Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Carers form the backbone of our disability community in . They deserve recognition. The census data from 2016 reveals that the number of people who care for someone with a disability is 20 per cent higher in Blair than the Queensland state average. Carers need support, and that support is provided by the many organisations around Blair that provide disability services. One such organisation is the Endeavour Foundation, who recently opened a new flagship learning and lifestyle centre in East Street in the Ipswich CBD. The Endeavour Foundation team in Ipswich offers services to people with a disability who have left school and are transitioning to various forms of independence. The centre provides lessons in lifestyle skills. There is an in-house kitchen for teaching cooking and domestic skills. They also teach hygiene, budgeting, home maintenance and organisation skills. Participants are taught about safety and awareness in public, banking and using public transport.

The centre offers people with a disability the opportunity to socialise in friendly surrounds, to make connections and to undertake activities they enjoy. Participants are encouraged to take care of their mental and physical wellbeing as well as that of their family and friends. The learning and lifestyle centre's focus is on choice, providing people living with a disability the opportunity to find the skills, hobbies and employment opportunities they enjoy. One of the most important features is the virtual reality technology that provides participants with an innovative and unique experience with everyday activities. Clients are taken through tasks, ranging from using public transport to operating a forklift in a simulator controlled VR environment.

The Endeavour Foundation have had a long history of working in Ipswich since they opened Claremont. They purchased that historic home near the banks of the Bremer River in 1957. The Endeavour Foundation now provide support for more than 85 people across Ipswich, including learning and lifestyle services, one-on-one support, community access, in-home support, and respite.

In November this year I'll be hosting the Blair Disability Links expo in Ipswich and launching the 2019 Blair Disability Links directory. Together with the Blair Seniors Links directory, we have given out more than 100,000 of these directories to people across Ipswich and the surrounding region. This year, following the success of the Blair Disability Links and the Blair Seniors Links directories, we'll be launching the inaugural Blair Sports Links. Ipswich is a sporting community that has produced many champions in their respective sports, including Allan Langer and Leah Neale, who was recently at the Olympics. The directory will connect sporting people from juniors to seniors and everyone in between to a range of sporting clubs. I ask everyone, whether they are working in disability, senior or sporting organisations, to contact my office if they want to be involved in the directories.