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AbstractSibling support is a form of support often offered to the brother or sister of a person with disability. While practiced around the world and the subject of much research interest, most research about sibling support has been outcomes evaluation of individual sibling support programs, rather than about the operational/structural circumstances of the organizations providing sibling support or of the sibling support sector at large. Within this context, this paper offers the first research of its kind: an exploratory study of the business operation of sibling support in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, USA and Canada. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews with 13 leaders of sibling support provider organizations in these countries, the paper focuses on sibling support providers' business models, funding, staffing, leadership and governance. The findings highlight that across countries, sibling support is a sub‐section of the not‐for‐profit/charity sector that mostly operates with minimal funding and staffing, and which is largely driven by the passion and personal experience of those who run sibling support organizations. The paper discusses the implications of the findings, with the conceptual lens of seeking to formalize recognition and legitimacy for sibling support as a distinct social service type within the disability/health/social care and not‐for‐profit/charity spaces. Further, by aggregating the experiences of sibling support providers across countries, the paper is able to show that—while a distinct service type and sector—the successes and challenges of the sibling support sector nevertheless also very much reflect the broader struggles of many other small not‐for‐profits/charities.

Research shows that siblings of people with disabilities have experiences during young adulthood — such as driving, socialising independently and moving out of home — that they often believe their brothers and sisters with disabilities will not have or will find harder to reach, and that they feel very aware of this comparative difference between them. Less research has, however, explored what siblings with disabilities think of this comparison. This represents a significant gap in the literature. Using accounts from 25 young adult siblings with disabilities and 21 without disabilities, this article compares how both view the comparison of their life experiences during young adulthood, revealing that siblings with disabilities have a more complex, nuanced and multi-faceted range of views about the comparison than their brothers and sisters without disabilities. The findings are discussed in light of the benefits of extending understandings of siblings with disabilities' views, including the benefits for family relations.

AbstractInterpersonal relationships are critically important to ensuring that people with disability can access the benefits of individual funding models such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The NDIS aims to enhance participants' self‐determination of supports and social and economic participation, but the emerging evidence indicates that achieving these policy outcomes requires stronger recognition of participants' relational context, even in a system focused on individual choice and control. This paper reports on a content analysis of the NDIS Act, NDIS Rules, Operational Guidelines, and Price Guide to examine the extent to which the scheme's conceptual foundations and funded supports in individual plans enable it to support relationships. Implications are drawn from this analysis and theory and evidence about the importance of relationships for disability policy and practice. The paper outlines three areas where the approach of the NDIS to relationships is limited and can be improved: first, by conceptualizing relationships as relationships rather than simply sources of informal support; second, through provisions to actively support relationships; and third, by considering the relational appropriateness of support provided by family, carers, and friends. It concludes with suggestions for how relational considerations can be enhanced, including implications for government in administering the scheme.

Purpose
People with intellectual disability have a low rate of employment in Australia and internationally. Their low employment rate is set within a context of limited employment choices. Further, the most common types of work currently undertaken by people with intellectual disability – open and sheltered employment – have limitations and may not be suitable for everyone. Expanding the employment choices available represents an important way forward, but evidence is needed to guide the expansion. This paper aims to contribute to the evidence required by comparing people with intellectual disability's experience and outcomes in open and sheltered employment to their experience and outcomes working in social enterprises, which is becoming an important alternative employment option for this group.


Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the qualitative accounts of 51 people with intellectual disability to compare experiences and outcomes in open, sheltered and social enterprise employment in Australia.


Findings
The paper finds that social enterprises combine some of the benefits of open and sheltered employment and thus expand employment choice. However, the level of business/market development and opportunities for employment in social enterprises are currently limited and require further development and scale to enable social enterprises to be an option for more people with intellectual disability. Policy implications are drawn out for expanding employment choice, in particular through social enterprise employment, for people with intellectual disability.


Originality/value
The paper offers the first three-way comparison of open, sheltered and social enterprise employment for people with intellectual disability, contributing to both the disability employment and social enterprise literature.

In moving toward adulthood, young people make formative choices about their social and economic engagement while developmentally seeking autonomy from parents. Who else then contributes to guiding young people during this formative life-stage? This article explores one contributing relationship: relationships with trusted adults. Past research has shown that these adults provide motivational, emotional, and instrumental support to young people, but less is known about how and why their support is appropriate particularly during young adulthood. Using qualitative data from an Australian Research Council–funded study, the article explores how and why trusted adults are important and influential, detailing how they talk, what they offer, and how their role differs according to young people's level of engagement or disengagement from education/employment. The article explores how the trusted adult relationship is developmentally appropriate for young people and outlines implications for policy and future research.

