Alex Turner-Cohen

An exhausted mum with a child with severe autism is calling on the Australian government to do more for children with special needs while in hotel quarantine.

Brenna Russell, 29, arrived in Sydney four days ago from Los Angeles and has been quarantining in Zetland’s Meriton Suites with her severely autistic son.

She has bruises on her arms from her son’s tantrums and she also fears for his safety.

Five year old Sebastien Russell has autism, ADHD, seizures, and a genetic variation of the NFIX gene that hasn’t been found before.

Joel Magarey

Andy Southam was a “sparky, chatty, funny” 24-year-old, his sister Judith McDonald says, when he left the family residence to enter a group home for men with intellectual disability in 1993.

“Back then,” she says, “he was interested in anything and everything.”

Joel Magarey

Disability service providers used unauthorised restraints, such as locking people in their homes and administering potentially harmful sedatives, on people in the NDIS more than 300,000 times in the previous financial year.

Evan Young

Officials from the administrator of the NDIS have been grilled in a Senate hearing about the controversial independent assessment reforms set to roll out next year.

The integrity of a pilot program for controversial reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme has been called into question by federal senators.

The National Disability Insurance Agency, which runs the NDIS, was grilled about the independent assessment reforms set to roll out next year at a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday.

Zach Hope

Victorian prisoners with known intellectual disabilities are facing internal disciplinary hearings, and receiving punishments, without specialist support services to ensure they understand what is happening and what they have done wrong.

Rebecca Zahra

What would you do if your child was ridiculed in front of all their friends and peers and couldn’t do anything about it? Bullied and treated badly by the one person you entrusted with the care of that child?

My son has autism. We have never hid that fact, we have always been very open about it.

Another peak medical body has sounded the alarm over the new NDIS independent assessment model set to be rolled out next year.

Evan Young

A peak body for Australian psychologists has lent its voice to a chorus of concern about controversial new National Disability Insurance Scheme reforms and is calling on the government to stop them from being rolled out. 

The Australian Association of Psychologists says the “simplistic” independent assessment process will create greater disadvantage for Australians living with disability.