Keeping the needs of people with intellectual disability front and centre in challenging times.

Over the past year, the disability sector has been confronted with increased and conflicting requirements. Navigating the evolving pandemic and faced with increased funding cuts, our 2022 Building Opportunities, Building Communities (BOBC) Conference presents speakers and workshops to consider the connection between research and best practice. As the sector faces multiple demands, research offers guidance about how we can do better in the application of services. A research based approach can also drive a broader understanding across Government and the NDIS on why the right funding of supports is essential.

Day one: Tuesday 4 October 2022 (Melbourne or online), 9am – 4pm

Day two: Wednesday 5 October (Hobart or online), 9am – 4pm

Enter code 2DAYS10 for 10% off the total ticket price.

Confirmed Speakers

Day One - Tuesday 4 October 

Uni Hill Conference Centre, 30 Graduate Road, Bundoora, VIC 3083 or online

Key Note Speaker – Dr Monica Cuskelly, PhD

Thinking about futures – staff expectations and perceived roles.

Podium Presenter – Dr Monica Cuskelly, PhD, Research Director, Applied Research Centre for Disability & Wellbeing (ARCDW) and Professor, School of Education, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania.

Futures are created by the present as experiences and subsequent learning and skill development determine opportunities. The experiences that are available are, in turn, determined by expectations of the future. Monica will discuss the results of a study that investigated the expectations that staff working with adults with intellectual disability held for the futures of these adults and the roles that staff saw themselves taking in creating these futures.

Dr Monica Cuskelly is the Research Director of the Applied Research Centre for Disability and Wellbeing and a Professor at the School of Education at the University of Tasmania. She originally trained as a psychologist and has experience in both hospital and educational settings. Her work as a psychologist in schools stimulated her interest in the difficulties some children experienced in learning.  She worked as a psychologist in the first early intervention unit in the Queensland Department of Education, and it was this experience that motivated her to undertake further study in the area of intellectual disability. This interest has underpinned much of her subsequent research which initially focused on the development of individuals with Down syndrome over the life span and on the families with a member with a disability. Her recent work has concentrated on the adult lives of individuals with intellectual disability.

Podium Presenter – Rachel High, B.A.

Graduating University as a Woman with Down Syndrome: Reflecting on My Education

Rachel’s paper, Graduating University as a Woman with Down Syndrome: Reflecting on My Education, is an autoethnography based on a year-long research project that details her journey at Flinders University and highlights the importance of the journey before going to university; the isolation experienced by students in this situation; how stereotypes might affect students; and teaching methods that can be used to support students during their time at university.

Rachael High was born in the United Kingdom and immigrated with her family to Adelaide in the late 1970’s. She attended mainstream school before enrolling Flinders' University, where she majored in drama and film studies. Rachel graduated, at the age of 44, with Bachelor of Arts and is believed to be the first person with Down syndrome to graduate from an Australian university.

Afternoon Workshop

Inclusive Governance

Workshop Facilitator – Dr Bernadette Curryer, PhD, Research Officer – Side By Side Advocacy Inc., Mulgoa, New South Wales

Inclusive Governance is about people with diverse life experiences being included on community Boards and Committees in a meaningful and engaged manner. For people with intellectual disability, typical governance structures may present barriers to inclusion.

The Inclusive Governance Project team, including two co-researchers with a lived experience of intellectual disability, is conducting a three-year research project. Using a phenomenological approach to analysis, we are exploring the inclusion experiences of people involved with Boards and Committees. Emerging themes identify pathways to Board involvement, inclusive Board structures and processes, support provision, outcomes of inclusion, and concerns and barriers. These themes are informing the development of inclusive governance principles and processes that will guide organisations in the development of policies and procedures that facilitate the holistic inclusion of people with intellectual disability. The findings will also help people with intellectual disability understand how they can have a say in the decision-making of organisations that they are involved in, and what type of support may assist them.

This workshop will provide an opportunity for attendees to explore the study’s preliminary findings. It will challenge common ideas about the contribution people with intellectual disability can make to community organisations and disability service provision. Using either scenarios or real-life examples, workshop attendees will work in small groups to plan practical steps that can move an organisation towards holistic inclusion and inclusive governance.

Dr Bernadette Curryer has had a long involvement in the disability sector, with a focus on intellectual disability. She recently completed a doctorate on self-determination of adults with intellectual disability, is affiliated with the Centre for Disability Research and Policy at Sydney University and sits on the Board of ASID.

Day Two - Wednesday 5 October

C3 Convention Centre, 64 Anglesea Street, South Hobart, TAS 7004 or online

Podium Presentations

Upholding human rights through Positive Behaviour Support – Shifting the focus from risk, compliance and restrictive interventions to human rights and living a great life.

Podium Presenters – Nicola Crates, Bachelor of Applied Science – Speech Pathology; Matthew Spicer, BSc., Grad Dip (Psychology).