AbstractEveryone has the right to employment. Work is important for health, well‐being, and social, economic, and financial inclusion. However, it is often difficult for people with intellectual disability to find and maintain work, especially in the open labour market. Policy challenges remain about who can access open employment (also sometimes called competitive or supported employment) and how often people with intellectual disability do so. Greater understanding about the barriers that people with intellectual disability encounter when they try to find and keep work in open employment is needed.Drawing on research with 51 people with intellectual disability in Australia, this paper examines the systemic barriers they report to finding and maintaining work in open employment. The findings highlight that the barriers they experience stem from narrow, dismissive, and discouraging attitudes to their work in open employment and from a spectrum of experiences of stigma and discrimination in open workplaces. The paper thus provides new knowledge about reasons that people with intellectual disability may either reject or not continue in open employment and take up less inclusive work options. The paper discusses the implications of the findings, including the need for policy development for attitudinal change, designing more varied roles for employees with intellectual disability, ensuring access to industrial relations protections, and increasing and better regulating and funding requirements on support to people with intellectual disability who are seeking work in open employment.

AbstractRelationship‐based practice refers to approaches within human services which centralise inter‐personal relationships—either those between clients and workers or between clients and their own network—as a way to achieve positive service outcomes. Relationship‐based practice is increasingly recognised as a critical component in many areas of human services, particularly youth services. Despite increasing policy intentions for programs to adopt a relationship‐based approach, it is not always clear how services can implement this in practice. While relationship‐based skill training can be offered to individual workers, a question remains as to what can be done at an organisational and policy level to cultivate relationship‐based practice. Within this context, this paper explores how programs can be designed to foster relationship‐based practice. The paper draws on the evaluation of an intensive and tailored service for addressing long‐term youth unemployment in Australia: the your job your way pilot program run by yourtown. A key success of the program was strong relationship‐based practice, and this paper explores five features of the program's design that enabled this: (1) small caseloads, (2) intensive support, (3) staff with complementary skills and a professional and 'youth friendly' demeanour, (4) staff discretion about some aspects of program implementation, and (5) support delivered through social and group activities. The paper draws implications for how service provider organisations and governments can cultivate relationship‐based practice in human services.

Background: Many countries use market forces to drive reform across disability supports and services. Over the last few decades, many countries have individualised budgets and devolved these to people with disability, so that they can purchase their own choice of supports from an available market of services.
Key points for discussion: Such individualised, market-based schemes aim to extend choice and control to people with disability, but this is only achievable if the market operates effectively. Market stewardship has therefore become an important function of government in guiding markets and ensuring they operate effectively.
The type of evidence that governments tend to draw on in market stewardship is typically limited to inputs and outputs and has less insight into the outcomes services do or do not achieve. While this is a typical approach to market stewardship, we argue it is problematic and that a greater focus on outcomes is necessary.
Conclusions and implications: To include a focus on outcomes, we argue that market stewards need to take account of the lived experience of people with disability. We present a framework for doing this, drawing on precedents where people with disability have contributed lived experience evidence within other policy, research, knowledge production and advocacy contexts.
With the lived experience evidence of people with disability included, market stewardship will be better able to take account of outcomes as they play out in the lives of those using the market and, ultimately, achieve greater choice and control for people with disability.

AbstractPeer support describes the process of giving and receiving support between people who share similar life experiences. It is commonly used by family members of people with disability, with positive outcomes. However, existing research tends to assume it has separate and discrete benefits, neglecting the subtleties of how the different outcomes may be interconnected and mutually reinforcing. An account of these broader connections between benefits is needed. Drawing on Australian data from 24 parents and siblings of people with disability, this paper identifies benefits of peer support, including exchange of information, benefiting from experience and problem solving; motivation/encouragement and self‐confidence/personal development; social interaction and friendship; understanding, perspective and belonging/community; working together for change; and resilience and well‐being. The paper then proposes a framework to understand these benefits in an interconnected manner, where they are either transactional (giving and receiving practical and social‐emotional resources) or integrative (assimilating what is given and received into one's own experience and actions). The implications for practice and for families are discussed.