Inquiry into the Extent and Nature of Disadvantage and Inequity in Rural & Regional Victoria

Submission by deafaccess Gippsland 26th March 2010 Contact Person: Leanne Wishart deafaccess Gippsland Regional Co-ordinator Phone: 03 5143 1537 or 044 886 6331 Email: gippsland@deafaccessvic.com,au

1.0 Introduction This submission briefly outlines some of the Disadvantages and Inequities for (signing) Deaf people in Gippsland. ‘deafaccess’ Gippsland congratulates the Victorian Government’s Rural and Regional Committee for undertaking this Inquiry into the Extent and Nature of Disadvantage and Inequity in Rural & Regional Victoria. This demonstrates a commitment to gaining a better understanding of the issues that uniquely affect rural and regional people, who experience significant disadvantages and inequities compared to their city counterparts. 2.0 Current Evidence of Disadvantage of (signing) Deaf people in Gippsland:

Research into health and wellbeing demonstrates that communication

and connectedness are the keys to people’s relative Health and Wellbeing. Lack of access to communication in their natural language - Australian Sign Language (Auslan) - is the principal barrier for Deaf people.

Auslan is a visual language using signs made with the hands, facial

expressions and body language as the communication tools For most Signing Deaf people English is a second language with

subsequent varying degrees of literacy. Signing Deaf people need Auslan Interpreters to bridge the

communication gap between themselves and the hearing & predominately English speaking community.

There is a critical shortage of Auslan Interpreters in Gippsland.

The Gippsland Auslan Interpreting Service (GAIS) has played a vital

role in maintaining the mental health and well being of Deaf people in the region. The service enabled access for people to appointments

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such as court appearances and legal consultations, Centrelink, Job Network providers, Deaf service case managers, other service providers, and community activities.

However GAIS has been unable fill the interpreting position over the

past 18 months and is now unfunded whilst trying to maintain a skeleton service. Many appointments have had to be cancelled as there is no Auslan Interpreting available or it is too expensive to access from Melbourne.

When it is possible to access Auslan Interpreting from Melbourne; this

incurs a burdensome cost to the service provider and/or the Deaf service user.

The broader Gippsland community, who are verbal, usually English

language users, do not have to wait for an Auslan Interpreter to be available, from Melbourne, before they can make an appointment to go to the doctor, organise a meeting with a bank manager, with Centrelink or a case manager. They just ring up, make an appointment, go along and engage with the service provider. For Deaf people this is not the case. A Deaf person must plan well in advance, up to 2 – 3 weeks, to make an appointment with a service provider and to book an Auslan interpreter. If this can’t be organised the appointment is postponed and the process begins again.

It is evident that Deaf people in Gippsland are significantly

disadvantaged compared to the City in terms of access, equity, communication rights and opportunities for community inclusion and participation.

Case Studies: Mental Health ‘Jane’ is a 50 year old Deaf woman who lives in Region centre in Gippsland. Jane is very depressed and has been battling depression for at least 12 months. She does not have a driver’s licence and lives in a part of her town that is far removed from local services including the shops, neighbourhood house and other community facilities. Jane has been desperately trying to find work for several years since moving from Melbourne and has been living in abject poverty for quite some time. Jane has recently secured work one day a week at a Nursing Home which she sourced herself. Jane continues to live in poverty as she wants a full time job and refuses to seek Centrelink benefits. The absence of Auslan Interpreting has meant that Jane feels that finding work and addressing the issues that lead to her current level of income and her state of mental health/depression are just too hard and leads to a vicious cycle of depression.

