Mat and Maureen
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
‘Talking about this is quite distressing and … the distress of parents doesn’t ever go away.’
Mat, mid-20s, is autistic. Maureen, his mum, is a GP and has a brother with paraplegia.
Maureen told the Royal Commission that over the years she has had to ‘constantly advocate’ for Mat because his disability is invisible.
She believes things are worse since under the NDIS because funding is based on a person’s disability, not their ability. She said the NDIS works better for her brother because his disability is measurable.
When Mat was young, his parents ‘just thought he was this fairly hyperactive full-on kid that needed a lot of maintenance’.
He started school in the private system but the school ‘couldn’t manage’. Maureen said they didn’t have the funding.
After one term Mat moved to a local state school. Things weren’t much better, but when Maureen contacted the education department they told her they had ‘nowhere to put [Mat]’.
A year later Mat moved to another state school. Maureen discovered he had been placed in the unit for emotionally disturbed kids.
In year 5, the education department moved Mat to a new school with an autism unit.
A short time later a new deputy principal started and didn’t want an autism unit. Almost overnight the classroom was segregated.
‘Him just going to school is one of the biggest traumatic events in my life,’ said Maureen.
Throughout primary and high school Mat was often suspended. Maureen said there was no allowance for his disability.
‘The education department is very, very bureaucratic and it seems to have blanket rules in regard to why children should be suspended.’
One time, Mat picked up another student’s school bag and ran off. Teachers chased him and told him to put the bag down. He threw it down and the Mothers’ Day gift in the bag broke. Mat was suspended for wilfully breaking someone else’s property.
If Mat tried to defend himself and spoke back to teachers, they would suspend him for being aggressive.
In high school, Mat noticeably lost skills. He’d had two months of orientation with his teacher, but when he arrived the teacher had left.
Maureen had donated a touch type program to the school. Mat liked to write in colour and use multiple colours and use multiple coloured notepads. But the school wouldn’t let him use these and forced him to use a led pencil.
‘So, he stopped starting to want to write and problems ensued.’
When he started learning cursive writing, he liked to do it in a particular way. The teacher continually criticised him, so he stopped writing.
Mat spent more and more time in the autism unit, with little opportunity to participate in mainstream classes. ‘He ultimately felt like he was in prison.’
‘A lot of his capacities were destroyed in school, rather than nurtured.’
Mat still remembers the way the teachers treated him and is working through ‘the trauma around school’.
Maureen feels ‘burnt out’.
‘All of those parents who do care … just live on with being I guess traumatised by what our kids go through and what you go through to advocate for your kids.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.