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission Annual Report for the 2020-2021 financial year reported 10,109 Behaviour Support Plans were lodged with the commission. This means 10,109 people were subject to authorized restrictive practices. This is in addition to the 1,032,064 uses of unauthorised practices that were reported in the same year. This data demonstrates that thousands of people receiving support in Australia are having their human rights limited.

Via lightening presentations and a panel discussion we will explore the many ways in which people’s human rights can be compromised. From decision making and restrictive interventions through to engagement with the justice system we will explore how Positive Behaviour Support can be applied to protect human rights and improve people’s lives. The panel of experienced practitioners and researchers will discuss how PBS is a pathway towards elimination of restrictive practices rather than legislative compliance alone. They will identify opportunities in practice which highlight the components of PBS that support human rights and provide practical examples of how to implement them. Participants will be challenged to consider what role they can play in reducing restrictive interventions and will be shown practical strategies they can apply to support human rights.

Nicola Crates is the Executive General Manager Practise Innovation and Service Development at Possability and Managing Director of Positive Behaviour Change Solutions in Burnie, Tasmania. She is a Speech Pathologist who specialise in developing and delivering services for people with complex needs. Acting as both practitioner and manager, her experience in government and non-government sectors spans over 20 years. She has a demonstrated interest in developing person-centred services that meet the needs of individuals who are at risk due to presenting behaviours of concern.

Matthew Spicer is a Practice Leader on the Practice, Innovation and Service Development team at Possability and Clinical Director of Positive Behaviour Change Solutions. He is a Psychologist with extensive experience working across the disability and out of home care sectors. He works regularly with individuals, teams and organisations that deliver support to people with complex needs and behaviours of concern.

Key Note Speaker – Professor Nicole Asquith, PhD

Accessing Justice

Podium Presenter – Professor Nicole Asquith, PhD, Director of the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania.

Justice is tricky under the best of circumstances. The criminal justice system is a product of centuries of decisions, and decades of law and policy development, often without consideration of how dysfunction has become embedded into the institutions of justice. The criminal justice system was not designed with disabled people in mind, and it continues to create and enhance disadvantage despite the burgeoning evidence of a disproportionate effect on disabled people. In this paper, I want to step back and to ask what is “just” about a system that is premised on the adage that “ignorance is no excuse”, and consider what this means for people who do not and cannot understand the opaque, labyrinthian systems used to evaluate our guilt or innocence. Using critical disability studies and Crip theory, I tease out the advantages that come from universal design, and how (in)justice for one is (in)justice for all.

Professor Nicole Asquith is the Director of the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies at the University of Tasmania. Over the last 20 years, Nicole has led multiple projects that consider the impact of the criminal justice system on victims, and to consider the iatrogenic harms of criminal justice.

Featured Presentation

False Confessions and Intellectual Disability

Featured Speaker – Dr Glenys Holt, PhD, Senior Research Consultant, Possability and the Applied Research Centre for Disability & Wellbeing; Adjunct Lecturer – College of Arts, Law and Education – University of Tasmania.

False confessions are a very real problem in the criminal justice system. Despite there being no clear advantage to someone admitting to a crime they did not commit, people do so with surprising frequency. False confessions have been made by a wide range of people, with some groups more at risk of providing false evidence, including young people and people with intellectual disability. This is of particular concern given that that people with intellectual disability are over-represented in prison and police custody. This talk will provide an overview of the research into false confessions and intellectual disability, with consideration of how this might lead into practices that increase self-advocacy when engaging with the justice system, and ensure better safeguarding for all.

Dr Glenys Holt is a Senior Research Consultant at Possability, and at the Applied Research Centre for Disability and Wellbeing and an Adjunct Lecturer at the College of Arts, Law and Education at the University of Tasmania. Previously Glenys was a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Chester in the United Kingdom, specialising in forensic psychology and the psychology of language. Glenys has a passion for using science to answer the big questions about decision-making, such as why some people are more vulnerable to being wrongfully convicted, and how adapting processes within the criminal justice system can help jurors, witnesses, and victims make better decisions. She is also interested in how we can harness the power of data to understand decisions made in a clinical settings for the improvement of quality of life for people with intellectual disability and the safety and wellbeing of those who support them.

Afternoon Workshop

How cultural humility can make for better practitioners

Workshop Facilitator – Mark Deverell, MDisStud, Programs and Services Manager, Migrant Resources Centre, Launceston, Tasmania.

This workshop will introduce culture, what it means to be culturally aware, and how cultural humility can make for more proficient practitioners across the disability sector. Attendees will gain knowledge and skills, through small group and scenario based leaning, that will allow them to apply principles of the NDIS in a way that is meaningful to Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) participants, their families and communities.

Mark is the Programs and Services Manager at the Migrant Resources Centre in Launceston, Tasmania. He is a trained social welfare practitioner and disability specialist with 27 years of practical experience across a number of community service sectors including disability, humanitarian, aged care and children at risk. He is an experienced member of various senior leadership teams with a demonstrated history of working in the health and social welfare industries.