AN ARMIDALE health researcher will travel overseas to examine ways of improving services to people with intellectual disabilities next year after receiving a Churchill Fellowship.
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University of New England postdoctoral research fellow Dr Stuart Wark (pictured) was one of 28 NSW residents to be awarded with a Fellowship this year by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Recipients are granted an average of $20,000 to travel overseas to research their passion, before returning to Australia and implementing their findings.
Dr Wark will use his Fellowship to assess the ageing and palliative care needs of people with an intellectual disability. He will travel to the USA, UK and Ireland for six weeks in June and July next year to speak to researchers and service providers to find ways to improve services in Australia, particularly in rural areas.
Through his work with The Ascent Group over the past 15 years, Dr Wark has provided assistance to people with disabilities, ageing and social disadvantage. He is also a part of the Collaborative Research Network for Mental Health and Wellbeing coordinated by the University of New England that conducts research in conjunction with several Australian universities.
According to Dr Wark, the increase in life expectancy for people with intellectual disabilities had produced new challenges in the community services sector.
“The average life expectancy of someone with an intellectual disability in 1900 was less than 10, whereas someone born with an intellectual disability now has a life expectancy in the mid 60s to 70s,” he said.
“We’ve seen this massive increase, which is naturally fantastic, but it also means that there’s this whole group of people who have never experienced age-related issues before. Both the aged care sector and disability sector don’t know quite how to respond to the issue because they’ve never had to deal with significant numbers of people ageing with intellectual disability.”
A similar problem has emerged in palliative care services for people with intellectual disabilities.
Disability services are currently funded predominantly by state governments, while the aged care sector is handled by then Commonwealth. Dr Wark said the discrepancy meant many ageing Australians with intellectual disabilities were “falling through the gap”.
“We want to examine the practical programs and interventions that have been shown to be effective overseas and present these to both state and federal government to demonstrate solutions that will be workable, particularly in rural areas,” he said.
Dr Wark said a network of co-operative palliative care organisations in the UK could help to address the shortfall in Australian rural and regional services.
“They have a network of support and have regular face-to-face meetings,” he said. “They also have a website, electronic newsletters and email access to support each other so that, when you have smaller organisations, they can tap into the expertise of other people who have gone through that process.”