So I started looking into disability and disadvantage and I started to see why I am such an outlier in statistics, I see that often disability does actually go hand in hand with disadvantage and I see that this isn’t a great thing and often it can be through the disability of a parent, or having a lack of general education to begin with so this could be, a lack of training around education and basic life skills like budgeting, meal planning, meal prepping and being able to hold down even a basic job.
It seems to me that people from disadvantaged backgrounds seem to have more issues, that people from “educated” backgrounds. I am talking about when people who have either a Tafe education or a degree or even life experience seem to be able to have a much better chance of education and training and valuing education, where others from a disadvantaged background will mostly be behind and be functionally illiterate and will be a further disadvantage due to relying on things that people with a better support network and better education and training do have such as being able to compare deals and work out value for money, Being able to wait for things and accept that you don’t need fancy clothing and foot where but will be better quality that will last for longer and will know when to say no or admit that you can’t afford something. Or would be better off making something last a lot longer by getting it repaired but having it for longer when it is out of style but does the same job, and they would have quality over quantity.
This is a topic that I am looking at due to the lack of valuing of education and training and we see that this can be a massive issue due to people wanting to have a steady source of income but also trying to keep up, so having things that drain the account like going out for coffee instead of having the person over at home and I have found that this is because the house can become unkept due to the fact that people are busy caring for the person with a disability and that they are unable to keep up with everything.
We are also seeing that people don’t have the capacity to budget and to stick to a needed budget due to the fact that people, often have hidden expenses with a disability that now the NDIS are starting to pick up on such as, continence aids, medication, sensory toys and items to keep a person entertained that are low cost but if a person is prone to not looking after things we see that this can become a massive issue in that they are constantly replacing things and not able to explain to a person that they where responsible for ruining the things, as the person might ruin more things and this then becomes a massive issue as well.
Also able bodied siblings might also become resentful of the time that their parents spend with there siblings and they start to act out, it has become more observed in recent years so they are now starting to have things like siblings camps and sibling’s support where the parent and the able bodied syblings go on a repite trip or to be able to have time in the home without the disabled child or adult the adult might go to respite or a day centre a couple of days a week, we also see that people do now respect disability a lot more and they are able to be open to families needing a lot more support and this is where the NDIS comes into play and we see that people need to be very aware that it does exist for a reason and that is to simply level the playing field to provide equality of opportunity for people with a disability and to be able to help others in becoming more active in society.
Such as having a microbusiness, and that might be craft related or it might be content creation but all of these things do help to be able to support someone in a way to dig themselves out of this disadvantage and we see that things like the digital divide don’t help either.
This being where people don’t have the time, or the money to access the internet for training and if they are given a device the device might not be able to be repaired leading to further outlay of money as a person might not understand planned obsolesces and the role that it plays in us having to constantly replace electronic devices or to access content the need to pay for streaming services and then them cracking down on sharing passwords as these are all things that people do to save money and we see that people without the knowledge and training will start a business but not understand that they for the first couple of years may not be operating at a full profit and that those who are lucky enough to make it on the internet or youtube it’s not luck it was access to the needed education and training.
I will go further into this topic and will put the articles that I am referring to in the next post and over on the forum so people can comment on what you have seen about disability and disadvantage and what we can do as a community to break the cycle of disability and disadvantage.
We see that it is a very complex issue and that we need to be able to break the cycle and this starts with speaking up about our experiences and making life skills and education and training much more accessible to people, with cognitive disabilities.
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