June 1 Community Forum Posted by Posted by Linda Skates on 8 June 2017 Posted on: 8 June 2017
Community Forum for disabled people and families in MidCentral
A forum has been held in Palmerston North to introduce disabled people and their families/whanau to the work under way to transform the disability support system.
A group including disabled people, those with disabled family members and providers are co-designing a new system which will be rolled out initially in MidCentral and then nationally.
The community forum, held on the 1st June, was attended by close to 50 people. There were 15 disabled people, 33 family members and one provider.
It was an opportunity for some members of the co-design group to provide presentations:
Presentations
1. Provide an update on the co-design process and the high-level process beginning to take shape.
2. Learnings from the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) demonstration in the Waikato, including:
- The value of the EGL Waikato Leadership Group in providing diverse, clear and strong leadership
- The importance of on-going “forums” - where a wider group of people can stay informed and feed in ideas
- The value of the Tūhono/Connector role (Independent facilitation)
- Positive feedback regarding the Supported Self-Assessment
- The variety of ways people were managing and using their personal budget
- Participants reporting a very high level of satisfaction with their experience
3. The importance of forming a mid-central Regional Leadership Group. Points included:
- This is the start of a process – local people will explore how they want to do this
- We want to end up with a diverse and bold group who will safeguard the principles and vision of Enabling Good Lives, effectively influence co-design, be well connected with local community and national networks, and ensure the changes stay “on-track”
- Four groups of people on the Regional Leadership Group: Mana whenua, Disabled People, Families/Whānau and Providers
- Important there are ways for wider groups of people to feed into places/spaces - so the members on the Regional Leadership Group can gather and consider lots of views
- An exciting opportunity to be involved in creating a new and better way of doing things
- Next step – keep discussing ideas about what this looks like in the MidCentral region
- Aim for the Regional Leadership Group to have first meeting early September
Discussions
1) What are the key things you want/expect to see in the high-level co-design?
Group responses were collated and recorded by a member of the co-design group. These will be taken back to the co-design group.
2) What do you believe is important when thinking about setting up the Regional Leadership Group?
Group responses included:
- Small groups to identify emerging (existing) local leaders
- Need to have supports in place for some leaders
- Good to involve a wide group of people for members of the leadership group to connect with e.g. “working groups”, community forums, social media forums
- A diverse group of people – all good listeners
- The group needs to be skilled in prioritising issues and needs
- National networks may need to nominate if there are “gaps” in the groups being represented
- Need to be mechanisms in place for people who can’t attend meetings
- Important for the wider disability community to have access to the group
- Can others observe the process – like at council meetings?
3) Do you want the next forum to be combined (disabled people and families/whānau) or separate?
Response:
During the meeting, most people expressed a preference for a combined meeting. It was agreed the next meeting would have time for people to be together and for there to be some time when disabled people and families/whānau had separate time to discuss issues. This will be reviewed after the next forum.
The next forum for Disabled People and Families/Whānau
To continue discussions on the 5th July
Two options to be held on the same day – an afternoon session 12 noon – 3 pm and an evening session 7pm – 9 pm