Disability Support Services

DISABILITY SUPPORT SERVICES

CONSUMER CONSORTIUM MEETING

26 – 28 November 2014

Brentwood Hotel, 16 Kemp Street

Kilbirnie

WELLINGTON

SUMMARY MEETING NOTES

Presenters Day One: / Toni Atkinson, Group Manager, Disability Support Services (DSS)
Pam MacNeill, Quality Improvement Lead, DSS
Stuart Powell, Manager National Services Purchasing
Amanda Smith, IDCCR
Mark Johansen, Senior Contract Relationship Manager DSS
Julia Balsillie, Development Manager, DSS

The morning started with an update from Toni Atkinson who talked about the New Model, Enhanced Individualised Funding, Local Area Coordination (LAC), Choices in Community Living and Supported Self Assessment. Noted that 400 people have gone through that process so far. Toni gave an update on Enabling Good Lives in the Waikato – a slightly different focus to the Christchurch group.

Funded family care was updated, she talked about the pricing review and the new residential pricing model. Toni spoke briefly about her presentation to the Committee in Geneva for the examination of NZ’s progress implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the 34 recommendations that have come out of the review. Copy of Toni’s presentation will be provided with the minutes.

That was followed by Pam MacNeill, with a panel of Ministry of Health (MoH) staff: Stuart Powell, Manager National Services Purchasing, Amanda Smith, Director IDCCR, Mark Johansson, Senior Contract Relationship Manager.

They were talking about implementnig the recommendations of Putting People First. Each of the panel members chairs one of the three groups responsible for implementation. The project teams are mainly MoH staff but some disabled people are involved – Rosie MacLeod of the Consumer Consortium is on one of the working groups. Conversation with the floor about disabled people needing to be involved as early as possible in the process.

Some things have already been implemented such as unannouced audits, working geographically rather than by service line. Discussed the internship put in place in Disability Support Services for a disabled person to work for three months and learn work skills.

There was talk about social housing and a suggestion that Accessible Properties could be invited to come and talk to this group at the next meeting. A query around how much MoH auditors talk to schools when auditing services and how the voice of non verbal people was being heard.

This was followed by the Consumer Consortium meeting in which Wendy Duff was elected to be this group’s representative on the Disability Sector Strategic Reference Group in place of Allison Franklin who is retiring from this group.

In the afternoon Pam MacNeill ran a workshop. Two of the recommendations that are quite difficult from the Putting People First report are ‘How do we hear the voice of people who can’t speak for themselves to make sure they are heard in decision making forums?’ The other one was about creating ‘A new support role for people to enable them to feel safe and able to speak out.’ A lot of very valuable feedback was provided. Clear message the role needs to be at grassroots level, it should be people already known to the disabled people involved and needs to be independent from the Ministry and from Service providers – that is critical.

Presenters Day Two: / Barbara Crawford, Manager Strategy and Contracts, DSS
Merv Cox, Rachel Noble and Kellye Bensley
Gordon Boxall, Director Enabling Good Lives
Megan McCoy, Office of Disability Issues
Duncan Armstrong, Strive, NZ Down Syndrome Assoc.

The first session was about the Disability Action Plan – a cross government and cross DPO action plan where Barbara, Merv, Kellye and Rachel were on a panel to talk about how the plan was developed and how it is being implemented.

Concern was raised that there were no carers or family members on the working groups. Also no representation of autism. Parent to Parent were involved but the DAP was primarily about disabled people.

A suggestion was made to invite the new disability ministers to next meeting.

Barbara updated on the DSS budget to give a broad idea of where the funding goes. Over half to residential services, 25% spent on Family and Community Services and 17% Service Access i.e. NASC, equipment, DIAS.

Barbara then talked about the Service Specification review process and the new streamlined contracting mechanism that the government wants to see in place for all providers. Overall looking for better value for money – if providers spend less on administration there is more funding available at the frontline for disabled people and their families / carers.

