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Your submission
In sharing your experiences with us, you may find the following questions a useful starting point.
Please kindly see responses to all of the questions below
What issues have you experienced as a person with disability or a carer or family member of someone with a disability? Did you tell someone else about it? Was the issue resolved? Why or why not?
GROUP SUBMISSION
*Consulted 20 service users of Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association (MDAA) of NSW under the Encompass Program, consisting of people with disability and/or caring for someone who has a disability or frailty. This was a group of service users from mixed CALO backgrounds at the Co-design forum on the ?fh of June.
IDENTIFIED ISSUE-COVID19 Pandemic and Challenges
The COVID19 pandemic exacerbated the personal and systemic challenges that people with disability from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALO) and non-English speaking (NES) backgrounds experience.
This vulnerable group are already experiencing multiple disadvantages such as language and cultural barriers prior to the pandemic period. During the pandemic, they faced other layers of drawback such as financial/food/housing insecurity, social isolation, lack of timely access to information such as the Public Health Order, lack of access to technology, lack or absence of technological skills, and service access barriers.
The following cohorts proved more vulnerable during the lockdown period:
- those who were living on their own and were socially isolated
- those who fully relied on paid and unpaid carers and faced service disruptions due to geographical restrictions
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those who previously had mental health issues and those who developed depression and anxiety
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those with language barriers and spoke little to no English
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and new migrants, particularly those with little to no support network Some service users disclosed to MDAA staff that they experienced anxiety in varying degrees. They admitted their anxiety was heightened due to fears of hospitalisation and inability to recover from COVID once contracted, food scarcity and deprivation, and destitution and homelessness from soaring house prices and grocery and utility bills. In recent times, despite the end of the lockdown in NSW, some service users felt ill equipped to cope with the false sense of normality and they were concerned with people not masking up in public including indoor venues.
For parents or carers of children with disability and carers of frail and elderly people, they felt unsupported particularly during the lockdown period. One service user described caring for three young children in a two-bedroom unit, and one of the children has a disability and showed behaviours of concern. She felt unable to cope with the pressures that the lockdown brought. Another service user had full vision impairment and showed concern for the inaccessibility of the current RAT test. She also had difficulty taking all her children, including one with disability, and wait in a long queue at a public testing site.
Service users expressed serious concern for the housing crisis. Some acknowledged that their anxiety persisted due to their inability to afford the increasing rent or house prices and household bills. One service user disclosed that she has been on the waiting list for public housing for the last eight years. Everyone consulted for this submission unanimously agreed that the ever-increasing cost of living is causing them great concern.
Many service users prioritised their most urgent needs and sought assistance for food, housing, and mental health services. During the lockdown period, these immediate needs took precedence over and above other needs such as education and employment. They shared stories asserting the intensity of social isolation and the food and housing crisis they experienced during the pandemic. They added that these issues are still current despite the end of the lockdown period. Their experiences verified the need for timely and
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coordinated support system for people with disability from CALO backgrounds, particularly women with disability. Many of them used MDAA as a first port of call.
Women with disability were more vulnerable during the COVID pandemic. An overwhelming proportion of female service users consulted disclosed anxiety as the most common mental health issue they experienced. The next most common issue consumers experienced was depression. Those who lived alone or lacked family or social networks felt socially isolated and unsupported. Some described the intense fear they experienced when they had no one to turn to for emergency situations.
Recommendations
Service users who were consulted urged various government agencies to collaboratively work with each other and put them in the centre of service provision. They explained the importance of resolving systemic issues such as housing and the increasing cost of living in tandem with the provision of mental health services.
They articulated that they would like the government to arrange more timely, useful, and relevant support services. Many of them expressed the need for more accessible and inclusive services system, one that provides timely and appropriate types and levels of support when needed, and one that recognises their strengths to build their capacity not to be dependent on services, wherever possible.
Would you like to provide supporting material? No
If you would like assistance to attaching your files, please contact the Royal Commission by calling 1800 517 199 or emailing DRCEnquiries@royalcommission.gov.au.
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