DISABILITY SERVICES

Services funded under the Commonwealth State-Territory Disability Agreement (CSTDA) are designed for people who need ongoing support with everyday life activities. Under this agreement the Australian Government has responsibility for planning, policy setting and management of employment services, while the states and territories have responsibilities for all other disability services. These include:

• accommodation support - services that provide accommodation to people with disability and services that provide the support needed to enable a person with disability to remain in his or her existing accommodation or move to more suitable or appropriate accommodation
• community support - services that provide the support needed for a person to live in a non-institutional setting, including therapy, early childhood intervention, counselling and case management
• community access - services that provide opportunities for people with disability to gain and use their abilities to enjoy their full potential for social independence, including day programs (alternatives to employment) and recreation/holiday programs
• respite - services that provide a short-term break for families and other voluntary caregivers of people with disability, while providing a positive experience for the person with disability.

Advocacy, print disability and information services are considered shared responsibilities of the Australian state and territory governments.

National data on services are collected through the CSTDA National Minimum Data Set (NMDS), which includes information relating to CSTDA services and the people who use these services throughout the financial year. Data are collected by each state and territory and the Australian Government and forwarded to the AIHW for collation and analysis.

Data presented here are from the 2005-06 data collection, the third full year of the CSTDA NMDS. In 2005-06 there were 7,182 Indigenous CSTDA-funded service users, representing 3% of all users. The Indigenous status of 23,156 service users (11%) was unknown. The proportion of service users who were Indigenous has changed little over the three collection years (AIHW 2007f).

The most commonly reported primary disabilities for Indigenous service users were intellectual (39%), followed by physical (14%) and psychiatric (12%) (graph 11.13). Among non-Indigenous service users the most commonly reported primary disabilities were also intellectual (36%), but these were followed by people with psychiatric (15%) and then physical (11%) disabilities (AIHW 2007f).

Service users who were Indigenous more often reported multiple disabilities. Nearly half of all Indigenous service users (46%) reported a primary disability and at least one other significant disability, compared with 34% of non-Indigenous users (AIHW 2007f).

Indigenous service users of CSTDA services were younger, on average, than other service users (graph 11.14). The median age for Indigenous service users was 25 years, compared with a median age of 32 years for other service users (AIHW 2007f). This is consistent with the earlier onset of many chronic health conditions and shorter life expectancy in the Indigenous population (see Chapter 7).

Patterns of service use were similar for Indigenous and non-Indigenous service users (table 11.15). Similar to non-Indigenous users, Indigenous service users most commonly accessed community support services, followed by employment, accommodation, community access, and respite services. Indigenous service users were more likely than non-Indigenous users to access community support services (53% compared with 42%) respite services (20% compared with 13%), and accommodation services (20% compared with 18%). A lower proportion of Indigenous users accessed employment services (24% compared with 38%) and community access services (20% compared with 23%).

Differences in the types of services accessed may reflect different availability of services in regional/remote areas rather than differing needs of Indigenous and non-Indigenous service users. Some 12% of Indigenous users lived in remote and very remote areas, compared with 1% of other users, while 37% of Indigenous users were located in major cities compared with 64% of other users (AIHW 2007f).

11.15 USERS OF CSTDA-FUNDED SERVICES(a), by Indigenous status and service group - 2005-06
	Indigenous		Non-Indigenous		Unknown		Total(b)
Service group	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%
Accommodation support	1 443	20.1	32 909	17.6	1 214	5.2	35 566	16.4
Community support	3 819	53.2	77 831	41.7	15 014	64.8	96 664	44.5
Community access	1 402	19.5	42 063	22.5	4 273	18.5	47 738	22.0
Respite	1 404	19.5	23 971	12.8	1 944	8.4	27 319	12.6
Employment	1 748	24.3	70 121	37.5	1 288	5.6	73 157	33.7
All service groups	7 182	100.0	186 805	100.0	23 156	100.0	217 143	100.0
(a) Service user data are estimates after use of a statistical linkage key to account for individuals who received services from more than one service type outlet during the twelve months from 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2006.
(b) Column totals may not be the sum of the components since individuals may have accessed services in more than one service group during the twelve month period.
Source: AIHW 2007f

Previous Page

Next Page