Welcome to 2017 Posted by Posted by Loren Savage on 1 February 2017 Posted on: 1 February 2017

The Waikato Enabling Good Lives demonstration is due to wrap up in June this year with 236 people having taken part so far. Interest continues to be high with 17 people contacting us in January wanting to participate. The reason for their interest is the feedback they are hearing from both providers and current participants. As people have watched the positive impact that Enabling Good Lives (EGL) has had on other people’s lives, it has built their confidence to give it a go. The demonstration has already reached the maximum participant target numbers set by Cabinet.

The key strengths and components of the EGL Waikato Demonstration continue to be:

• Co-design: disabled people, families, service providers and senior Government officials have remained committed to working together in co-design way as the demonstration has progressed.
• Tūhono/Connectorengagement:  the team assist participants to think about where they’re at, make links and connections in the community, make their plan, understand their budget, and link with the information and support that they choose to work towards their vision of a good life^.
• Building community connections: the team help disabled people, families and whānau to build or extend their connections with the community.
• Supported self-assessment (SSA) and planning: these processes help participants, family and whānau, and their Tūhono/Connector to understand what resources are required to support participants to plan for and live the lives they want.  Participants can complete the SSA by themselves or receive support from their Tūhono/Connector to think about what is needed to live their good life.
• Pooled personal budget: a person-centred funding allocation is linked to a participant’s plan and supported self-assessment, and each person controls how this is spent to create a good life for themselves. Participants can either self-manage their personal budget or engage with a host to manage the budget. Having a pooled funding package from the Ministries of Health, Education and Social Development has enabled people to develop unique and creative ways to meet their support needs.

We are currently working with the following number of people in each action area:

Individual Choices – 124

Maori – 55

Families - 54

 

The diversity of demonstration participants compares favourably to the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) demographics:

Waikato DHB Pacific peoples 2.9%   Demonstration 5%

Waikato DHB Māori 22.9 %               Demonstration 34%

Waikato DHB Asian 6.9%                  Demonstration 6%

 

Waikato also has a higher proportion of people in the more deprived sections of the population than the national average. This is evident in many of the situations tūhono are dealing with where poverty, substandard housing, lack of heating and food are compounding the disability issues.

 

A second evaluation of the demonstration has been completed with the report due for release this month. The evaluation team, which included disabled evaluators, met with 32 participants to listen to their stories and capture measurable outcomes that can be attributed to the demonstration.

 

Enabling Good Lives Waikato disabled people, family and service provider forums are continuing this year. Last year’s final disabled person’s forum focused on what the benefits are of planning. A tūhono lead a group discussion with people describing their experiences with formal and more casual planning and the benefits of both approaches. The group reaffirmed the importance of the forums as a way of connecting to peer support which gives people hope and encouragement. If you are interested in finding out more about the disabled person’s forum or any of the other forums, please contact Loren 029 201 4780 or loren.corbett001@msd.govt.nz