Children with autism caged and abused at school

By bobb |

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CBR: Police search for missing autistic man

By bobb |

Police are looking for a 32-year-old autistic man who went missing in Gungahlin on Friday.

Zac De Jonge from Kaleen is highly autistic and has limited speech.

Mr De Jong has been missing since noon and was last spotted at the Gungahlin bus interchange.

He is described as tall with blonde hair.

Police are asking anyone who has seen him to call 131 444.Police said he was wearing a red Levi-brand T-shirt.

Zac turned up later that day, safe and well.

Four people attack autistic man in Chisholm shops car park

By bobb |

Two men and two women have allegedly attacked and robbed an autistic man after luring him to the Chisholm shops car park on Monday.

ACT Policing is seeking witnesses to the robbery, and believe the attack occured between 3.30am and 4.10am.

Police say the autistic man was lured to the Chisholm shops car park, after receiving a phone call from an unknown person asking him to meet them there.

When he arrived two men and two women approached him and verbally abused him.

ACT Parent warns private providers not ready for National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)

By bobb |

autism ... jumping hurdlesA Canberra carer says private providers are not prepared enough to take over the ACT government's early intervention programs for children with disabilities in January.

In April, the ACT government announced it would be withdrawing from early intervention programs in Canberra at the end of 2014 as part of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, leaving some parents concerned that children with disabilities could be left in limbo.

Canberra mother Tracey Trewhella, whose three-year-old daughter, Hailey, suffered from global development delay, said she didn't believe there would be enough private providers to cover the ACT government's withdrawal from the sector.

At the Early Intervention and Therapy Services Expo on September 13, Ms Trewhella said out of the 50 staff holders who attended, only five intended to run an early intervention program in the ACT, two of whom didn't currently have a presence in the territory.

Really? ACT Government report on ASD given "fail" grade

By bobb |

A review of the ACT Government's latest report on services for people affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gives the ACT Government a "fail".

Executive Summary

The Legislative Assembly asked the ACT Government to report on “support provided for autism diagnosis and services and the potential for further reforms”. The Minister presented the report to the Assembly in May 2013. Following numerous requests, the Minister gave a copy of the report to representative of people affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on 23/4/2014. The Minister took 11 months to hand over a copy of the report to the ASD community in the ACT.

This review of that report finds that the ACT Government's information about ASD and the service and support needs of people affected by ASD is often incorrect. For example, the report under-estimates the number of Australian children diagnosed with ASD by an enormous factor of three (3).

Searching for honest answers

By bobb |

Jack Sullivan

September 15, 2012 Opinion Sue O'Reilly

Why did government agencies allow Jack Sullivan to be placed in a respite facility - where he later died - which they knew had a questionable history?

Sue O'Reilly reports In early 2008, when Esther Woodbury waved goodbye to her disabled teenage son as he was driven from their Ainslie home for one of his occasional weekends of government-funded respite care in Queanbeyan, she had no idea childcare and disability agencies in NSW and the ACT had recorded numerous allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse against the respite facility.

If anyone in authority had bothered to alert her, Woodbury says, she would immediately have withdrawn her 18-year-old son, Jack Sullivan, who as a result of severe autism and epilepsy was particularly vulnerable. But nobody in authority did bother to alert her - and that weekend, in respite care funded by the ACT government agency Disability ACT, Jack Sullivan drowned while having a bath.

 

DPP drops Sullivan probe

By bobb |

THE NSW Director of Public Prosecutions has dropped investigations into the death of profoundly autistic Canberra teenager Jack Sullivan more than four years ago.

Almost two years since the case was passed to the DPP, the public prosecutor says it does not have enough evidence to press manslaughter charges against a person whose name has been suppressed.

Since Jack's death, his mother, Esther Woodbury, had assumed her son drowned in a bath after an epileptic seizure while in outside care.

Question about autism/ASD for candidates in the 2012 ACT election

By bobb |

The autism/ASD advocacy group, Speaking Out for Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Australian Capital Territory (SOfASD ACT) wrote to ACT political candidates asking about their policies and plans for people affected by autism. There is an election in the ACT in October and the group feels the ASD community in the ACT need to know what prospective governments plan to do to improve outcomes for people with ASD and their associates.

SOfASD asked specific questions about policy and plans for:

  • diagnosis
  • early intervention
  • school age: education and other needs