Amaze Welcomes Victorian Government’s Disability Inclusion Package Announcement

Message from Amaze CEO Fiona Sharkie: 

Amaze shares the aspiration of Disability Inclusion: Education for All – we want to see all autistic children and young people welcome and able to thrive at their local government school.

Today’s announcement is a recognition of the need for dramatic change.

For too long schools have not had the capacity to create learning environments where students with disability can achieve what they are truly capable of. The gap in education outcomes compared with their peers without disability is enormous and unacceptable.

Today’s announcement provides a significant and welcome injection of new funds. This investment should help our state schools take great strides towards better supporting autistic students and others with disability.

Missing from today’s announcement are clear targets and indictors. It is important that we are ambitious about lifting school outcomes for students with disability – such as Year 12 completion rates. As a community, we need to be able to track the impact of these reforms.

While we are yet to see the full details underpinning the package, critical elements include:

• Improvements to the Program for Students with Disability – with a new strengths based Disability Inclusion Profile tool (to replace the Functional Needs Assessment). This should allow schools to better respond to the circumstances of individual students eligible for PSD funding.
• New funding to support school leaders and staff to build their capacity and capability in inclusive education to support autistic and other students with disability who do not qualify for individual funding. This should mean better support for more student. 
• A Diverse Learners Hub, and initiatives to assist schools, families, students, community and experts to work together. 

The above full statement by Amaze CEO Fiona Sharkie can be downloaded here. 

You can also download the official announcement by Minister for Education James Merlino here.