Step Up! for Down Syndrome at Parramatta Park: this Sunday, 25th

Event details and online registration

Sunday 25th October 

Parramatta Park, at ‘Salters Field’

• car access via Pitt Street 
• or catch the train to Westmead and it’s only a 10 minute walk from there

Arrive from 9.30am (real coffee from a Coffee Cart will be available!), with the walk commencing at 10am. Followed by free lunch, entertainment and activities until 1.30pm.

The walk itself will be ‘Passport Style’ – a route with different stations where you collect a stamps. A special prize awaits all those finishing with a full ‘passport’!

After the walk, there will be plenty of fun activities:

Free lunch for everyone, kindly provided by CMP
Kindifarm Petting Zoo will be there with a variety of baby farm animals.
Badge making by our UP!Club
Balloon Artist
A visit from our local Fire Brigade with their truck
Parramatta Brass Band will be performing throughout the day
There is a children’s playground adjacent to our area and plenty of shade provided by big Eucalyptus trees
Don't forget to buy a badge on Sunday from our badge making social enterprise

The next Step UP! event will be at Picton Sunday 1 November - details here

Promoting resilience in young people with disabilities: seminar for parents

The National Disability Coordination Officer Program (NDCO) at University  of Western Sydney is proud to be supporting a FREE seminar for parents of young people with disabilities:

Parents Promoting Resilience: Preparing young people to negotiate the ups and downs of life

Resilience is an important quality for all people, but especially for people with disabilities who may face additional challenges. This seminar will provide practical strategies to parents and others who support adolescents and young adults with disability, including learning disabilities, chronic medical conditions and mental illnesses.

Monday,  20^th February 2012  5:45 pm - 8:00 pm

Narellan Library Building, Cnr Queen and Elyard Streets, Narellan

• Flyer 

New resource, Getting young people ready for life after school: A guide for parents, will be launched at this event.

Right planet, right child: Beverley Beckham

Beverley Beckham is a well known Boston writer, who occasionally writes about her granddaughter, Lucy, who has Down syndrome.  In this column, she ponders life on earth and our concept of limitations .... and there is a lovely photo of Lucy with her grandfather, as a bonus:

..... Here on earth, we all depend on wheels. We don’t have wings — we can’t fly. This is our disability.

We accommodate this disability by using bicycles, cars, trains, and planes and, yes, these are clumsy, cumbersome things and, yes, we’d get places a lot faster if we could just spread our wings and fly.

But we don’t beat ourselves up over this. We don’t think of ourselves as imperfect because we can’t take flight.

But we would if everyone else could fly ....  read all of the article here.

Perhaps we could use this analogy any time we are told that accommodations/adaptations are too difficult/expensive/impose on others ....?

Migration Review and disability: LifeMatters podcast

The podcast of yesterday's LifeMatters (ABC Radio National) discussion of  Enabling Australia,  the report of the recent review of immigration policy as it impacts on people with disabilities and their families, is now available to listen to online, or to download as an mp3 file.  Richard Aedy interviewed the review's Chairman, Michael Danby, and the CEO of Down Syndrome Victoria, Catherine McAlpine.

The report itself is substantial (239 pages), and is available to download as a whole, or in chapters, from the Committee's webpage.

The Joint Standing Committee on Migration has made 18 recommendations aimed at  modernising the immigration treatment of people with disabilities,  but has fallen short of recommending that disability be removed from immigration health criteria.  

Senators Sue Boyce and Sarah Hanson-Young have made "additional comments" (pp 201 - 213), stating that ....

..... "we are of the view that the Inquiry provided sufficient evidence to warrant going further than Recommendation 18 to achieve a truly nondiscriminatory, and economically and socially beneficial, approach to migration treatment of disability." 

Their further recommendations are:

Recommendation A: We recommend that the Government remove the exemption of the Migration Act 1958 from the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

Recommendation B: In the event that Recommendation A is not accepted, we recommend that the Government acknowledge that rejecting temporary visa holders as permanent visa holders solely on the basis of the birth of a child with a disability is discriminatory and develop protocols to address this.

More fun at Families' Weekend: on the ground

A bit tamer than the high swing, but "kids" of all ages enjoyed the fun of racing around the track on these man-powered machines at The Tops.




.... although not all the fun was in the riding!

Previous entries on Families Weekend 2009

Fun and games ..... more from Families Weekend

It wasn't all high flying, speed and action at Families Weekend. There was some seriously good face-painting on offer too .......

You had to still really still ......


..... but it was soooo worth it!

Flying high .......

This year's Families Weekend was held at The Tops, Stanwell Tops, overlooking the ocean from the edge of the Illawarra escarpment. The spectacular views provide a stunning background to the adventure activities available at The Tops. It was an active weekend!

The Giant Swing was breathtaking but everyone came off the swing with beaming faces and a huge sense of achievement. Many people of all ages wanted to have a go, even if they were a bit anxious. Once they were up and flying, it was an adrenaline rush and many wanted to come back for more!