The following contributions are from the participants who attended the North Shore Community forum on Saturday 9 May 2009.
Emerging issues as we support older people with disabilities: beware distant elephants!
- How we can influence future planning?
Get better informed
- Need to understand the demographics
- A suggestion was to seek quotas for entry into rest homes for people with intellectual disability.
Prepare services and staff
- Services to educate staff in Aged Care – Specialist Services
- Staff to be certified as able to care for elderly
- Ensure high standard of housing
- Ensure we get the right place for right person
- Specialist aged care – option needs further investigation
- Need to look at quality environments
- IHC needs a policy statement that can be followed through
- We need to be clear about what we need
- We need to plan early
- Review IHC policy for aged eg, number of people living on site
- Person-centred planning will help.
Parent/service partnership in lobbying for recognition of the need
- Voice to go out for collaborative approach
- Families to lobby as individuals with guidance from local associations and IHC seminars on how to do this
- Lobbying for better and earlier funding, families to support IDEA Services to lobby.
- What could a great ‘every day’ look like?
- Healthy
- Supported (access to services to live life the way you like it)
- Stimulation (to follow interests):
- Choice of activities related to older people
- Access to residential option of choice
- Support for holidays
- Support in finance planning
- Staff trained in issues related to aging so they can be supportive
- Adequate accommodation :
- Bedroom has TV, physical aids, space, and privacy etc...
- Safe accommodation – bathroom, doors etc...
- Compatible flatmates
- Adaptive communication
- Choosing staff that relate to older people
- Emphasis on individual services.
- How will we understand and respond to changing health needs?
We have low trust in about how well health services understand our family member even now
- Access to a doctor for emergency needs
- Advocates going with person with intellectual disability to the doctor (who makes decisions?)
- The need for a proper ‘Power of Attorney’ especially in rest homes
- Hospital (or health care clinic) attached to IDEA Services
- Practice nurse [from GP Clinic] to visit regularly
(NB lots of debate about how much health care IDEA should provide versus accessing general health services elsewhere).
We want our family to be kept well – prevention of health problems
- Free access to gyms and swimming pools, Tai Chi etc.
- Healthy eating – access to good fruit, vegetables, advice on diet etc...
- Annual health checks
- Checks on early signs of ill-health
- ‘Pastoral’ care of people in residential homes.
We want strategies that ensure the safety and wellbeing of people with multiple disabilities and those who cannot speak up about their health or pain.
- What about people who are multi-disabled?
- Make a health diary file so different health practitioners can access individuals particular needs.
IHC Associations 2009
The overall aim of this workshop is to develop a useful and expanding resource of ideas and activities that will be shared with all IHC associations and be made available on the internet.
We also want to find out what the Board and IHC Programmes can do to support associations better and this workshop identified some broad ideas as well as gave a chance for individual associations to ask more specifically about issues affecting them.
As a result of feedback there has been a request to develop a short, focused and useful handbook to assist associations with some of the administrative parts of their role.
Input/ideas and feedback have been sought from the people who attended the forums.
This workshop focused on IHC Associations:
- What activities and ideas were working well for associations?
- The development of charter between the association and the Area Manager of Idea Service – an example is on this site
- Looking outside of services and supporting social events, activities and inviting other organisations to participate in some activities
- Set meeting times and give each meeting a topic, inviting people to participate. 70 people attended a meeting on Children and Young People issues in one area
- Develop a partnership with Idea Vocational/Day Services supporting arts, sports, recreational activities with money
- Advocate with local Councils/ Regional Govt for improved facilities for people with disabilities. In one area advocating with the local District Council re improved access to pool facilities was successful .The Council allocated funds to do work to improve access to the plunge pool and purchased a waterproof wheel chair that clips onto the hoist, and can also be used for easy access where a pool has a ramp access. Partnership to achieve this – Association/ IDEA/ Occupational Therapist. The Council is now going to consult with the Association when they plan the upgrades for two pool complexes in the next couple of years
- Key points in some areas remains strong – adapting families input into services to meet a services need
- Negotiate a regular time/contact with the services and association as well as with families
- Encourage people who do not have a family member with intellectual disability to join the association/become a member of IHC
- Create an event around your AGM to attract people – A few possibilities -Invite a community group – eg service club group, young people’s group. Entertainment increases the appeal of an AGM. Local musical groups are usually very happy to provide entertainment. eg country and western club, rock and roll club. Make an evening of it and have a meal to follow the meeting. Acknowledge volunteers and IDEA staff in some small way eg certificate of appreciation or a potted colour plant
- Host a coffee morning for young parents. Partner with Family Whanau. One association hosted a coffee morning during the school holidays. Held at a committee member’s home, the children had a great time playing in the secure fenced garden and the Mums enjoyed coffee and browsing through a selection of books sent by the IHC Library. A number of parents subsequently applied for membership of the library. The Family Whanau coordinator also came along for the morning.
- What assistance/help do associations need?
- Provide speakers for events
- Training on how to run discussion groups and present
- Provide resources for events, forums and sharing
- Collect email addresses on membership applications for Associations to use for “e blasts”
- Develop an information calendar for the website that goes across associations
- Provide more admin support so there are hours available for someone to contact families
- Market the benefits of being a member
- Create a resource on what’s happening out there
- Develop an organisational strategy to involve young parents in community forums.
The Education Complaint
- Have a system in place that assists all children
- Need trained teacher aides
- Bring in groups like IHC, CCS Disability Action, parents, to schools to help teachers understand the problems
- GSE to be over-hauled
- Teacher qualification needs to include compulsory special needs education
- More appropriate use of funding, ie: fund extra teacher aides rather than funding taxis to a school further away
- Schools and BoTs need to know where funding and resources are available from and have accountability for how it's used
- SEG funding should be based on number of spec needs children in a school rather than population
- Attitudes need changing
- Use the "Our Stories" short films as educational tools with teachers/BoTs.
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