Ms Rachel Cassen:

Good information needs to be circulated as a starting point. We need an absolute shift in mindset away from the charity mindset, that is, the idea that the highest order need of people with disabilities is to be cared for.

We need to stop thinking like that and realise people with disabilities want exactly what we want. In tandem, we need to stop developing segregated education. Segregated education is really growing in this country, particularly for children and young people with autism. We have not yet looked at the outcomes but we believe in Leap that they will be very poor in terms of young people having the self-confidence and self-concept to progress to education, training or employment. Segregation is doing great damage, in our opinion.

Personal budgets on their own are not a panacea. We have to consider how we are segregating people with disabilities and treating them differently from childhood on. It is a matter of regarding families as the third leg of the stool. They get very little attention. We must encourage families, and that is why I talk about the word “vision”, dreaming big and aiming high. In North America, parental expectations are known to be an absolute game-changer in terms of outcomes for people with disabilities.