Outlook Blog (December 2020 – January 2021)

Members Blog

Happy belated New Year, we certainly hope you had a festive and safe holiday. We hope that 2021 will be an exciting year for all of us and we all stay safe and are keeping well.

Before Christmas, we were invited to participate in Deaf Community of Australia Forum (DCAF) with Shirley hosting the event and we were able to share with you the updates of what we have been doing.

Through Christmas, Deaf Australia has been preparing a submission to Department of Health to address accessible services for Deaf People who use Auslan in Hospital and Health Services and organising webinars for Disability Royal Commission and NDIS-ILC project.

• Accessible Services for Deaf People who use Auslan in Hospitals and Health Services

There have been too many mistakes, too many bad stories, too many preventable situations that has not been adequately addressed to ensure that our health and wellbeing are looked after.

The submission outlined 4 key areas:

• Hospitals
• Medical and Allied Health Services
• Telehealth Services and
• National Relay Service

This submission has been sent to Department of Health through our role with Covid-19 Disability Roundtable hosted by Department of Health. Through this group, Deaf Australia have reminded them the importance that deaf people need to have access to interpreter when there are media announcements regarding Covid-19 and accessing interpreter for health and medical services which led to this paper.

Deaf Australia acknowledge that Deaf Victoria is undertaking parallel project in Victoria asking deaf people their experiences with Hospitals. We look forward receiving their report.

To view written submission (https://deafaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Accessible-Services-for-Deaf-People-who-use-Auslan-in-the-Hospitals-and-Health-Services.pdf)

• Disability Royal Commission

We are thrilled to inform you that there will be webinars throughout the year covering different topics with the Disability Royal Commission. Darlene Thornton will be facilitating these webinars on a fortnight basis and would love to hear your stories and experiences so Deaf Australia can prepare our report to Disability Royal Commission.

We also encourage you to participate if you wish to directly share your experience to Disability Royal Commission and we will be able to assist you with your submissions.

To view webinar program (https://deafaustralia.org.au/advocacy/drc/)

• NDIS – Information, Linkage and Capacity (ILC) Building Grant (2019-2022)

We are ramping up with the project with Paula Thornton and Vanessa Alford taking key role with this project as Resource Officers.

Before Christmas, we had a full day workshop to discuss ideas, plans and strategy to improve our engagement with you.

This project will focus on 2 things:

1. Improve information distribution and
2. Developing appropriate and accessible resources that will strengthen deaf community’s knowledge and skills.

We will be using staff, volunteers and others to provide information, workshops or training through online and in person.

Deaf Australia is working hard behind the scenes to prepare and develop the program for this year. We look forward to an informative year for everyone. If you have any suggestions, please share with us by sending us an email – [email protected].

• Other information:

National Relay Service – registration required by 20 April 2020 – if you on or after 20 April, your application process may take longer. Please register here.

4^th WFD Conference in Thailand has been postponed to 20-22 April 2022 due to Covid-19.