A monthly update will be provided on DSS website about which service specifications were being reviewed and which DPOs had representatives on the working groups to review the specifications. All current service specifications are on the MoH website.

Gordan Boxall gave an Enabling Good Lives update. The work is trying to answer the question – can we get better outcomes for people using the same amount of money? The theme is about getting value for the dollars that are spent.

Gordon talked about service design and involving disabled people in that. Talked about maintaining the old systems while trying to create new ones and the difficulties in that. He used the phrase ‘hospicing the old while midwiving the new’ to describe this. It is a challenge but the Waikato EGL may use a different approach.

It is important that people are able to lead good lives using a strengths based inspirational approach and only using funded services to fill the gaps. He talked about using funding that is currently in different buckets. Ministry of Education, Ministry Social Development and Ministry of Health by combining together and allocating funds to the person themselves helps ensure it will be spent on what they really need. Talked about the notion of authentic co-design, involving the national leadership group which includes disabled people and families and a local working group.

He talked about the unanticipated issues such as people receiving less funds because they can’t claim GST back. He made the point that about a third of the people want to stay with their current services for many reasons but they may change their minds later once they see how it works.

First up in the afternoon sessions was Megan McCoy, Director of the Office of Disability Issues. The role of ODI is a facilitating role to bring together government depts and the disability sector. She described the key things ODI focusses its work on such as the Disability Action Plan, the monitoring of the Convention, including the reporting on the convention and the role of the independent monitors and the convention coalition.

Request from the Consortium for one set of principles and language instead of multiples. One super Ministry to cut down on the silos and a one super DPO with the intention of making life easier for everyone. We all need to work more closely together even within our current boundaries. It is proposed to review the Disability Strategy (to be confirmed).

The next presentation from Duncan Armstrong and Jessica Ferguson and the team from Strive. Strive was established in 2012 to represent people with Down Syndrome and to hear their voices; to talk about self advocacy; and it was very impressive to see all the work that Strive has done to make their voice consistent and clear. The development of a mission statement, the 3 key messages, and to have dvds and blogs is good work. Strive presented at the NZDSN conference this year and were very present and vital. Strive have media training and are a well organised group.

Presenters Day Three: / Awhi Te Ngoungou and Ngaire Howes, HR Managers, NHB
Heather Dawson, NZ Hearing Association
Rachel Noble, DPA
Rose Wall, Deputy Commissioner of Health
and Disability Commission.
Ester Woodbury, Disability Service Health Advisor, HDC

First session – round table – most Consortium Members gave an update on their organisation’s activities to improve the lives of disabled persons. Very good session that could be done again. Next time will hear the voices of those who didn’t get the chance to speak today and will aim to do this once a year in future.

Ngaire and Awhi – MoH – asked the Consortium what actions the MOH could take to increase its employment of disabled people.. The Consortium provided many ideas.

Heather Dawson gave a presentation on the history and work of the Hearing Association. Really great hearing about experiences with people with hearing loss and how the Association can assist.

Update from Rachel Noble on the NZ presentation to the UN Committee in Geneva examining progress on implementing the Convention. Significant weight was given to the voice of DPOs. Committee spoke with them first and then the committee raised issues with the government officials. Government is in the process of responding to the recommendations.

Rose Wall and Esther Woodbury talked about the disability related complaints received by the Health and Disability Commissioner’s office. The Code of Rights has been great in improving services to disabled persons. Noted it has changed the attitude of the sector generally. The Code of Rights gives HDC the power to make organisations and healthcare professionals change their systems and practices.

A number of Consortium members have served their four-year term. Their organisations will be asked to identify a new member.

Chair for next meeting: Sally Thomas

Thanks to Wendy Duff and David Baird for chairing and to Carol, Lyn and Raewyn from the Federation for their work.

Next meeting: Wednesday 6th, Thursday 7th and Friday 8th May, 2015.

Agenda items for the next meeting:

Presentation from Accessible Housing.