Ilan and Farrah

Farrah is a First Nations woman in her early 30s and a sole parent. She told the Royal Commission that schools and hospitals aren’t meeting her son’s disability and cultural needs because they don’t have the resources or training to deal with his behaviour.

Ilan, her son, was born with hydrocephalus and is autistic. He doesn’t speak and sometimes bangs his head against objects.   

‘That behaviour is very confronting … but he’s not dangerous to anybody else. It’s just to himself.’

Ilan started school a few years ago. When his own occupational therapist visited the special school to see how he was settling in, she found he’d been placed alone in a small room because he’d been banging his head. 

‘The principal said they were trialling this method of kind of taking him away from his situation … giving him that time to kind of self sooth, self-regulate, but nobody was in that little room with him,’ Farrah said.

Ilan sometimes comes home with bruises.

‘When [his regular teachers] aren’t with him … that’s when I see restraint marks. So I have to piece so much together. How come this is on my son’s body?’

Farrah said she wants cameras in classrooms so she can be sure teachers always treat her son appropriately.

Part of the problem, she says, is a shortage of teachers trained to work with children with disability. Ilan’s school has only one occupational therapist and one speech therapist for 150 children. Ilan’s behaviour is linked to his inability to communicate, so access to speech therapy is important.  

‘You’re going to get those behavioural outbursts if you’re not attending to their needs. That’s why they’re at special school.’

Farrah said hospitals and clinics also seem to lack staff trained to help people with disability.  

‘Even to our own clinic, and when I see how much the team has to adjust to [Ilan], I mean if he’s trying to escape the clinic they lock the whole clinic down and everyone’s frantic because they’re not too sure what to do.’

The lack of trained staff means Farrah has to work harder as Ilan’s advocate.

‘No one really cares for the carer. I can’t really open up to my family because I’m the strong one, so if I’m crumbling they’re like, “No, stop, don’t cry.” And so that’s really tough for me, finding that support outside of family and relying on health professionals … So all these things I’m kind of battling against. [But] it’s what I have to do for [Ilan].’

Farrah told us there’s ‘a lot of toughing it out as a special needs mum’. She’d like more government help, but because she’s a First Nations woman she’s reluctant to ask. 

‘That’s a risk for Indigenous mums because if you are vulnerable you might trigger something to alert them. You don’t want to lose your child to child safety. So that’s a big fear.’