Santa, where's my ride?

Take part in our taxi survey - the link is at the end of this posting.

Folk tuning in to the South Australia media in the last few weeks will be aware of coverage on accessible taxis.  Once again stories emerged about people having to wait an age before their cab shows up, with Christmas again the number one hotspot where people have to join a waiting list to see if they can get to Christmas dinner with family and friends.

in response, South Australia Transport Services Minister Chloe Fox's office said there would be a few more accessible taxis available this Christmas compared to last, and that any one left on a waiting list will get their ride by ‘doubling up’, presumably with someone going roughly in the same direction.

This was followed up by an announcement that all available accessible taxis would be on duty on Christmas Day, together with accessible buses on all routes (though it wasn't clear from the announcement if this means every bus on every route will be accessible, or whether at least one bus on each route, at some point during the day, would be accessible), and four minibuses.

This is a helpful response to the concerns people have about Christmas Day this year, and I have little doubt that those in Government directly concerned with this issue will attempt, with every good intention, to reduce the risk of people having to miss out on Christmas festivities because there isn’t a spare access taxi.  However, these earnest efforts will not resolve matters properly, because the Christmas Day pressure is not the problem, merely the most extreme symptom of the problem.

The problem is straightforward - the taxi fleet in Adelaide is not accessible.  If it was, we wouldn’t have this issue on Christmas Day nor at other peak times (and there are peak times every business/school day).  There are over 1000 taxis licensed in the Adelaide metropolitan area.  Of these, 97 are licensed access taxis.  That’s less than 10%.  

The effect of this problem is simple.  Whereas a non-disabled passenger can use any one of the taxis in the fleet, including the access taxis, a person with mobility support needs cannot.  One can use 100%, the other can only use 10%.

If a flock of interstate visitors were stuck at Adelaide Airport all Christmas Day due to a lack of taxis there would be outrage at such slack treatment.  I imagine there would be a review, and measures taken.

Why should it be any different for people living with disability?

This unequal treatment of people is unacceptable.  Coincidentally I blogged on this a year ago (click here to read) and very little has changed.  The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons has Accessibility as one of its six core principles.  Accordingly, the Convention goes on to assert that parties (this includes Australia and by association its states and territories) undertake:

b) To take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices that constitute discrimination against persons with disabilities;

The current taxi arrangements in Adelaide (and, I assume, South Australia generally) are discriminatory.  Through ratifying the UN Convention our government has signed up to do something about it.  The periodic limited release of additional access taxi licenses will not resolve the underlying discrimination and therefore is not an adequate measure.  Nor is the suggestion that people ‘double-up’.  

If a city the size of London can achieve a fully accessible taxi fleet, then Adelaide, indeed any town or city in Australia, has absolutely no excuse.

Purple Orange has placed a survey online (you can click here to go to it) for people to give feedback on their experiences with taxis.  Please take the time to give us your feedback.  If the current system is fine and dandy, tell us that and we’ll pipe down.  But if it’s not, please share your story so that we can amplify the issues and seek a government commitment to a genuine solution.

A hundred leaders

In Control International is an international community of interest on the topic of self-direction in disability support. I’ve just attended the latest meeting, an opportunity to share ideas and experiences that can assist the momentum for helpful change in people’s lives. The meeting covers ideas ranging from the personal to the national.

Participants in these conversations (not limited to these face-to-face meetings) include Australia, Scotland, Czech Republic, England, Japan, Wales, Finland, Ireland, and the US. Some connection has also been established with NZ where there is a very interesting momentum towards self-directed support.

A set of principles guide these connections, one of which is the notion of ‘open source’ sharing. This is a bit like Wikipedia, in that everyone is recognised as having something to contribute to a growing body of knowledge about what it takes to support vulnerable people into good lives. This is very exciting because it means that In Control Australia has access to a rich seam of useful resources from both within Australia and overseas.

It is clear to me that helpful change is often initiated by people sharing their stories and then taking action together. As part of Julia Farr Association’s support to In Control Australia we will shortly be re-developing the In Control Australia website to assist people to access useful information. Within the new website we would like to build a collection of people’s stories, of how individualised (self-directed) funding has helped the person to build the life they want, and also stories from people who don’t yet have a personalised budget but who can describe how they imagine their life would be different if they did.

