Moving from an invisible disability to a visible disability was quite a challenge at the very beginning. On the outset I was treated quite differently. Prior to having my second leg amputated, having a conversation with the Chief Risk Officer around the transition back into work and in facing all of those barriers there was a Disability Action Plan that was six years old, and nothing had been actioned and noting had been moved forward. He then decided, well, we need to redevelop one, and he just through me into the deep end and there you go, a career change around developing Disability Action Plans.
I was lucky to have the opportunity to work with lots of different people with different types of disability as well and that became a really positive thing around educating myself around disability.
One of the great things with my first term on VDAC was actually being involved on the Disability Act Reform Working Group. A Disability Inclusion Bill will mean it will be the responsibility of everyone to actually move things forward and progress to make an inclusive Victoria.
With my second term of VDAC I think it’s really important to think of the systemic reforms that are coming through. The aspect of codesign principle I think is going to be really, really important. That old saying of nothing about us without us is really, really important to people with disability in the community and I think that whole process of codesign, really starting at the beginning and not being an afterthought on how we create policies, processes and enable people with disability to be involved in that in every step of the way.
For me this is really exciting work in creating real, positive change for people with disability.
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