Voice for Choice

19/12/2025

18/12/2025

Thanks to Black Dog Institute for these resources to support our communities.

18/12/2025

Everyone is carrying different struggles this season.
Beyond Blue is available 24/7 if you need support.

18/12/2025

It's been another great year for the Enabling Women Leadership Program! 🎉

Congratulations to graduates from our Summer, Autumn and Spring Programs. 🎓

Image description: A beige social media tile with the WDV logo centered in middle, at the top. There is large purple text that reads: “Enabling Women Leadership Program 2025” and underneath, smaller text reads: “3 Graduations. 33 Graduates” and “12 Months of empowering women and gender diverse people with disabilities to lead their own lives, their own way”. There is a photo in a circular frame, positioned on the right-hand side, of a smiling participant speaking into a microphone lectern.

18/12/2025

17/12/2025

The holiday season can bring a mix of busy moments, disrupted routines, and big feelings, so it’s a great time to double-check your local SMART Recovery meeting details or explore new options. Oour office will close from 20 December to 4 January, support stays open through our national meeting directory and 24/7 tools.

Looking for a meeting? You’ll find sessions across Australia, online, face-to-face, for families, youth, communities, and many others. Every space is welcoming, practical, and grounded in peer support🔗 https://lnkd.in/g7FDu2C2

Facilitators, a quick reminder: if you’re hosting a meeting, please make sure it’s registered and the schedule is current. It only takes a moment and helps more people find support during a time when connection really matters.

And if you need something you can access anytime, the SMART Recovery App is ready whenever you are, tools, worksheets, and strategies right in your pocket.
🔗 SMART Recovery App 📲https://lnkd.in/gkvV2dKj
🔗All SMART tools https://lnkd.in/gijzXThA
🔗Book a training https://lnkd.in/gzmakmCs
🔗Find out more https://lnkd.in/gkzshsS

We’ll be back to normal operations on 5 January, but the heart of SMART, our meetings and resources, remains available throughout the break.

08/12/2025

PWDA joins Disability Representative Organisations (DROs) calling for greater transparency on 'Computer- Generated NDIS Plans'.

Reforms require the highest standards of scrutiny, transparency and safeguards to ensure they do not undermine the rights and experiences of people with disability.

Automated Decision Making (ADM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are only as reliable as the information fed into them. Algorithms built from “average” cases consistently fail people whose experiences sit at the margins including women, First Nations people, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and people with disability.

These concerns are compounded by changes to review pathways, which appear to narrow the grounds on which decisions can be challenged.

We are deeply concerned these changes will create significant risks, particularly for people with the highest support needs.

We are calling on the NDIS to:

1️⃣ Publicly disclose where and how ADM or AI will be used.
2️⃣ Provide information and community briefings on the Needs Assessment and New Planning Framework.
3️⃣ Publish any legal advice about the reviewability of new framework plans at the Tribunal
4️⃣ Partner with Disability Representative Organisations and Disability Representative Carer Organisations to agree on a strategy for co-design.

Read full release: https://buff.ly/mUTW1tX

[ID: Joint Statement ‘Computer-Generated NDIS Plans’ features image with Composite of logos of endorsing organisations: Australian Autism Alliance, Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, Children and Young People with Disability Australia, Community Mental Health Australia, Disability Advocacy Network Australia, Down Syndrome Australia, Inclusion Australia, National Mental Health Consumer Alliance, People with Disability Australia, Physical Disability Australia, Women With Disabilities Australia]

08/12/2025

We’re excited to share that Christmess is now on Netflix from 6 December, and SMART Recovery Australia is featured as a support service at the end of the film.

This is a huge moment for our community, shining a national light on recovery that is real, diverse, and supported by people who genuinely care.

The film also features our friends at Odyssey House, helping show the many ways people can find support and move towards healthier, more hopeful futures.

Stories like these are powerful. They help challenge stigma, build understanding, and remind everyone that recovery is shaped by choice, respect, and community, not judgment.

We’d love you to watch Christmess and take a moment to reflect on the stories shared. Watch https://www.netflix.com/au/title/82109070

03/12/2025

🌏 International Day of People with Disability 🌏

Today, we honour International Day of People with Disability - a day deeply meaningful to our community, our families, our mob and our movement.

This year’s theme, “Fostering Disability-Inclusive Societies for Advancing Social Progress” speaks directly to what First Peoples with disability have been calling for over generations: a society where our rights are upheld, our cultures are respected, and our voices lead the way forward.

At First Peoples Disability Network, we recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability are strong, proud, connected and resilient. Disability has always existed within our cultures. It is part of identity, kinship, community and story - long before Western systems named it.

Today, and every day, we acknowledge the leadership and lived experience of First Peoples with disability who continue to shape our communities, challenge injustice, and drive meaningful change.

Your voices guide our advocacy.
Your strength guides our purpose.
Your stories guide our future.

We also acknowledge the families, carers, Elders and communities who walk alongside our mob with disability - lifting, holding and supporting with love.

As we mark IDPwD, we reaffirm our commitment to building a future where systems, services and governments work with our people, not around them - creating societies that are truly inclusive, culturally safe and just.

To our community: we see you, we celebrate you, and we stand with you.

♿ Image Description (Alt Text):

A bright, colourful graphic acknowledging International Day of People with Disability. At the top left is the First Peoples Disability Network Australia logo. Across the centre, bold white text on a blue banner reads: “International Day of People with Disability”, beneath it, on a smaller yellow banner, is the date: “3 December 2025”.

The background features deep pink Aboriginal artwork patterns. In the lower half, a dark blue silhouette of a person stretches their arms outward across a teal background. Around the figure are flowing shapes in yellow, orange, blue and green, resembling movement, energy and connection. This is the logo from the International Day of People with Disability.

The overall design feels vibrant, inclusive and culturally grounded.

03/12/2025

Today marks the International Day of People with Disability, yet ableism still shapes everyday life in Australia.

In an op-ed for The Canberra Times, Disability Discrimination Commissioner Rosemary Kayess calls for urgent reform to dismantle ableist systems and modernise the Disability Discrimination Act. From inaccessible transport and housing to segregated schooling, inclusion cannot remain optional.

'If we get it right, we will deliver a modern, consistent and enforceable system that reflects human diversity and ensures inclusion is not optional, it is the norm,' Commissioner Kayess writes.

Read more: https://loom.ly/C4gtreA

28/11/2025

Picture description: yellow tile with quote:

Sometimes parents don’t need more parenting programs and capacity building, they need someone to remind them they’re doing as well as anyone humanly could in their circumstances and to take it one day at a time while we advocate for adequate support.

28/11/2025

We're officially heading into the Silly Season!
It's a great time to create a plan to manage stress, and remind us of our strengths.

This week was one of the most rewarding for us, professionally, this year.
We have built confidence and resilience with a family to start actioning long term goals.
We had the privilege to stand with another family to meet a very challenging goal to reconnect with their past.
A final gift was bushwalking with a courageous visionary that is literally walking the walk back to wellbeing and self determination.
Our commitment to advocacy and specialist skill development has provided us these opportunities to share in our clients trust.

This year showed us that consistency, learning, balance, and design thinking create meaningful work and personal relationships. We believe this is the foundation for purpose and meaning for our work and our clients lives.

Feel free to reflect on your experiences and achievements as you travel the last steps towards 2026. 🥳🙌