Disability services and purpose: a founder’s perspective

A while ago, I wrote about why we incorporated Clickability as a for-purpose company. I want to dig into one of the things I left out. I left it out on purpose because I think it’s such a big topic that it needs a blog post of its own.

The last reason we had for becoming a for-purpose company was because we want to help normalise the use of disability services.

We all need help sometimes. I certainly can’t fix a leaking tap by myself; I need a plumber. Others can’t get out of bed by themselves, so they need a support worker.

When you look at it like that, it’s strange that it’s ok for one industry to be full of charities, and the other to be full of businesses. Could you imagine a world full of not-for-profit trades? (I could, actually, but that’s a different story!)

Whether or not we identify as being disabled, all of us work to try to increase how empowered we feel, and decrease the impairment we experience as a result of our particular circumstances.

Everyone who’s worked as a case manager or care coordinator like I have has had an experience of having to make a person with disability sound as sick, poor, needy and disempowered as possible in order to help them get funding or support. It’s not a nice place to be in for anyone. Trying to make consumers sound like “charity cases” is totally at odds with our work.

In my experience, a lot of organisations that do important health, welfare and community work survive on a culture of volunteerism: paid workers who work more than they’re contracted for, and for less money than their time is worth. It’s common practice to undercharge, undervalue, overwork.

For me, it’s a feminist concern as well because women are disproportionately represented in caring work and in the disability sector. Women already earn less than 80c to the dollar. The fact that women fill a lot of underpaid and unpaid caring positions adds to this problem and embeds it in the disability support industry.

I am not anti-charity. But I want to see the purchase of disability support sit alongside the purchase of any other goods and services. Transparent information. Functional, public feedback systems. Inclusion of all stakeholders in creating appropriate options. Appropriate accountability. Real choice. No stigma.

I am not anti-volunteerism. Clickability is a start-up, and we are running on volunteers! But if we can’t pay ourselves in the near future, we won’t be sustainable, and we’ll have to re-examine our business model. We want to see the disability community getting remunerated and acknowledged for the difficult work that gets done.

I don’t want the disability industry to survive on the “charity” image. I want good, strategic business models and real informed decisions around the right kind of incorporation that’s going to match each organisation’s strategy and goals. Moreover, I want to see organisations producing reliable, relevant, high quality services for consumers who need the kind of support our industry is offering.

Am I being unrealistic? Am I basing my thoughts on experiences that don’t match your own? Am I suggesting we mainstream things that really need affirmative action? Do you think the NDIS will help “de-charity” disability services? I’m interested to hear your thoughts.