Mental Health and Disability: Understanding the Impact | Royal Commission Findings
As World Mental Health Day approaches, we reflect on the Royal Commission findings that exposed how systemic failures have caused significant psychological harm to people with disability. This mental health crisis stems from choices in policy, funding, and societal attitudes—and demands transformation in how people with disability are valued and supported.
Mental Health and Disability: Understanding the Impact of Systemic Failures
As World Mental Health Day approaches on October 10, 2025, it is time to reflect on the findings of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. The Commission's investigation exposed a distressing reality: systemic failures across many institutions have caused significant psychological harm to people with disability. These mental health issues are not limited to individual trauma but are deeply connected to long-standing structural inequalities that continue to shape the lives of people with disability.
The Psychological Toll of Abuse and Neglect
Numerous submissions to the Royal Commission revealed that people with disability frequently experience chronic anxiety, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and suicidality as a direct consequence of abuse and neglect. These mental health challenges are further aggravated by the persistent barriers to accessing suitable support. Services are often underfunded, poorly coordinated, and inadequate to meet the complex needs of those who have endured trauma, particularly individuals with cognitive or psychosocial disabilities.
The Role of Isolation and Loss of Autonomy
Isolation is a critical factor in the mental health crisis faced by people with disability. The Commission found that individuals are often segregated in group homes, institutions, or educational settings, where abuse can go unchecked. This isolation increases vulnerability and deprives people of meaningful social connections, which are essential for mental wellbeing. Furthermore, the lack of autonomy—being denied the ability to choose where to live, who to associate with, or how to spend one's day—compounds feelings of helplessness and despair.
Tenancy and Support Provider Connections
Current practices allow organizations to control both tenancy and support services for a single and/or group of people with a disability. This creates a sense of powerlessness, as individuals fear that changing their support provider could result in losing their tenancy rights. To address this, the sector must take urgent action to separate tenancy rights from support provider services, thereby empowering people with disability to make choices without fear.
Recommendations from the Royal Commission
The Commission's final report calls for trauma-informed, culturally safe, and person-centered mental health care. It urges governments to invest in community-based supports that focus on recovery, empowerment, and inclusion. The report also emphasizes the importance of listening to people with lived experience, not just as recipients of care but as leaders in driving reform. Beyond government action, disability support organizations also play a key role in shaping the daily lives and mental wellbeing of people with disability.
Intersectional Challenges
The Commission highlighted that these harms are often intersectional. First Nations people with disability, culturally and linguistically diverse individuals, and LGBTQ+ people with disability frequently encounter compounded discrimination, which heightens mental health risks. Their experiences are defined by multiple layers of marginalization that mainstream mental health services often fail to address adequately.
The Ripple Effect of Mental Health Issues
Often, the broader impact of poor mental health goes unrecognized. Mental health challenges affect not only the individual but also those around them, including support workers, families, guardians, team leaders, Behavioral Support Specialists, general practitioners, and others involved in their lives. Thus, an individual's mental wellbeing is central to the wellbeing of the entire community, whether the impact is direct or indirect.
Actions for the Disability Support Sector
Those working in the Disability Support Sector can take the following steps:
**Listen to people with disability** as they express their needs and support requirements, and work with guardians to ensure that these voices are heard, encouraged, and empowered. Be client centric.
**Assist people with disability to grow** and experience new things. Support individuals in setting priorities, planning actions, and realistically assessing available resources and skills. Accountability is important, but avoiding new experiences equates to avoiding growth.
**Separate tenancy from support provision** to reduce barriers to choice and control.
**Utilise the Active Supports model** and adopt trauma-informed service provision to help people with disability become more active in the community and take greater control and responsibility for their lives.
**Avoid imposing personal value judgments**; instead, prioritize the needs and desires of people with disability and work collaboratively with them rather than relying on preconceived notions.
A Call for Change
The mental health crisis among people with disability is not an unavoidable outcome; it stems from choices—whether in policy, funding, or societal attitudes. Addressing this crisis requires more than clinical intervention. It demands a transformation in how people with disability are valued, included, and protected in all aspects of Australian life. While change can be challenging, at Focus ACT, there is a belief that change is not only inevitable but necessary to enhance the physical and emotional wellbeing of the people we support.