Gisela Roth, a UWA Psychology student, recently contributed 100 hours to research the disparity between service availability and demand for support, through a McCusker Centre for Citizenship internship with the National Disability Services (NDS).
“Understanding the diverse experiences and struggles faced by stakeholders within the disability sector has been eye-opening,” Gisela said.
“I found out how challenging it is to problem-solve in the disability sector, requiring consideration of the perspective of a person with a disability, and the broader impacts of decisions on the entire community,
“Coming from a financial and psychology background, my insights provided a different perspective as we considered supply and demand factors that could be influencing the shortage of services,” she said.
Michelle Crook, Project Officer with NDS, was Gisela’s internship supervisor and said that Gisela’s research had produced a robust report.
“Gisela investigated and outlined contributing factors to the impact that disability support workers operating as sole traders (contractors) are having on the disability sector workforce,
“Attraction, development, and retention of front-line workers is front and centre in a number of national discussions at the moment, so Gisela’s work was relevant to current workforce issues; between her background in finance and current studies in psychology, Gisela was able to approach the research task from a unique perspective and brought a considered and professional approach.”
Gisela said that the internship had given her unique opportunities to challenge herself, learn and grow.
“I wanted to apply my current skill sets in the real world and experience working in a sector that I didn’t have expertise in – the experience was invaluable, and I was also able to make connections with people within the industry,
“My internship at NDS was not only a valuable professional experience but also a significant learning opportunity that allowed me to contribute towards social justice.”