Violence can happen everywhere in the lives of young people with cognitive disability. Young people with cognitive disability, family members, and workers talk about what needs to change. Services need to work together to help young people with cognitive disability. Others need to know about and respect the culture of young people with cognitive disability. Others need to respect young people’s choices on whom they want to love. Young people with cognitive disability can be helped to understand what is violence. Services can change what they do so that they can keep young people with cognitive disability safe. Young people with cognitive disability say that there should be ‘nothing about us unless it is led by us’.

This chapter explains what this book is about. Becoming an adult is different for everybody. Young people with cognitive disability can find it hard to get the right supports to become an adult. Many young people can experience violence and abuse. This book tells the stories of young people with cognitive disability from different backgrounds. Family members and practitioners also talk about stories of young people with cognitive disability.

This chapter looks at the Department of Child Safety and the criminal justice system. Child Safety often didn’t understand that a young person had a cognitive disability. Sometimes young people with cognitive disability were abused while they were in Child Safety. Young people with cognitive disability often did not get much help when they left Child Safety. Parents with cognitive disability often had their children removed from them by Child Safety. Some young people were abused by police. Young people with cognitive disability who went to prison didn’t get much help. They also found it hard when they left prison.

Young people with cognitive disability found school to be both good and bad. Things were good when young people had friends and when teachers listened and tried to help. Things were bad when the school wanted young people with cognitive disability to be like everyone else. Young people could be punished or neglected if they didn’t fit in with everyone else. Leaving school could be hard. Young people with cognitive disability often didn’t have a job or university to go to. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities says that all people with disability have a right to a good education, and that people should be supported to get a job or to learn more after school.

This chapter explains how the researchers talked to young people with cognitive disability, their families, and practitioners. The researchers included people with disability on the research team. The researchers wanted to know what was happening for young people with cognitive disability. They wanted to know about the world in which young people with cognitive disability lived. There was much to be learnt about working well with people with disability in research. It’s important that people with cognitive disability have a voice in the research that is about them.

Young people with cognitive disability deserve to live in a home of their choice. They also deserve to get help when they feel mentally unwell. This chapter looks at where young people with cognitive people live. Many young people felt unsafe where they lived. Some young people needed mental health services. It could be hard to trust mental health staff. Mental health services were good when staff really wanted to help and listened to the young person. Young people with cognitive disability should be helped to make their own decisions.

Family, friends, partners, and pets can help young people with cognitive disability as they become adults. Some young people with cognitive disability had families who spoke up for them and helped them when times were hard. Some young people with cognitive disability had partners who helped them feel good about themselves. Friends could help young people with cognitive disability leave abusive situations. Professionals can do more to help young people with cognitive disability make friends and be part of their community.

This chapter looks at services and focuses on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Services don’t always recognise what young people with cognitive disability can do. They can neglect young people with cognitive disability. This can lead to violence and abuse of the young person. This chapter looks at how young people with cognitive disability found support from NDIS agencies. Young people with cognitive disability had trouble getting onto the NDIS. Professionals, families, and young people needed to fight to make sure supports were helpful. The NDIS must get better for all people with disability.