Eva Cripps

The Australian Psychological Society’s (APS) submission to the Commonwealth Government’s Medicare Benefit Scheme (MBS) review is an astonishing attempt to restrict access to psychology services for the most vulnerable of Australians. The submission, which was only made available to APS members on Friday, 17 August 2018, represents a kick in the guts to over 60% of Australian psychologists, who may have their ability to provide affordable and accessible services to clients with complex mental health needs significantly reduced.

The submission preferences psychologists who have been “endorsed” by the APS above all other psychologists, for treating clients with “Severe and Chronic/Unremitting Disorders” and “Moderate – Severe Disorders and more Complex Disorders”. This includes disorders ranging from bipolar, autism and ADHD, to obsessive compulsive disorders, trauma disorders, eating disorders or anything else a referring practitioner thinks is “moderate/severe”.

Femmianne Bredewold, Margot Hermus, Margo Trappenburg

Jessica Dunne

"We have to band together and make sure that we get the NDIS that we deserve."

Under-staffing, failing technology and inconsistencies in classifications were the main issues discussed about the National Disability Insurance Scheme on ABC's Q&A.

The emotionally charged episode heard the experiences of those with disabilities and carers, as they battled the system to access funding from the NDIS, which is still being rolled out around the country.

Gemma Carey, Helen Dickinson, Michael Fletcher & Daniel Reeders

The packages created for individuals under the National Disability Insurance Scheme are personalised — but when it comes time to evaluate whether they were successful, the approach is focused solely on costs and one-size-fits-all.

Kelly Baker

My son is officially on the Autism spectrum. He has Asperger's. It’s not something I generally discuss; it’s his information to do with what he will and I’ve always told him he can tell anyone he pleases, or nobody at all. It’s personal, end of story. And it’s his personal, so he’s in charge.

by Julia Boyd

To anyone who thought of Hans Asperger as a brilliant doctor whose pioneering work in child psychiatry led to a more enlightened understanding of autism, Edith Sheffer's book, Asperger's Children (WW Norton), will come as a nasty shock. At first, he seems set to emerge a hero. After all, anyone who could write in Vienna in 1938 that doctors had "the right and the duty" to invest "intensively and emotionally" in autistic children because those "who fall out of the norm and are difficult need experience, love, and full commitment from the educator" must surely have been brave as well as humane. Some months before Asperger wrote those words, which express the kind of liberal medical outlook we associate with our own times, the chairman of the Hereditary Health Supreme Court had asked the head of Hitler's SS, Heinrich Himmler, to send him "a hundred classified homosexuals" for experimental purposes.

THIS family lives in fear because of violent outbursts from their beloved autistic son Max. It meant they faced a heartbreaking decision.

THEY’RE the brave steps of a family desperate to protect themselves and take control of a life being torn apart.

And they’ve seen Liz and Sean Whelan take the most difficult of decisions to look after their 12-year-old son Max, and at the same time protect their family against a condition none of them control.