Service Provider Awareness Training – for disability service providers and carers

1 day workshop – Supporting people with disability to access the Sex Industry

Thursday 20 June 2013 – Family Planning NSW (Hunter), Newcastle NSW
Supported by Family Planning NSW & People with Disability Australia
click here to download Flyer(PDF 226kb)

Places are limited so get in early to avoid disappointment.

Service Provider Awareness Training Workshop

This workshop is aimed at service providers and carers to allow them to explore the issues they may face when assisting people with disability to access the sex industry.

Disability service providers who would like to attend our next workshop at Family Planning NSW, Ashfield Sydney are encouraged to send us an email to go on our participant waiting list – via this link training@touchingbase.org. We will be able to notify you directly once the new date has been set.

Target Audience

Disability service providers, policy officers and carers in New South Wales.

Rationale

The Touching Base Committee believes that there is a clear need for our training project, to provide education for providers and carers, supporting them to fulfill their legal obligations to assist people with disability to follow the sexual lifestyle options of their choice, including non-heterosexual lifestyles.

The training will help facilitate healthier sexual health outcomes for people with disability by enabling them to make better-informed choices for themselves and empower both people with disability and their carers to address this often neglected area of service provision. In the last few years SWOP has received extensive inquiries from service providers regarding how best to access Sex Industry services.

The initial Touching Base Forum in Feb 2000 asked “How could carers better support or facilitate a relative or client to access sexual services?”

Participants identified the needs to –

  • Assist groups to overcome historical view of morality of sex/sex work
  • Encourage networking with other carers or advocacy groups
  • Find out what sex services are available from local workers and
  • Empower clients to make choices and decisions as sexual beings.

The Touching Base Survey of Service Providers in NSW (2002) examined barriers service providers and carers faced when accessing sexual services for their clients. 27 (75%) respondents indicated that they felt they would benefit from training and education in relation to assisting with and/or arranging access to sex work services and 29 (81%) indicated that they felt their organisation would benefit from such training.

Goals
  • Assist service providers, policy officers and carers to challenge myths and prejudices they or their organisation may hold regarding sexworkers and the diverse sexuality of people with disability
  • Educate participants of the vital role sexworkers play in HIV and other STI prevention strategies and how discrimination plays a role in the transmission of HIV infection
  • Inform of Disability Service Act obligations to support sexual lifestyles of people with disability and Department of Community Services policy on assisting access to sex workers and sex aids
  • Inform on better practice in assisting access to Sex Industry services
Outcomes/Objectives
  • Participants will gain knowledge on how to fulfill their duty of care without enacting discrimination towards sex workers or people with disability who don’t identify as heterosexual
  • Advocates for healthy public policy
  • Discovery of best practice models
  • Increased recognition of the sexual rights of people with disability
  • Reduced discrimination for people with disability who don’t identify as heterosexual
  • Improved quality of life for people with disability
  • Increased awareness of the role sex worker play within HIV and other STI Prevention
  • Reduced discrimination for sex workers
  • Sex workers and people with disability will be empowered through their vital collaboration in the development and presentation of this training seminar
  • Increased networking and making links with marginalised communities who are often hard to reach
Evaluation

In the future we hope to develop a thorough assessment process so that participants can seek Certificates of Attainment based on their ability to meet certain Competency Standards – yet to be developed. As a part of these Competency Standards becoming recognised by the Australian National Training Authority, a place for them would be found within the Australian Qualifications Framework.

Outline

The one to two days of training will cover a range of topics and can be adapted to the needs of individual organisations for an in-house staff training event. Options for topics include:

  • Touching Base Project Overview
  • Overview of NSW Sex Industry
  • The diverse sexuality of people with disability
  • Addressing the myths and prejudice towards both groups
  • Outlining obligations under the Disability Services Act, examining the Department of Community Services policy guidelines and workshopping the participant’s needs for policy guidance
  • Exploring barriers to access, workshopping participants experiences and introducing the Touching Base Survey results
  • Introducing the use of the Touching Base Committee’s 5 step path to sex expression
  • Using the resource FAQ’s on accessing Sex Services in New South Wales Australia