Safety as a person with a disablity.

  There is something that we need to be aware of as women generally and as a person with a disability. There are several aspects we need to go into and they are:

• Personal safety / Physical safety
• Emotional safety
• Fiscal safety

Personal safety is the safety around other people and having situational awareness and being able to understand, what is going on and adjusting your expectations. To what is happening with other people and figuring out other way's of doing thing and we see that people need to be able to adjust things as if you are living with others we need to be respectful. So waiting in line asking permission to come into a shared living space. As a support worker might be taking through some fairly heavy situations that don't involve you.

Physical safety is similar but different from Personal Safety but it is more practical, so things that we see that it is around the basics of day-to-day living so having aids, to help you bathe or shower, such as chairs or not showering when you are alone and letting people know that you are going to shower, Or accepting help to shower and this also links to personal safety in being comfortable working with a support worker that is giving personal care.

Emotional safety is protecting yourself emotionally from people who might try to use it against you such as unethical providers or unethical support workers and this is sad that in your own housing facility, you might need to mask, and this is where being able to trust your support team is an issue. As well as having people who will believe you when you are speaking up about things that are wrong if you are able to have the expectations around what is happening and know that providers are in the wrong so having an advocate is really important to be able to state the facts without putting you at risk of losing your housing.

Fiscal safety is protecting your assets and not signing over consent to control your finances. Unless this is for your own safety and we see that some providers will take advantage of this and control your finances to a degree that you might feel like a teen asking for your allowance. I want to also mention that that are some cases where this is necessary as well. It does depend on the situation and the emotional, and practical capacity of the client as well. A client that is able to manage their day-to-day finances is generally ok to manage their own finances but I have seen where it is a part of the housing your finances are given up.

I will be going into more depth in this area and the safety aspects and what safeguards the NDIS and providers need to have in place as well.