Submission

Putting disabled people and families/whanau at the centre of monitoring the New Zealand Disability Strategy

What do you think?

•  Do you think that a group representing disabled people and families/whanau should be set up? If not, what would you suggest?

•  This Consultation is from Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) , National Office, 30 Hawkestone St , Thorndon, Wellington .

•  RWNZ can be contacted on Phone (04) 473 5524 and email Jo-Anne.Stokes@ruralwomen.org.nz

•  Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) represents the interests of 20% of rural women recorded by Statistics NZ as working in or have business interests in the farming sector. RWNZ has over 300 branches located in rural areas throughout New Zealand . As an organisation, we make submissions to government on issues relevant to our four portfolio areas of Health, Education, Land and Social issues.

We believe a group representing disabled people would assist our rural members in

•  accessing services, especially specialist services for the disabled

•  receiving support –especially supporting parents with disabled children in remote rural area's

•  networking with organisations representing/servicing/supporting the sector

Rural Women New Zealand is also a health provider, providing homecare for Disabled through our chartiable arm of Access Home Health.

* What do you think the group should be called?
(eg: a disability council, reference group or committee)

A council, whose predominate concern is the disabled person and centres on the needs of that person and their support members of whanau, family members etc

Any other comments?

Rural are isolated from the main areas where specialist services are. For example in cases where a hearing impaired or sight impaired child resides in a rural area there is only the family members who can sign and assist with braille. It is difficult to access signing assistants for integration into the local school.

Many families feel isolated and have had to travel long distances at cost to accommodate the needs of the disabled person, socially, educationally as well as physically. Centralisation of services has brought about further travel costs and social costs to the family due to the location in rural areas.

How should the members be chosen?

We would like the disability community to choose the members rather than the Office choosing them. This would mean that organisations of disabled people and families/whanau would choose a member or members.

Each organisation would decide how to choose its members. They might ask for nominations, set up an interview or selection panel, or organise elections.

What do you think?

•  Do you think that the members of the group should be chosen by the disability community rather than the Office?

•  Yes, we do feel that the community should choose. But RWNZ would like to point out that rural representation is essential due to the specific problems of isolation. We have a number of candidates that are involved in Disability communities and are rurally based.

Do you think that each organisation can be responsible for choosing a member from their community?

Essentially yes, but the rural predicament should be taken into account.