What does Deafness Forum do?

Reprinted with permission from the DFA Newsletter - Issue 63 - November 2009

People often ask me what is it that Deafness Forum does? For many organisations, the answer to this question would be quite clear. For example, some of our member organisations might say “we provide interpreter services” or, “we teach deaf children how to speak” or, “we provide support for people who have recently been fitted with hearing aids” or “we provide captioning services” or “we are a Deaf social group” or “we sell products to assist people who are Deaf or have a hearing impairment” or one of the many other diverse services that our member associations provide.

We don’t have such an easily explained raison d’etre. In some ways, what we do can be described as macro, big picture, or overarching improvements. We don’t support one person: we support ALL people with some form of deafness. We don’t teach a child; we influence policy that means that ALL children will have access to better education. We don’t make a complaint about captions on the show you were watching last night; we try to influence government policy to ensure that ALL shows must be captioned. We don’t help get a hearing loop into your local church; we try to change legislation so that ALL buildings, including churches, must have a loop.

This is what is known as systemic advocacy. That is, advocacy provided by associations with a specific interest, which represent the rights and interests of a group of people or organisations with similar concerns and issues. According to the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, systemic advocacy seeks to influence or secure positive long-term changes that remove barriers and address discriminatory practices to ensure the collective rights and interests of people with disability are upheld, by:

• Pursuing positive changes to legislation, policy and service practices in partnership with groups of people with disability, advocacy agencies and other relevant organisations; and

• Seeking to address barriers and discriminatory practices to produce long-term positive changes.¹

Other different forms of advocacy, which are undertaken by some of our individual members and member organisations, include:

• Individual advocacy which seeks to uphold the rights and interests of people with all types of disabilities on a one-to-one basis by addressing instances of discrimination, abuse and neglect.

• Citizen advocacy which seeks to support people with a disability (also called protégés) by matching them with volunteers. Some of the matches made may last for life.

• Family advocacy works with parents and family members to enable them to act as advocates with and on behalf of a family member with disability. Family advocates work with parents and family members on either a short-term or an issue-specific basis. Family advocates work within the fundamental principle that the rights and interests of the person with disability are upheld at all times.

• Self advocacy – supports people with disability to advocate on their own behalf, to the extent possible, or on a one-to-one or group basis.

• Legal advocacy – seeks to uphold the rights and interests of people with all types of disabilities on a one-to-one basis by addressing legal aspects of instances of discrimination, abuse and neglect.²

We are what is referred to as a peak body. A peak body is a representative organisation that provides information dissemination services, membership support, coordination, advocacy and representation, and research and policy development services for its members and other interested parties. (…) The peak council role does not involve direct service delivery.³

So a “peak body” is a non-government organisation whose membership consists of smaller organisations of allied interests. The peak body thus offers a strong voice for the specific community sector in the areas of lobbying government, community education and information sharing between member groups and interested parties.

As a peak body (or umbrella body as it may be called overseas), our job is to advocate and lobby for changes that need to be made. As noted by Edgar and the Australia Institute in the paper Agree to Disagree⁴, peak bodies are not the only organisations that engage in advocacy, and many of their members undertake this role as individual organisations. For example, many non-government organisations (NGOs) undertake similar roles to peaks, even as members, and some are actually likely to be significantly larger than their relevant peak body. For example, both Oxfam Australia and the Salvation Army are larger than their respective peaks, the Australian Council for International Development and ACOSS. In our own sector, comparisons where member organisations are larger than Deafness Forum might be Deaf Children Australia and Deaf Society of NSW, for example.

But it is important that a peak body is not engaged in any service delivery functions, as this has the potential to pose a conflict between the interests of service organisations and those of consumers.

So generally our member organisations provide the services or sell the goods and products: we represent our members to the federal government and large organisations.

The 1995 Industry Commission report into Charitable Organisations in Australia⁵ dealt extensively with the role of peak bodies, and formulated a comprehensive and functionally based definition of a peak body in the Australian context. In this report, it is clear that peak bodies deal with the Commonwealth and State governments on behalf of non-government organisations, giving a single voice to the whole sector on common issues. This frees individual organisations from some of the lobbying and advocacy that needs to be accomplished. It also acts to prevent the fragmented approaches from single organisations.

While it is clear to me that we need to work more closely with our members to make this a reality in our own sector, Deafness Forum does work at the systemic level on many government policies. This is evidenced by our membership of many high level committees and panels. these include and many more.

Some of the other bodies we are represented on include:

• Hearing Services Consultative Committee
• Aviation Access Working Group
• National People with Disability and Carer Council
• Several Department of Health and Ageing working groups
• National Relay Service Customer Consultative Committee
• Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening Committee
• Digital Switchover Taskforce Consumer Expert Group
• The Standing Advisory Committee on Disability Issues of ACCAN
• Telstra Disability Forum
• Optus Consumer Liaison Forum
• Qantas Customer Forum
• Standards Australia Committee ME/64/0/05 (Access for People with Disabilities – Hearing Augmentation AS1428.5)
• Standards Australia Committee FP002 (Fire detection)
• Working with the Australian Human Rights Commission on a range of topics
• And many others.
  

And we are waiting to hear about several more committees.

We have built great relationships with all sides of politics, and with other stakeholders. Our recent achievements in getting the Hon John Howard AC to become Deafness Forum’s first Ambassador, and the Senate Community Affairs References Committee Inquiry into Hearing Health in Australia, are evidence of this. For our member organisations, your focus must necessarily be on achieving your own service delivery goals. For us at Deafness Forum, the lobbying and systemic advocacy is ALL that we do. Please work with us to achieve your goals, not further fragment our sector.

References:

1.  http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/disability/pubs/policy/Documents/national_disability_advocacy/sec6.htm accessed 20 October 2009
2. http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/disability/pubs/policy/Documents/national_disability_advocacy/sec6.htm accessed 20 October 2009
3. Industry Commission 1995, Charitable Organisations in Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, retrieved from http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/6991/45charit.pdf Accessed 20 October 2009
4. Edgar G & Australia Institute 2008, Agreeing to Disagree: Maintaining Dissent in the NGO Sector, Australia Institute, Manuka, ACT, retrieved from https://www.tai.org.au/?q=node/9&pubid=1071 20 October 2009
5. Industry Commission 1995, Charitable Organisations in Australia, Australian Government Publishing Service, retrieved from http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/6991/45charit.pdf 20 October 2009