Hi!
Welcome to Aphasia Victoria.
Aphasia Victoria is a community for people with aphasia, who live in Victoria, Australia.
Please explore this website.
On Monday August 19th, Aphasia Victoria hosted an event –
A Community Conversation about using Centrelink for People with Aphasia.
There were two speakers:
Kym Brockhoff had a stroke four years ago. He has aphasia. After his stroke, he could not work.
Kym spoke about how it was hard to access Centrelink. It took him three years and lots of work to get approval for Centrelink payments.
He shared some tips to help others. His tips included:
- Never give up – keep trying even when people say “no”
- Have people on your side – family or friends, health workers (your doctor, your social worker, your speech pathologist)
Nick Carbines from the Centrelink Community Engagement Team talked about how people can access Centrelink payment. He shared some information about the sorts of documents and paperwork that people need.
Nick also shared some resources with Aphasia Victoria – these might help people better understand how to access Centrelink.
The audience included people with aphasia, carers and family, speech pathologists and students. There were lots of questions from the audience, and discussion about how to make it easier to access Centrelink.
Aphasia Victoria will stay in contact with Centrelink. There might be an opportunity to do some training with Centrelink staff about communicating with people with aphasia.
Aphasia Victoria will hold more events like this and talks on different topics. Keep an eye on our website, our Facebook page and our emails for news about the next event!