The Disability Information and Resource Centre

1,000 Postcards Presented to Minister O’Connor

The National Council on Intellectual Disability (NCID), together with families, employees and employers,
delivered 1000 postcards to the Hon. Brendan O’Connor MP, Minister for Employment Participation.
The postcards express the need for a national employment strategy, which provides young people with intellectual disability the opportunity to secure a job. Specifically, the postcards ask the Minister to:
• fund enough places of assistance for those who want to work,
• ensure that a specialist intellectual disability open employment service is available,
• recognise that this jobseeker group requires on-the-job training and ongoing support to succeed,
• ensure employee and employer relationships, and family confidence, is not undermined by plans to tender
out employment services, and,
• find ways to increase the employment participation of people with intellectual disability by looking at
evidence based practice.

“With only 5 weeks of this school year remaining, families are counting on the Commonwealth to deliver on its social inclusion policy; ‘that every Australian should have the opportunity to secure a job’,” said Mark Pattison, NCID spokesperson.
“We estimate that there are 2000 school leavers with intellectual disability who will be seeking to move from
school to work. Yet specialist intellectual disability open employment services do not have the funded capacity to provide assistance to this group. Families urgently need the Commonwealth to act,” Pattison added.

NCID believes that the new Commonwealth government has the opportunity to set in motion its commitment to social inclusion by ensuring that these young people are included in real jobs in the community and do not become another ‘unemployment’ or ‘not in the labour force’ statistic.
Furthermore, families are concerned about plans to regularly tender open employment services. Many are worried about how this will impact ongoing relationships between employees, employers and services. Families want to be assured that when they choose open employment, the support will be ongoing without interruption.

For the long term, families want to see training and technical assistance provided to build the competency of the open employment sector so that all jobseekers with intellectual disability will receive assistance that is best practice.

National Council on
Intellectual Disability
PO Box 771
Mawson ACT 2607
02 6296 4400
mark.pattison@ncid.org.au
For Details, Contact:
Mark Pattison
Executive Director
0407 406 647

28/08/2008

Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children Services, Bill Shorten Joint Media Release with The Hon Jenny Macklin MP, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs

New research has shown that the number of children with disability attending school has more than tripled over the last 25 years but people with disability continue to have significantly higher levels of unemployment than people without disability.

Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin and Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children Services, Bill Shorten, today launched the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report Disability in Australia: trends in prevalence, education, employment and community living.

The report provides important insight into trends relating to people with disability over the past two decades, particularly in relation to education and employment.

Education:

The number of students with a disability attending school increased by 93 per cent between 1981 and 2003
The number of students with a severe or profound limitations rose by 260 per cent rising from 40,000 in 1981 to 150,000 in 2003.
In 2003, almost 115,000 students with severe disability attended mainstream schools rather than special schools, up from around 26,700 students in 1981.

Employment:

In 2003 the unemployment rate for people with disability was almost 9 per cent - significantly higher than people without disability at 5 per cent.
In 2003 there were 21,200 fewer people with disability aged 15 to 64 with a severe or profound limitation in the workforce than in 1998.
Between 1998 and 2003, the number of people with disability in the private sector grew 18 percent, compared to four per cent in the government sector.
Between 1988 and 2003, there was no significant increase in participation in the labour force for people with severe disability.

Community living:

Between 1981 and 2003 there was a trend towards more people with severe disability living in the community, strongest in those aged 5 to 29.

“While the increase in the number of children with disability attending school is encouraging, more has to be done to close the significant gap in employment between people with disability and people without disability,” Ms Macklin said.

“The Australian Government is working with the States and Territories to ensure adequate education and support services for children with disability,” Ms Macklin said.

“The results demonstrate the importance of the Australian Government’s National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy, which will help address the many barriers people with disability face when looking for and keeping work,” Mr Shorten said.

“The Strategy, to be released at the end of the year, will outline clear and practical steps that can be put in place to support people with disability and mental illness in the workplace.

“We also understand the urgent need to establish better data collection to help improve support services for people with disability and their family.

“Last month, Federal, State and Territory Ministers agreed to provide $6.5 million to enhance the ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC); including doubling the sample size which will significantly improve the collection of information in this important area,” Mr Shorten said.