The man behind the GV’s new disability support service: Ali Al Battaat

“I’ve worked in organisations such as Headspace, Primary Care Connect, Ethnic Council of Shepparton,” Mr Al Battaat said.

“I've done a lot of work with young people in Shepparton, and I’m involved with bigger organisations like Amnesty International and Victorian Multicultural Centre.

“After working in the disability sector for two years, and having that social work lens, I realised that there’s huge gaps in the sector.”

He was inspired to start his own organisation after seeing a hole in the current system.

“Currently, the disability sector is a sector that requires no qualification to enter,” Mr Al Battaat said.

“I realised there’s a lot of lack of good services in our region and as someone with a qualification, I thought ‘let me look further into this and how I could potentially create something that caters for the needs of our community here in the Goulburn Valley’.”

Mr Al Battaat also identified a dip in services that cater specifically to cultural and linguistically diverse individuals as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

“I realised another huge gap is services that cater for specifically young people with disabilities and support for people from multicultural backgrounds as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander,” he said.

In response to his realisation, Mr Al Battaat shaped his business to support those who otherwise may not have specific services for them.

His criteria for service reflects this, requiring clients to be between five and 26 years old, residing in the Goulburn Valley and with access to an NDIS package.

Due to Mr Al Battaat specialising in all disabilities except physical, his organisation does not cater for physical disabilities, as he feels it won’t be able to provide the proper support.

“I haven’t worked with people with physical disabilities, and being the CEO and founder of the service, I was like, ‘I can’t offer something that I don’t have the experience in’,” he said.

However, he hopes to incorporate these services at some point.

“It’s definitely something that’s planned for later on in the future for eligibility to be a participant,” Mr Al Battaat said.

In the meantime, Mr Al Battaat is still allowing referrals for people who may not entirely fit the organisation’s criteria and will guide them to the best possible service.

“If there’s a referral that you’d like to put through but it doesn’t really meet our criteria, we’re kind of flexible in terms of who we accept,” he said.

“It’s just about consulting with the co-ordinators and the family, the client and seeing whether we are the best possible support for them.

“If we’re not, we’re more than happy to refer them.

“I know many other services that do a good job here in the region.”

GV All Abilities Care has three core values: respect, empowerment and support.

These values weren’t chosen arbitrarily.

“I chose respect because it is something that’s very important,” Mr Al Battaat said.

“If we look at, if we reflect to ourselves, almost every individual has some sort of internal stigmas towards people with disabilities.

“Unfortunately, when you speak to them (people with disabilities), they see those stigmas.

“Respect is about recognising that they’re people just like us; let’s remove those stigmas and respect them as humans, just like us.”

‘Empowerment’ was chosen to encourage advocacy and equity within our local area.

“I chose empowerment, as when we look at advocacy in our region, we advocate for many different things,” Mr Al Battaat said.

“I feel like a huge gap is advocating for people with disabilities.

“The people advocating for people with disabilities are people that have disabilities themselves, and they’re advocating for themselves.

“Empowerment is about, you know, let’s get involved as a community, as community leaders, services, organisations, and empower those people with disabilities, walk within this journey that they’re going through.”

‘Support’ was chosen to remind the community that there are people in the community who need accessibility to all places and locations in our region.

“I chose support as it’s the importance of providing them with the best possible support that actually caters for their needs,” Mr Al Battaat said.

“A support that is inclusive and is considerate of not only them but their families, the services engaged and their community and how they can become more accessible to the different services.”

GV All Abilities Care has goals to expand its reach and service area.

“The goal is to be a service that caters for people all across Australia,” Mr Al Battaat said

“We don’t want to be a service that’s only based in the GV.”

The team also aims to have community involvement as a key feature of its service.

“We’re hoping that we’ll be able to be a service that has a strong collaboration with community wherever we’re based,” Mr Al Battaat said.

“So that, along the lines of building those connections between our service and all local organisations, building those connections with services, restaurants, cafés and being able to do much more collaborations.”

To learn more about the service or to get in contact with the team at GV All Abilities Care, head to gvallabilitiescare.au/