DCSI Strathmont Disability Library – too good to close now!
18/06/2013
Important disability resources for families and practitioners will be lost if the closure of the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion specialist Disability Collection library sites goes ahead.
Dignity for Disability has used question time this afternoon to ask the Government what they’re plotting for the facility following concerned constituents contacting Kelly Vincent’s office to express their outrage at the closure plan.
“I am really shocked to hear that staff and clients of this unique service have been told that it will cease to operate later this year,” says Dignity for Disability MLC, Kelly Vincent.
“This is the only library of its type in Australia so it would be a great shame to lose this facility from the disability sector.
“Families have told me of the vital importance of the items they have borrowed over the years, items such as books and DVDs that are simply not available through regular lending libraries. Such resources have been of enormous assistance with parenting a child with a disability.
“Practitioners, too, will be affected as the breadth of information for occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social workers and others is to be taken away at the exact time when it can reasonably be expected that an increase in such resources will be needed.
“The introduction of Commonwealth DisabilityCare will see more people than ever employed in servicing the needs of the disability sector. Just when titles like: ‘The Aspie Girl’s Guide to Being with Men: the unwritten safety rules no-one is telling you’ and ‘Understanding Families: supportive approaches to diversity, disability and risk’ both recent acquisitions of the library, will be in demand.
“The plan for the collection is unclear, if there is a plan I call on the Minister for Disabilities to make it clear to all South Australians, because any suggestion that the 10,000 or more items will be mothballed in a government storage facility just beggars belief.
“Surely with the NDIS there could be a central community hub where this lending library could find a new home, new clients and continue to serve the public of South Australia.
“The collection is the only government operated specialist collection of its kind in Australia. It holds a large number of resources about the Autism spectrum (eg: What is it like to be me?: a book about a boy with Asperger’s syndrome), and it is essential that these continue to be available to parents, teachers and therapists,” said Ms Vincent.
From: sa.gov.au Strathmont Centre 696-710 Grand Junction Road Oakden, 82668556 (open to the public) DCSI Libraries offer kits, books, journals, videos, DVDs and CD Roms covering issues such as daily living skills; sexuality; personal hygiene; relationships; challenging behavior. Central Collection, open only to DCSI. DCSI volunteers and foster carers may utilise the service by arrangement. Books, journals and audio-visual material on housing, homelessness, child welfare, foster care, psychology, social work, adoption, ageing, juvenile justice, management.