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Employment ‘Carol’ is a 40 year old Deaf woman who lives in the eastern part of the Region. She is a single mother who is desperately trying to find a full time job to meet the day to day living needs of herself and her children. Carol has had significant difficulty with the provision of Auslan interpreting for job network interviews and job placement. The job network provider was hesitant to book Auslan interpreting because of the cost that would be incurred and was constantly deferring meetings and interviews with Carol. This has lead to significant distress as her attempts to go through the processes of finding work are continually thwarted. Isolation ‘Siggy’ is an 18 year old young woman who is Deaf. She lives with her Grandfather and spends all day, every day, in her room. She is at risk of isolation and depression. It is difficult for her to communicate with her grandfather as he does not understand Auslan and they are constantly in a state of embattlement over the simplest of things. Siggy lacks self motivation and has very few independent living skills. A case manager has begun working with Siggy but it is extremely difficult to access Auslan Interpreting for appointments. This significantly slows the process of putting a basic independent living skills program into place. Siggy does not have fundamental documentation such as a birth certificate which has limited access to entitlements. Auslan Interpreting is vital to the growth and development of this young person as she tries to work towards independence in her local community. Legal ‘Brandon’ a worker in the Community Services sector has studied basic/introductory Auslan and, through his job, is in contact with some of the Deaf community in a large regional centre where he is based. Recently he was contacted by the local Court to assist a Deaf woman who was a victim of domestic violence and a Restraining Order needed to be taken out immediately. The Court contacted Brandon to interpret for this woman as there was no Auslan interpreter immediately available and he was well known and trusted by the woman. In this case a NAATI qualified Auslan Interpreter was absolutely necessary because of the legal and personal implications. This occurred because there was no Interpreter employed at the Gippsland Auslan Interpreting Service at the time and the Court was unaware of any other course of action.

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Demographics of the Signing Deaf Population in Gippsland The Gippsland Signing Deaf population is spread across the region with the major population centres in East Gippsland, Latrobe City and Wellington Shires. All of which are at least 2 hours by road from Melbourne. Sign language users by regional municipality in Gippsland: 2006

Bass Coast 3 0 0 3 Baw Baw 7 0 0 7 East Gippsland 31 3 0 34 Latrobe 22 3 0 25 South Gippsland 7 3 0 10 Wellington 25 0 0 25 Total 104

Figure 2: Regional Victoria’s signing population by LGA

The Financial Costs for Interpreting To book a Melbourne based Auslan interpreter:- Travel 2 hrs @ $80 per hour return $320.00 (Min) Minimum Appointment time 2 hours @ $80 per hour $160. Total $480.00 2 Interpreters are required for meetings that extend for more than 1 hour. effectively doubling the costs. ($960.00 minimum)

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The Occupational Health and Safety Guidelines for Auslan Interpreters require a 10 minute break every 20 minutes to avoid repetitive strain injury. 3.0 Current Government Responses to Rural and Regional Disadvantage. The Department of Human Services has initiated a Video Relay Interpreting Project, VRI, across the State in an effort to address some of Auslan and spoken language interpreting issues in Regional Victoria. This Project has seen static high definition Video Conferencing facilities set up in some Regional centres usually at a Health Service or DHS Office. The VRI service does not alleviate the need for face to face Auslan Interpreting in Rural and Regional Victoria. Remembering that the VRI is static, in one place and not transportable, it means that most communication that happens between Deaf people, services, organisations and their communities need to happen in those specific environments. Two examples of this follow: The VRI in Gippsland is at the Latrobe Community Health Service in Morwell.

1) ‘Bethany’ is a job seeker who needs an Auslan Interpreter when she visits the Job Network provider in the large eastern Gippsland town she lives and wishes to work in. Bethany requires a face to face interpreter. In this instance, the VRI is of no use as Bethany lives in a town which is two hours from Morwell. It is neither practical nor appropriate to use the VRI.

2) ‘Justin’ and ‘Mary’ are parents of teenage children and live in a small

town 50 minutes drive from Morwell. They require Auslan Interpreting for parent teacher interviews at the school their children attend which is a 1 hour drive from Morwell where the VRI is situated. Travel for both themselves and the teachers they wish to meet with in the parent-teacher interview process. It is neither practical nor appropriate to use the VRI.

