Creative Arts Therapies are designed to help people with physical or psychosocial disabilities. This includes people with limited to no capacity for vocal speech, for whom talk-based therapies are inaccessible due to their disabilities.
Creative Arts Therapies are evidence-based and supported by decades of published peer-reviewed research. Unfortunately, the government failed to consider this evidence. If they had, they would have learned that these therapists are highly skilled and well-trained psychotherapists who have had a profound impact on enriching the lives of disabled people around the world.
Creative Arts Therapists assist participants to meet their NDIS goals. It is utterly devastating to consider cutting these supports required for equitable access for people with disabilities from the NDIS, a service that was created specifically to meet these kinds of disability-related needs! For countless participants, these therapies are not just beneficial, they are essential.
Without access to these crucial supports, the quality of life of already marginalised people will decline, increasing access barriers, meaning NDIS participants won’t get the support they need to help them be more independent. This situation will cost the NDIS more money in the long run. This is not just a financial issue, it is a matter of discrimination against people with disabilities by the service our taxes funded to meet disability needs.
It is also a matter of health care inequities, access barriers, institutionalised ableism by disability services, and, more fundamentally, about compassion, human rights, dignity, and humanity. Creative Arts Therapies belong in the NDIS as Capacity Building with their hourly rate reinstated for the sake of all the participants need them so desperately!
Please sign this petition https://chng.it/nDZRKHk4fG 🙏
Creative Arts Therapist Rae Sabine
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