Acknowledgements endorsements Background methodology executive Summary 11 Recommendations 22 Article — general obligations 38

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People with Disability

123. 
     There is limited information available about the prevalence of impairment and disability among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people. However, in 2005 the Commonwealth Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision found that 37 percent of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population had a disability, and that this figure did not include people with psychosocial disability.
     
124. 
     The higher incidence of impairment amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities results from a number of social circumstances including:
     
     1. 
        lack of access to appropriate health care;
        
     2. 
        poor nutrition;
        
     3. 
        lack of accessible, habitable and culturally appropriate housing;
        
     4. 
        exposure to violence and psychological trauma, such as that caused through dispossession and forced removal from families and communities; and
        
     5. 
        substance abuse, as well as the breakdown of traditional community structures in some areas.
        
125. 
     A key problem is a lack of accessible and culturally relevant information about ‘disability’ and available community services.
     
126. 
     Consultations conducted by First Peoples Disability Network (Australia) highlighted inadequate culturally appropriate support available to Aboriginal children and young people with disability and their parents. Even where services are available, parents may have to deal with as many as six or seven different government departments during the early years of the life of the child. Many parents are reluctant to seek assistance from the service sector because of lack of trust and the trauma resulting from the well-documented removal of children from Aboriginal families.
     
127. 
     As a result of these barriers very few children receive early intervention and support. In cases where early intervention is received, it is based on the medical model of disability, focussing on a primary health outcome, rather than the broader social consequences of the disability.
     

Case Study

A young Aboriginal girl who lives in a remote community has Otitis Media (glue ear). The young girl receives medical treatment for Otitis Media. However, as a result of her hearing impairment she has acquired a learning disability which has not been diagnosed. After treatment for the Otitis Media she is able to hear in class, however struggles to keep up because of the learning disability. While a health outcome is achieved, no attention is given to the learning disability.