Community Advisers

Our Community Advisers are groups of people representing our member organisations and others by invitation who have particular interests and expertise in hearing health, disability and wellbeing topics.

The groups come together whenever issues arise, and new groups are formed when they are needed. The current advisory groups include:

National Disability Insurance Scheme Citizen Advisory Group

Members have either lived experience of Deafness or hearing loss or are parents of children under the age of 16 who are participants of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (the NDIS).

Meeting every two months online, the NDIS CAG provides advice on the efficacy of existing NDIS processes and systems in supporting participants who are Deaf or have hearing loss and is currently supporting our policy team to advocate to federal, state, and territory governments and the National Disability Insurance Agency (the NDIA) on behalf of people with hearing loss, hearing difficulties, or ear or balance disorders, across the reform of the NDIS.

From time to time, we may have vacancies in this group. If you are interested in joining the NDIS CAG, please reach out to Deafness Forum Australia’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, at hello@deafnessforum.org.au.

Families and Children advisory group
Concerned with:

  • Proper management and protections for device data logging
  • Genetic testing
  • Newborn hearing screening

Hearing Services Program advisory group
Concerned with practical ideas for actions to optimise the Australian Government Hearing Services program to benefit vulnerable groups in the Australian community.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the criminal justice system advisory group
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are considerably overrepresented in police custody, in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems and are jailed at 13 times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. Our justice system remains ineffective in addressing these complex needs and vulnerabilities.

Loops and telecoils working group

Hearing Loss Prevention working group