Walking aids disability services
Television advertisements, featuring people with disabilities in everyday settings and airing statewide, ask people to consider how they view people with disabilities and to count them in through greater acknowledgment of and response to their rights and needs. These will be supported by advertising and features in the print media.
It is accepted in our society that people with disabilities may need assistance from others to participate in the various aspects of community life. Information on the numbers of people with disabilities and their support needs assists government and non-government agencies to plan appropriate types and numbers of services. An individual may have impairment, a disability and a handicap. Impairment involves damage to, or poor functioning in, any part of the body or mind, such as loss of sight or a limb. Impairment may result from genetic or birth circumstances, disease or injury. Impairments may be categorized as physical, sensory, psychological (or psychiatric) or intellectual types.
The primary focal point of the disability services is to create a positive distinction to the lives of people with disabilities, their families and careers. It provides leadership to sustain local communities in welcoming and supporting people with disabilities, their families and careers, accomplish access to quality support and services for people with disabilities, and defend the rights of people with disabilities who are especially vulnerable and support them to live a full and valued life. There are agencies, commissions or departments that are always responsible for funding and giving a range of supports and services for people with intellectual, physical, sensory and dual disabilities, neurological impairments and acquired brain injury. Services are being offered through programs that enable to help handicaps.
(1) Community and Home-Based Support offers HomeFirst, Accommodation Outreach Support, and Family Options. The HomeFirst, which includes the former In-Home Accommodation Support (IHAS) program, provides a series of home and community based support, essential goods and equipments to enable the in individuals with a disability to enhance or uphold maximum independence, stay living in own home, move to more dependent living arrangements, and lastly, access community activities and facilities. The Accommodation Outreach Support provides home and community based accommodation support services to assist individuals with a disability: to live outside staffed residential accommodation, to remain living in their own homes, and to move to more independent living arrangements. Family Options has the primary objective to support the families of children and adults with disabilities by providing the means whereby they may share their caring responsibilities with volunteer carers on a short term or long term basis. They are also providing short or long-term alternative family placements for children and adults with disabilities who are unable to live with their own families.
(2) The Shared Supported Accommodation Program provides high quality, community-based supported accommodation for people with disabilities, including those (a) who prefer to live independently from the family home (similar to other young people and adults in the broader community) and have significant daily support needs; or (b) whose current living arrangements will soon cease to be suitable or appropriate (for example, ageing parents becoming increasingly unable to provide support or care for the son or daughter who has a disability). The accommodation is usually provided in a shared arrangement with up to five other people with a disability. Support is provided to household members in a wide range of areas including (a) household management (for example cleaning, shopping); (b) general self-care (for example, eating, dressing, food preparation). Personal hygiene (for example, bathing, toileting) as required by each individual; and (c) community access and participation. The support focus is on encouraging skills development, the capacity for making choices, maximum integration with the community and a lifestyle that emulates the general community.
(3) The Community Participation includes Day Programs, Features for Young Adults (FFYA) and Recreation. The Day Program provides adults with a disability the opportunity to enhance their independence, skills, community participation and general quality of life. It supports people in a range of areas such as skill acquisition, access to education, training, recreation and leisure. The programs vary enormously and meet a wide range of individual and group needs. A Future for Young Adults provides information, advice and support for up to 3 years to young people with disabilities leaving school. Futures for Young Adults aims to facilitate a young person's capacity to plan for and pursue a range of goals and opportunities as they make the transition from school to participation in adult life. It supports young people to plan ahead, set goals and make informed decisions about their future and the range of post school options they want to explore. The Recreation program helps people with disabilities participate in a range of recreation, leisure, sport, cultural and arts activities, and encourages mainstream sport and recreation agencies to cater for people with disabilities.