4.0 Examine Measures taken at a local level to combat rural and regional disadvantage. The Gippsland Initiatives: i) The Establishment of the Gippsland Auslan Interpreting Service. In mid 2002, the Gippsland Deaf Info-link Project Officer (now deaf access VICTORIA Project Officer) and a number of Gippsland Rural Access Project Offices were concerned about the lack of access to Auslan interpreters in Gippsland and the prohibitive costs of booking interpreters from Melbourne. A working party was formed to investigate options to address the situation.

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In 2003 the working party met with a number of organizations who were funded to provide a statewide Auslan interpreting service. The purpose of these meetings was to discuss the lack of availability of Auslan interpreters in rural Victoria, and specifically in Gippsland. These discussions were not fruitful and the Gippsland contingent investigated a range of local options. A proposal was then developed to establish an Auslan interpreting service in Gippsland. It was proposed that the service would be auspiced by an existing organisation which would employ one Level 2 (para professional) Auslan interpreter on a full-time basis. The auspice agency will provide office accommodation; a vehicle; administrative assistance including managing the interpreter bookings; professional development and training with assistance from ASLIA. The interpreter would be available for a maximum of 25 hours interpreting time per week with the residual hours allocated towards community education and raising awareness of the service within the Deaf community. In the first year of operation, the service was funded by advance payments from organisations who would be using the service; in kind support from the auspice agency; and external funding and sponsorship. It is anticipated that after the initial 12 months of operation the service will become self-sustaining from revenue raised from fees for interpreting. In the first year of operation the service was vigorously marketed to service providers and people who were Deaf or hard of hearing. People who were Deaf or hard of hearing were encouraged to ask for an Auslan interpreter when the need arose. Service providers were also made aware of their obligations under the Equal Opportunity Act 1991 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. The Gippsland Auslan Interpreting Service (GAIS) has been operating in Gippsland since 2005 and has successfully provided an Auslan interpreting service in Gippsland. In the first four years of operation (2005-09), GAIS has provided numerous instances of interpreting and has become a valued service to the Deaf community in Gippsland. To date the service has been sustained by fees from interpreting and two grants from the Department of Human Services. In 2010 the grants from the Department of Human Service expired and unfortunately the service is not sustainable from fee for service alone and is in danger of closing if further grants are not forthcoming. The Auspice agency, Latrobe Community Health service (LCHS), has provided generous support to GAIS, but does not have the funds to sustain the service without external funding. ii) The Gippsland Auslan Scholarship Fund project. This project is about the development of a Scholarship Fund to assist locally based Gippsland people to be able to complete Auslan Interpreter qualifications and continue to keep living and working in the Gippsland Region. This Scholarship fund will assist people by providing some of the

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resources needed for the achievement of the Diploma of Auslan, the minimum qualification required to begin the Diploma of Interpreting offered at RMIT, Melbourne. The Scholarship Fund was established acknowledging the difficulty of attracting currently qualified Auslan Interpreters to Gippsland and that there are some local people whose only barrier to completing qualifications in this specific skill is that of distance from Melbourne. The Diploma of Interpreting and Translating is offered fulltime at RMIT, and funds, regional people tend to have a lower income than that of City people. 5.0 Identify priorities for action by Government to tackle key rural and regional disadvantage and inequity issues. The Gippsland Auslan Interpreting Service requires a small amount of ongoing financial support for it to be viable and assist in improving the current health and wellbeing issues for Deaf people in Gippsland for the long term. The Service is capable of generating some funds itself but requires additional funding to be sustainable and provide the Gippsland Deaf community with communication access and equity. Recommendations

1. That the Victorian State Government support appropriate resourcing of the Gippsland Auslan Interpreting Service for the Gippsland Deaf Community to enable face to face access to regional professional and community services.

2. That the Victorian State Government requires service providers and state based organisations to provide access to Auslan interpreters for Deaf people as a fundamental right as expressed in The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.

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