DHCS - Disability Advisory Council

The Disability Advisory Council

Current Focus Areas

The Council has been busy working for people with disabilities and families since its appointment in 2005.

For instance, Council has provided advice to ACT Government Ministers on successive ACT Budgets, community health, education, housing, rehabilitation services, individualised support, employment issues, community attitudes, wheelchair taxis and subsidies and the implementation of the Access to ACT Government Strategy.

Council has played a seminal role in the implementation of new policy frameworks including Challenge 2014 - A ten year vision for disability in the ACT, Disability ACT, Future Directions for the ACT 2004 - 2008, the ACT Public Service Employment Framework for People with a Disability and programs such as the Quality of Life and Innovations Grants.

An important theme has been changing community attitudes on disability and Council along with other community partners has played a key role in ACT celebrations on the UN International Day of People with a Disability including the highly successful ACT Inclusion Awards in 2003 and 2005 and the Canberra Disability Arts Festival in 2004. This featured the launch of Councils Snapshot of community attitudes on disability in the ACT which is a summary of a research project on community attitudes to disability commissioned by the Council in partnership with DHCS in 2004 and undertaken by Orima research.

Current focus areas for the Council include working in partnership with the ACT Department of Education and Training on developing a pilot Disability Ambassadors in Schools project and devising an innovative method to help the community produce a biennial scorecard to measure its progress towards Challenge 2014. Council was also involved in producing the report of the Reference Group on Wheelchair Accessible Taxis.

Council also provides an ACT perspective on some Australian Government matters and participates in regular meetings with other state and territory Disability Advisory Bodies.

From 2006, Council has begun holding some meetings in community settings as a way of building knowledge and connections. Council has also been working to better engage with young people with a disability, people with an intellectual disability and indigenous people with a disability.

Council reports regularly to the community in Community Partners in Disability produced by Disability ACT.

Report of a Desk Research Project by the ACT Disability Advisory Council

Too many assumptions...a case for guidelines to build true understanding about learning disability for staff, managers and co workers in the public sector workplace.

Report of a Desk Research Project by the ACT Disability Advisory Council 637KB

The Things We Got Done - ACT Disability Advisory Council: Four Year Report to the Community

This report was presented to the Minister for Disability and Community Services, Ms Katy Gallagher MLA, on 26 June 2007.

The Things We Got Done: Four Year Report to the Community 199KB
The Things We Got Done: Four Year Report to the Community 602KB