28/11/2024
Let us broaden this conservation and stop the broken conversation: the has cut arts and music therapy because it wants to cut therapy.
This is less about not being valued, but a loud and clear: "You do not belong here. We do not care about your evidence base because it all points back to one single conversation: mental health, and we can no longer fund this grey area".
So this is a bigger conversation stemming back to the RELIEF participants AND therapists have had for the past 7-10 years regarding Creative Therapies being added to the NDIS: "At least we can access you here".
SO this is a bigger conversation that goes back back back to the mental health system and why we are not recognised there.
We can tell the NDIS about the huge risk we hold, the safety we create, the vital psychosocial health that is procured by our services, BUT this will fall on deaf ears. They do not want us holding risk, su***de, complex mental health. They do not want to hear about violence, trauma or the intersectionality of the human experience - they want to hand this back. And with it: us.
Essentially the NDIS is saying "here ... you figure out what to do with them...( )".
We see it reflected in ,
We see it reflected in the lack of funding for job opportunities,
We see it in the roll out of positions within roles in schools.
I taught as an art teacher within the high school public school system.
I assisted as a support worker for Yooralla when they signed off on the NDIS.
I sat with my participants to help them transition from DSP to the NDIS. When they asked me "Are they really giving me choice and control? Can I trust this?", I said "yes, I think so".
I trained for a Masters in Art Therapy from Australia's top AQF level 9 universities (La Trobe, and the debt to prove it).
I was not able to go for roles within schools, I was not able to access medicare, I left tertiary education and it seemed like no one quite knew what to do with me.
I opened in private practice. I said "this is a way I can be with people"
I have watched the blow out of the NDIS. The increase in psychosocial plans, the "rorting" and the lack of accountability in the face of giving people with disabilities "freedom".
I have worked side by side the most beautiful, humble, complex & desperate participants. We have made art, told stories & regulated them, to the point that they can go out and meet their NDIS goals. I have laughed, cried, been humbled & experienced deep injustice alongside them.
But now they have come for us. They have said "we do not appreciate your skill set, you are not welcome here any longer".
Whilst I am desperately sad for my participants who will lose me, their creative enquiry into their experiences of disability, their choice & control... I now look to the mental health system and ask: What now? Can you not see the gap? Can you not see the system struggling with the sheer weight of lived experience... Can you not see us? Active, angry, trained & ready.
Endings create beginnings. Whats next?
(Image shared with permission: a participant created this mosaic to depict their experience of Cerebral Palsy, institutionalised trauma & resulting mental health journey. The NDIS has been a BLESSING for her, yet fears it is returning to the power and control she felt growing up).
ANZACATA Bill Shorten Carolyn Nikoloski Ingrid Stitt MP
