Strong Voices

Dr Terry Caseley devoted his career to making sure people with intellectual disabilities were given the chance to live their best lives.

The former President of IHC and influential Christchurch paediatrician died in Christchurch on 18 May 2023, at the age of 89.

His term as President of IHC, from 1979 to 1988, coincided with a time when attitudes about intellectual disability were undergoing huge changes and IHC was expanding rapidly as services for disabled people moved from institutions into the community.

Terry graduated from Otago Medical School in 1957 and went to Britain to study paediatrics. He returned to Christchurch Hospital in 1966 and became a member of IHC that year. In a 1999 interview he recalled his first contact with IHC. “I went to a meeting and during a discussion said how important the family was in terms of the child with the disability. I was encouraged to take an interest in the local branch of the Society and was happy to do so.”

In 1969, when IHC established a sub-committee for autism, Terry was asked to convene the first meeting of the parent group. This subcommittee became the Autistic Association and the forerunner to Autism New Zealand.

Colleague and friend Dr Patricia Champion described her 35-year clinical collaboration with Terry that led to the establishment in 1978 of what is now the Champion Centre. “With his support,commitment, professional generosity and faith in me, the New Zealand landscape around disability changed for ever and for the better.”

She described a new model of clinical practice they established with specialist clinicians working together, providing interventions and family support in a community-based setting.

“This thinking was largely outside the belief system of the day, as to where ‘disability’ sat. Unsurprisingly there were many roadblocks and challenges along the way. But Terry was not to be put off. He used to say to me, ‘We will find a way, because it is the right thing to do’.

“And slowly we began to shift the narrative from the disability label defining a child towards a more valid understanding of a child’s right to develop their potential, whatever that might be.

“Terry embraced this belief as a fundamental human right and never wavered from it, standing up for parents, for their children, and positively influencing the paediatric community along the way.”

Sir Roderick Deane, who succeeded Terry as IHC President in 1988, recalled him as a dynamic, enlightened and successful president. “Terry had vision and leadership. He was utterly devoted to helping people with intellectual disabilities.”

He says Terry appreciated the many talents of those intellectually disabled people who had been confined for many years to institutions across New Zealand and worked with the IHC leadership to enable people with disabilities to move out of full-time hospital environments tor resume normal lives in the community.

Terry was made an IHC NZ Life Member in 1988 and was a Life Member of the Paediatric Society of New Zealand. He is survived by his wife Ann and children Caroline, Jonathan, Sarah, David and Susan.

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Caption: Dr Terry Caseley, IHC President 1979 to 1988.

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