation, they asked no other questions and they provided no other monitoring. Because of these horrific failures by the school district, the bus aide was emboldened to continue her abuse — and she did."
The same in Australia, if we never punish and catch those who hurt our vulnerable special needs children – if the system allows it then the abuse will continue. This needs to change. There have been over 7000 cases reported of serious abuse in a previous year (2022 -2023) in NSW alone as we have seen before no prosecutions, no charges unless a camera involved which happened once. The rest of families have to put up with the attacks on their children and adult children. The parents suffer in silence - or they are silenced by fear of losing services for their child. This should not be allowed to continue, there must be cctv cameras and accountability in disabilities, or the abuse continues in a system that praises itself for doing so well, yet fails to care, fails to give protection and is not making its providers accountable for how they treat the most vulnerable. The framework of care needs to be extended into protection from harm included and a monitoring of the providers that is more stringent and involves human inspections. We need this at the least for our helpless and vulnerable especially non verbal children why should they have to live with harm?
All the best
Anndrea x
sign my petition: change.org/disabilitycameras
#disabilitylivesmatteroz