Dying for change: lightning talks for action

Improving the health and life expectancy of Australian people with intellectual disability.

Imagine waking up every day knowing that your life expectancy is on average more than 25 years less than the rest of the population. And that you are twice as likely to die from a potentially avoidable cause than someone in the general population!

That’s the reality for Australian’s living with an intellectual disability.

But, it does not have to be that way. Australia has committed to ensuring “persons with disabilities have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health”. Yet the research shows very limited progress towards this goal.

If you think we should do better, join us as we hear from international and local experts, including people with intellectual disability, advocates, researchers and medical practitioners as we ask the big questions. What is at the root of this issue? What needs to be done? And whose responsibility is it?

Speakers

• Professor Chris Hatton - Professor of Public Health and Disability, Lancaster University
• Dr George Julian - freelance knowledge transfer consultant, a Visiting Fellow at London School of Economics, volunteer campaign manager for JusticeforLB and a trainee death doula
• Professor Andrew Jahoda - Professor of Learning Disabilities (Mental Health & Wellbeing), University of Glasglow
• Rosemary Kayess - Disability Innovation Institute UNSW, human rights lawyer, UNSW Faculty of Law academic and elected member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• Jim Simpson - Council for Intellectual Disability
• Professor Julian Trollor - Chair, Intellectual Disability Mental Health, Head of Department of Developmental Disability Neuropsychiatry, Professor, School of Psychiatry, UNSW Medicine
• Chairperson Jack Kelly - Project Worker, Council for Intellectual Disability

Who should attend?

• People with intellectual disability, family members, supporters
• Health, disability, social and human services policy makers, researchers and academics
• Health professionals, community workers
• Health students, social work students, social sciences students
• Change makers, advocates and campaigners
• Disability service providers
• Members of the general public who care and want to know more about this issue, about has been done and what can be done now

Light refreshments will be provided on the evening.

Hosted by the Disability Innovation Institute at UNSW Sydney.