Like many other organisations in WA, DDWA has just lost most of our DSS (Department of Social Services) funding and many of our services will cease on the 30th June 2024, unless we receive immediate funding from another source. This will include our education advocacy service, which supports distressed families of children with disabilities in navigating the school system, as well as families who are experiencing challenging behaviour and are connected with the ‘Side by Side’ peer support program. Fortunately, our NDIS Support Coordination Service is directly funded by individual NDIS plans and it is not affected by this loss of funding.
We need your help to tell the state and federal government that people with developmental disability and their families in WA have been forgotten. None of the grants awarded in WA support adults with developmental and intellectual disability and their families living in metropolitan area and only a tiny grant supports regional adults with developmental and intellectual disability.
A letter has been drafted (click here to download letter) that you can copy and email to any/all of the following politicians. Please feel free to edit and add in your personal experience of support from DDWA. You can also write your own email and let politicians know what the impact of these closures will mean for you and your family.
Federal
- Minister for Social Services, The Hon Amanda Rishworth MP – Minister responsible for DSS and the Information Linkages and Capacity (ILC) Building grants program, amanda.rishworth.mp@aph.gov.au
- Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, The Hon Bill Shorten MP – Minister responsible for the NDIS, bill.shorten.mp@aph.gov.au
- Minister for Early Childhood education, The Hon Dr Anne Aly MP – Minister responsible for Early Childhood Education, Anne.Aly.MP@aph.gov.au
- Your local federal Member of Parliament – Click on this link, insert your postcode and it will show who your local federal member is: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members
State
- Minister for Disability Services, Hon Don Punch,
minister.punch@dpc.wa.gov.au - Ms Merome Beard MLA, Shadow Minister for Disability Services,
northwest@mp.wa.gov.au - Mr Shane Love MLA, Leader of the Opposition,
mooreelectorate@mp.wa.gov.au
If you have been assisted by DDWA’s advocacy services, perhaps you would like to share your story to raise awareness in the community of how valuable these services are to people and their families. Letters to Editor at The West Australian can be sent to:
- Postal Address PO Box 1959, OSBORNE PARK DC WA 6916
- letters@wanews.com.au
Thank you very much for your support
Kieron Flynn DDWA Chairperson
Mary Butterworth DDWA CEO
copy and paste the following letter – Personalising your letter with a short paragraph or longer story of your own experiences will have a big impact, but even if you use the template, your voice will still be heard. Every letter counts!
Dear [insert politician’s name here – see above]
Retaining Developmental Disability WA Foundational Services post June 2024
I write as a Western Australian advocating for Developmental Disability WA (DDWA), a leading information, support, training and advocacy organisation serving more than 5,000 members and the broader community in Perth and across regional Western Australia.
DDWA’s survival is now in jeopardy – and thousands of Western Australians with disabilities and their families face losing critical support programs – due to buck-passing between state government departments, and between the state and federal governments.
DDWA will be forced to cease a raft of programs from June 30 due to the failure of both state and federal governments to deliver appropriate funding.
This will include an education advocacy service, which supports distressed families of children with disabilities in navigating the school system.
Both levels of government – and both sides of politics – have paid lip service to implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
But when presented with the opportunity to support an organisation which is already protecting the rights of people with disability, giving them dignity, and striving to ensure quality of life, you have fallen short.
Similarly, Western Australians were promised that no person with disability would be worse off when the state joined the NDIS. Those words ring very hollow today.
DDWA has supported Western Australians for more than 30 years and has had nothing but positive responses from all levels of governments to its work. Indeed, some government departments have come to depend on the ability of DDWA to deliver efficient, professional and high-quality services.
In April alone, more than 8000 people visited DDWA’s website, accessing 13,000 pages. The organisation consistently has more than 12,000 distinct contacts every month, fielding phone and email queries from worried families, advocating with third parties, and holding highly regarded workshops and seminars.
DDWA is also widely recognised for its systemic advocacy work, identifying, understanding and then raising the issues that are most important to people with developmental disabilities and their families. The work captures and promotes the concerns, the experiences and the aspirations of our constituency, in a way which is unmatched by any other organisation. This, too, is self-funded.
DDWA has weathered the instability in the sector since the transition to the NDIS, operating on largely short-term piecemeal grants. As grants for advocacy and training have dried up, it has even self-funded some programs.
Continuing on this basis is not viable.
This week, DDWA was advised that it had been unsuccessful in securing funding in the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building – Individual Capacity Building 2024-25 grants round.
The NDIS and Department of Social Services had pledged to announce the awarding of these long-awaited grants to disability not-for-profits in April, leaving organisations such as DDWA facing grave uncertainty and unable to plan for the future.
At the same time, WA Education Minister Tony Buti dismissed a request for funding of DDWA’s school advocacy program, which was previously funded by the Department of Communities, and then self-funded by DDWA in recent years.
Some organisations have already been forced to cut programs, or close entirely, due to the failure of your government to deliver sustainable levels of funding.
If you do not want DDWA to join them, and if you truly support the rights of the many Australians living with a developmental disability, I urge you to raise this matter with your colleagues and ensure the organisation is adequately funded.
Yours sincerely,
Insert your name and address here.
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City/Suburb, State, Post Code]
[Date]