So I would like to ask all Australian readers of this blog to think about who you know (if not yourself) who might like to tell their story. It’s as easy as talking into a voice recorder, or talking to a computer webcam, or writing the story in a Word document, or telling the story through something like PowerPoint. That recording/file can then be sent to us and we’ll take care of things from there. At all times we will have careful regard to honour the degree of privacy that people ask for.

Given the national enquiry that is taking place about disability insurance, and the various state/territory activities in relation to individualised (self-directed) funding, now is the time for people to tell their stories, so that the focus of a national disability insurance scheme, and the direction of local arrangements, is on how people can be supported into lives of choice and citizenhood.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that, "...I like hearing people's stories but enough already!  I get it, so now tell me how to make change happen".  I can understand that view, and at my agency we have plenty of information that we can connect people with on the 'how'.  I will say this though.  Story-telling remains important, for at least three reasons i can think of.  First, people's stories often contain great wisdom about the 'how', and we just need to tune into that wisdom and grab it.  Second, we need to keep being reminded about why all this is important, and people's stories provide the best kind of reminder.  Third, one of the most potent sources of influence on the design and shape of future disability support arrangements will be the stories that people tell about how their lives change for the better because of a highly personalised approach. 

Imagine having the stories of a hundred vulnerable Australians who have taken control and built a much richer life through personalised funding and assistance.  That would be a very powerful anthology of personal authority and citizenhood, one that could help achieve critical change in the way our governments, service agencies and communities think and feel about disability.

So let's get it done; let's get a hundred stories of a hundred people who have taken leadership in their own lives.  A hundred leaders. 

I'm late and I've brought a note

My apologies for the time gap between recent blogs.  I’m very late in posting the next blog so, just like the school student whose homework is late, I’ve brought a note.

I share the following 'Julia Farr update' with you because we value your feedback on the work we are doing, and because I want to assure you, the twelve hundred (and counting)  readers of Purple Orange, that there's much more blogging to come.

It has been an intense start to 2010 at Julia Farr group, and there has been little opportunity for reflection.  We have been active on a number of fronts.  In terms of policy work, our focus was on thinking through and amplifying the policy issues in the lead up to the SA state election in March.  Our focus has now shifted to the preparation of material that we hope will be helpful to several government ‘thinks’, including the senate enquiry into the planning and support needs of people living with disability as they age, the SA government’s reference to the Social Inclusion board for a blueprint for disability support, and the Productivity Commission’s work on the future funding of disability support (including considerations of a National Disability Insurance Scheme) and its recently announced public enquiry into Australia’s aged care system.

In terms of publications, we spent some time completing and releasing our latest publications, relating to the Tell Us survey and also an ‘access to GPs’ research report.

In terms of events, we have been heavily involved in two very successful 2-day workshops, one with UK’s Jenny Pitts and NZ’s Penny Hambleton on building personalised supports, and the other with US’s John O’Brien and Connie Lyle O’Brien on connecting into community.  We are also currently running this year’s Loop program, which has visited Adelaide and Mt Gambier so far, with other country venues still to come.  Other events are also in the pipeline.

In terms of research, we are currently developing a model of citizenhood support that I think will help people and agencies to focus on what really counts in people’s lives.  In addition we continue our work on the nature of safeguards and how agencies can move away from restrictive practices.  We have also recently launched the new, bigger and better Tell Us survey, which is going national.

We are also exploring what can assist school students living with disability to have better chances of a successful mainstream education, and one of the early results of this has been the emergence of a youth mentorship initiative, which we host.

We are also busy at the Julia Farr Housing Association, with a number of building projects underway, and where the principles of access and personal authority are always at the forefront of our mind. 

And then there are the many daily transactions we have with people, partly because of the trust funds that we administer, partly because of our very busy conference venue, and partly because of our work convening the national movement called In Control Australia.

So it’s been a very busy time, especially given there are only seven staff at the Julia Farr group, three of whom are part-time.

BUT what this means is that there is heaps to blog about, so watch this space.