Australian Indigenous

A review of the literature on disability services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

This review is also available as a downloadable PDF using Adobe Acrobat.

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Methodology

Acknowledgments

Particular thanks are extended to:

• the Western Australian Disability Services Commission (DSC) for funding that enabled
  the review to be undertaken, and for permission to publish this edited version;
• staff of the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet for their support and encouragement in
  the preparation of this review; and
• the anonymous reviewers of this review for their constructive comments.

Return to top

Introductionⁱ

The new Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement (CSTDA) directs special attention to the ‘heightened vulnerability’ of Indigenous people with a disability [1, p3]. This special attention reflects the increasing recognition by the various government agencies responsible for coordinating disability support services that there was ‘a need to raise awareness about the needs of Indigenous people with disabilities and the unique cultural issues that are involved’ [2, p10]

In attempting to better understand the needs of Indigenous people with disabilities in Western Australia, the Disability Services Commission (DSC) established in October 2001 an Access for Indigenous People Steering Committee to oversee the development of culturally responsive disability policy and services for Indigenous people. Recognising that little was known about the needs and issues experienced by Indigenous people with disabilities and their families and how to respond to them, the Steering Committee supported the development of the Indigenous Disability Action Research (IDAR) Project by the DSC in partnership with Edith Cowan University (ECU). The IDAR Project involved state-wide consultations and action planning with Indigenous people with disabilities, their families, carers and service providers.ⁱⁱ

To ensure that the IDAR Project benefited also from the existing literature about disability support services for Indigenous people, DSC commissioned this literature review. The specific aims of the review were to:

• identify the unique issues confronting Indigenous people with disabilities, their families
  and communities;
• understand the ways in which contemporary Indigenous people view the concept of
  disability and identify the implications of this view(s) for providing support and care
  to a person with a disability; and
• identify barriers that prevent Indigenous people with disabilities, their families and
  carers from accessing family, community and formal services.

This paper summarises the findings from the literature review. After outlining the methodology used for the literature review, the following sections: review Indigenous perceptions of disability; provide a brief overview of the burden of disability among Indigenous people; summarise information about caring for Indigenous people with a disability and the use of disability support services. This is followed by sections reviewing issues affecting the access by Indigenous people to disability services, and workforce issues impacting on the availability and accessibility of disability support services to Indigenous people.

Every attempt was made to locate and collect all relevant literature, much of which is in the so-called ‘grey literature’.ⁱⁱⁱ A considerable body of grey literature was identified and collected, but it is likely that some useful sources have not identified.

Return to top

Methodology

The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet Bibliography was the initial source of information about disability among Indigenous peoples. The bibliography includes details of around 8,000 items, including journal articles, books and book chapters, government and other reports, and theses. Searches of Science Direct, HealthSTAR, Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and Medline were used to check the completeness of this bibliography. Relevant documents were recorded in a separate EndNote library.

The identification, collection and inclusion of the grey literature were initiated also.^iv

These mechanisms of identifying relevant materials were supplemented by targeted searches using standard Internet search engines, particularly Google. In many cases, these searches were informed by clues gained from perusal of previously collected materials.^v In other cases, reports and other materials were identified by searching relevant Internet sites (such as the Productivity Commission, which is currently undertaking a review of the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act).

Return to top

Next page

Last updated: 23 February, 2005