Submission No 5
INQUIRY INTO IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME AND THE PROVISION OF DISABILITY SERVICES IN NEW SOUTH WALES
Name: Name suppressed Date Received: 27 June 2018
Partially Confidential
My son is 6yrs old with level 3 autism who is non verbal with other comorbid conditions aswell as Pica. He was to have his annual plan review on the 22.6.18. We arrived for the meeting at our local centrelink office as thats where we were asked to go. I had to do a risk assessment of the room and remove dangerous items for my son ( aerosol can and alot of paperclips)as this was not done prior yo entry. He absconded the office within 30 seconds through an inlocked internal door. The meeting lasted 20 minutes and we were asked to take him for a walk for an hour which i said i could not access the community with him without his pram so then we were informed to that the meeting was terminated strait away due to safety concerns which was never explained to me what they were when i asked. Nothing was mentioned when a reshedule of the meeting would happen so we left feeling completely devasted. I then made numerous complaints wanting to know why it was terminated for safety reasons to be told by the NDIA he was removed because he was to loud and was distracting centrelink workers from doing there job and the manager of centerlink wanted him out. I am devasted that a non verbal child who vocally humms was classified as a safety risk first then upon further enquiring was to be told he was to loud. A new meeting was re scheduled at another office 45 minites from our area. Devasted to day the least on how this was handled. Appropriate facilities for this and staff training would of been a more pleasant outcome instead of being left confused embarrassed and discriminated against.