16 February 2022
Rainbow Health Australia is proud to announce the release of Our Rainbow Lives, created with Inclusion Designlab.
The Our Rainbow Lives resource [PDF, 2.4MB] is available to download now.
Our Rainbow Lives is an introduction to LGBTIQA+ identity, experiences, sexuality, gender and bodies for people with intellectual disability and their supporters.
Our Rainbow Lives is an introduction to what it means to be LGBTIQA+ and how to be supportive of LGBTIQA+ people. It should be used within a holistic sexuality and relationship program at an appropriate point where the necessary foundational education and support has occurred. It may also be appropriate to introduce this content in employment settings – where foundational education has occurred – to help a person with a disability understand standards of appropriate behaviour according to anti-discrimination legislation. NDIS providers have an obligation to provide inclusive services for LGBTIQA+ people and this booklet can help them to do so.
Our Rainbow Lives is designed for supported reading. It works best if a person with a disability and a supporter read it together. Most of the left-hand pages are written in plain language. The right-hand pages are written using easy-to-read language. This means that the text uses larger letters and there are pictures to assist supported readers.
Supporters should read the left-hand pages before supporting a person with disability to read the right-hand pages. In most cases, the ideas on the left and the right are the same but with more information for the support person to facilitate a conversation around the material.