Rural areas are often considered as challenging when it comes to access to services, but changes to disability support have changed the game for high dependency families.
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Greg and Loretto Good live at Millthorpe with their sons, William, 34, and George, 26.
The Goods are well known among meat sheep circles, especially among the Suffolk breed, which, along with their support network, has become an important part of their broader community.
When they're exhibiting at local or major shows, like Sydney Royal, the other breeders know to look out for the boys. William has cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability and George autism, a severe intellectual disability and is non-verbal.
Good friends, including some who happen to be in the health and support sectors, and their location, are just a couple of reasons why the Goods see themselves "among the blessed ones".
Also, Loretto is a retired registered nurse and Greg is a qualified builder.
Because they have two sons with intellectual disabilities, they were also invited to partake in University of Newcastle research into the genetics of learning disabilities, which discovered Loretto had a 100 per cent skewing of her X chromosome, an inherited genetic condition known to cause intellectual disability in male children.
"Which means for every one in four pregnancies I have, and it's a male child, it's going to have an intellectual disability," she said.
The Goods, whose 28 hectares is on the edge of Millthorpe near Orange, run a Suffolk stud, five acres of truffles and a shack they offer on Airbnb.
William works at nearby Huntley Berry Farm two days a week where he is in charge of the watering and planting and "also in a really safe space and has a lot of friends there", Loretto said.
He started there at 18, straight from school as work experience.
George, meanwhile, is outdoors on their small farm every afternoon with the sheep, or on his bike.
For Greg, the sheep were also a place of solace, said Loretto.
"When he's with the sheep he's not thinking about the business, or having disabled children, or what's going to happen when we die, and all the anxieties associated with that. It just gives him a space where he's just worried about the genetics, and the sheep people - as I affectionately refer to them - are just amazing people.
"Especially in the Suffolk community. They watch out for each other because they know who we are and they often come here because we love to have visitors."
The big game changer, however, was the introduction of NDIS (the National Disability Insurance Scheme).
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They gained access in 2016. Before then only one of the boys at a time could attend the shows with Greg.
"So with the NDIS now, it's been a huge thing for us because Loretto and I can go together to shows and we can get carers into the home to look after the boys," Greg said.
Orange also provided close access to services, with a weekly routine of drop-offs and pick-ups to carers, and appointments such as to RPT Exercise Physiology.
So with the NDIS now, it's been a huge thing for us because Loretto and I can go together to shows and we can get carers into the home to look after the boys
- Greg Good, Millthorpe.
One challenge as Loretto aged was the physical toll on her body.
"Any woman who has a disabled child, who has a lot of lifting, will eventually tear their rotator cuffs, we've all got the same problem. It's just from constant lifting," she said.
"When you have a non-verbal child they will pull, because they can't speak, so that's how we communicate, by George pulling me. So I've been dragged around now for 25 years by my arms."
The access to respite care under the NDIS was therefore most welcome. This allowed carers into their home so as parents they could get a break.
Loretto said the system had come a long way since the mid to late 1980s when she studied as a nurse - also the era when disability care began its shift from institutions to homes.
"I look back and wonder if we had the support we get now whether I would have had to leave my nursing career, at 40. It was just too hard," she said.
But she said they were also privileged that she could leave her job.
"I had to retrain as a bookkeeper and learn about sheep and the building industry," she said.
The NDIS in the past year has also allowed them to use sole trader support services, a new option outside the traditional service providers.
"So that's kind of the new look of the NDIS where these amazing women are stepping up and creating their own businesses and forming communities with other sole traders," Loretto said.
"And this has just literally happened this year where these women have found the courage to step up and form their own company, which is huge because there's no certainty of work - they're just trading as a small business, like us."
She said this model presented an opportunity in rural communities where people interested in gaining work in the disabilities support sector could, with appropriate training and registration, find their niche.
This also filled a critical gap for families in need of respite care.
The access to support was the important part. Loretto said all that most families needed was support so they had the capacity to navigate the system.
Meanwhile, they loved having the sheep and the space for their boys.
"It's one day at a time," she said.
- ACM Agriculture is sharing stories of people succeeding in agriculture and rural areas with disabilities, as we lead up to International Day of People with Disability on December 3.
