Introducing a great peak body for human rights: People with Disabilities Australia

Sometimes people with psychosocial disability don't realise that the recognition of various

pschosocial difficulties that people may experience in life including severe distress, trauma

or any other form of suffering that can temporarily or otherwise impeed a persons' ability to function as a disability makes us a part of the wider disability community.

People with Disabilities Australia is one of the leading Australian peak bodies (or representative bodies) for people with disabilities and anyone with a disability can join.

Sometimes getting involved in the wider disability community can help people gain a wider understanding of their rights and how to be able to access them and participate in legal reforms and protections to ensure that rights and services improve into the future.

PWDA is a great place to go for information about rights - and to look for an understanding of what they are under current law - as well as where we have rights under international human rights treaties that have been ratified by the Australian government, but which are still needing to result in legal changes - so that we can realise sometimes if we feel a law is unjust and harmful - sometimes we might find out that is a law that Australia has already indirectly promised to change by ratifying an international human rights treaty - and we might be able to participate in legal reform to get that changed

It's also a great place to go for support and advocacy in reporting to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse and Exploitation of persons with disability - just because a health service provider or even a legislator might represent a practice as "standard", "legal" or "necessary", and that it might be something that seems to happen almost everywhere to almost everyone, or that some people report they find the practice helpful - that does not mean that the practice is not abusive if you found it harmful and you didn't feel you could refuse or get away, or weren't given the opportunity to provide informed consent, refuse that practice, or have access to any reasonable alternatives that didn't harm you (so you had to eg. choose between no support or some support that also included practices you found harmful). One of the most important aspects of systemic abuse is that it does unfortunately become standard, or even legal practice.

https://pwd.org.au/resources/disability-faqs/student-section/human-rights-violations/