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In recent years Australia has had a revolution in disability support, choice and control is in the hands of the person with the disability now which is fantastic... The system isn't perfect but it's much better than it was when I arrived here six plus years ago... Support workers are paid a fair wage and standards of care have improved dramatically...
One downside is there's now a thriving private support sector, all you need is an ABN (self employed tax number) and away you go, you can get paid almost $60 per hour (the casual rate is around $35 per hour) with very little or no training... It's attracting the wrong kind of people and abuse and exploitation are an issue, I've seen it with my own eyes working on the management side... I'm hoping legislation will come in to bring in mandatory training for this section of the workforce bit it's been very slow to materialise...
I work as a support coordinator/case manager these days so get to see these clowns in action all the time, it depresses the fuck out of me... I'm making it my job to get rid of as many of the bad ones as I can, one at a time...
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@snottyotter
I was a support worker for people with learning disabilities for a few years when I first moved up to Manchester. We were a private run charity kinda place that was actually pretty good, looking after a few people who had been institutionalised in the big horrible hospitals in the decades before. The kind of thing you described is awful, and thankfully never went on to that extent in the places I worked but it's easy to see how it comes about. It's a really hard job that is physically and emotionally draining, and the pay is absolutely shite, staff turnover was really high, I was the longest serving staff member after I left after about 5 years not including managers, who were around less due to promotions,and having a consistent team in place is massively important to improve people's lives rather than just stop them dying in a house. Even back then we had a lot of agency staff filling in gaps but at least they were usually the same people, unfortunately the agencies are where the money is, they charge much more per shift to the company for those workers compared to what regular staff get paid and take a big slice for themselves, and the quality of work, even if the staff member is great, will be worse because it's not a consistent person. It's bullshit privatisation and capitalism extracting profit from people's wellbeing and lives, I can only imagine it's worse now 15 odd years later.