The experience of choice and control of people with psychosocial disability during the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme

RMIT Researchers

• Professor Penelope Weller
• Paul Ramcharam, Workforce Innovation and Development Institute
  

Project Description

In the post-asylum era, supported residential services (SRS), share many of the features of ‘total institutions’ despite their difference in appearance to the high-walled and locked facilities of the past. They exemplify some elements that go towards culturally dividing practices that Foucault argues produce institutional existence (1982). A new policy intervention in Australia, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), is premised on the object of enabling people with disability to exercise choice and control over their lives. Rational choice theory, on which the NDIS is premised, conceptualises the individual as a free and active agent in decision-making. However, a long history of institutional studies indicates that residents have limited choice and control over their lives.

Partners

• Professor Lisa Brophy, Latrobe University

Theme

Health

Key Words

Choice, control, human rights, NDIS, institutionalisation