SOUTHERN REGION JULY 2016 New Accessibility Map for Southland District Council Area Travelling around Southland will now be easier Council Offices and community organisations for disabled people; this is because the including CCS Disability Action branch offices Southland District Council has just published in Invercargill and Dunedin. People who want an accessibility map of Southland. As well as a copy can e-mail Janet Thomas for a copy showing accessible restaurants, toilets etc. the ([email protected]) or find the map shows accessible museums, libraries and map on the Southland District Council website walking tracks. The map also shows contact http://www.southlanddc.govt.nz/home/ details of restaurants etc. so that people can accessibility-map/ contact them for further information. The council has worked closely with disabled people to find out what they wanted in the map. As well as this Janet Thomas from the council visited fifty toilets in the area to make sure that they were accessible. Janet also advised people responsible for the toilets if repairs were necessary. Mel Smith, the Acting CCS Disability Action Southern Regional Manager said that the development of the map was a wonderful example of a council working with the disabled community to develop the map which will be of use to all. The map was developed as part of the Council’s inclusive communities strategy with funding from Think Differently. Copies of the map are available from Southland District In this Issue: Swipe Cards for Total Mobility Taxi Users in Otago ... 7 New Accessibility Map for Southland DC .................. 1 Waitaki Local Advisory Committee Update ................. 8 A Few Lines from the Regional Manager ................... 2 New Face in Southland ............................................... 8 From the Chief Executive’s Chair ............................... 3 A Great Example of Inclusion ...................................... 9 My New Life by Don Ramsay................................... 4-6 What’s Happening Nationally .............................. 10-11 Moving to Dunedin by Tom McAlpine ......................... 6 Our Supporters .......................................................... 12 Measuring Accessible Journeys Update .................... 7 Contact A Few Lines from Melissa Smith, Us Regional Manager 2016 is proving to be no less Waitaki 316 Thames Highway busy than any other year. In Oamaru fact this year we have embarked further on a journey PO Box 468 towards a level of consistency in relation to the quality of service Oamaru 9444 and support we provide around the country, that has seen an increase in training and a focus on information sharing. Ph: 03 437 9005 Fax: 03 437 9021 In the Southern region we had started this journey three years Email: ago and are in a positive position at this point in the year but by [email protected] no means is the team sitting back to relax as we head into the g.nz second half of the year. The strategic priorities of the organisation also continue to be at Otago the forefront of our minds with a conscious focus being placed 514 Great King Street Dunedin on Youth Development, Disabled Peoples’ Leadership, Maori Development and Partnerships. With these priorities in mind our PO Box 6174 Regional Governance groups met in May to discuss actions, Dunedin 9059 ideas and a plan for the financial year ahead. Ph: 03 477 4117 This meeting provides an opportunity for us to take the priorities Fax: 03 477 4397 and areas of conscious effort and turn them into actions for the Email: communities in which we live and work. I am always reminded [email protected] during these meetings of the value of governance to an organisation such as CCS Disability Action. The perspectives raised, and issues and solutions discussed, provide an insight Southland into the way that political, environmental and systemic policy 142 Don Street changes impact on people at a very personal level. The level of Invercargill insight and engagement from this group of committed people PO Box 492 helps to direct the region for the year to come and also assists Invercargill 9840 us to ensure that the plans we develop are ‘real’ to the people that access support, information and advocacy from us. Tel: 03 218 9696 Fax: 03 218 9689 We are keen over the next year to really work with communities Email: and see what sort of change can be made at a grass roots admin.southland@ccsdisabilityac level—local solutions for local issues with some broader level tion.org.nz lobbying to back it up. Regional Manager If you are reading this article and are thinking that you would be Melissa Smith keen to get involved and have your thoughts and insights heard 514 Great King Street or would like to support the actions to be taken within your local Dunedin community, please make contact with the Team Leader in each branch—Kay Page (Waitaki), Adrienne Henderson (Otago) or PO Box 6174 Rachael Kooman (Southland & Central Lakes). Dunedin 9059 DDI: 03 479 6882 2 From the Chief Executive’s Chair We are almost half way through the year and using a there is a great deal happening both inside and number of outside CCS Disability Action as well as the different wider disability sector. approaches. Over the last ten years we have invested We have set ourselves some ambitious targets for this year all aimed at making us an even heavily in designing and refining different ideas better organisation and one that is totally and would like to contribute this knowledge for focused on being of service to disabled people, the wider benefit of the sector. What we finally their families and whanau and the communities end up with as a new model is difficult to that they live in. As an organisation we need to determine at this stage. What we know is that it continually ask ourselves “how can we do will include the principles of “choice and things differently and how can we do things control” but how these two key words are better?” We simply want to be an organisation defined remains to be seen. For me it is very that disabled people can trust and have simple. If we provide more choice then it needs confidence in. We know that over time, more to be a genuine choice – one in which disabled people make the decision rather than being told disabled people will have a choice about how they are supported and who might support you can have either this or that. If disabled them – we want our organisation to be one of people are to really be in control of their lives those that they think about when making this then this means that they have to be at the decision. centre of every decision which impacts on their lives. It also means that the system that Earlier this year I was honoured to be selected supports them to have choice and control is for the Reference Group that has been charged simple, understandable and easy to navigate with reviewing the National Disability Strategy. through. It is 15 years since the first Strategy was written and it needs to be updated and truly At the end of the day, disabled people must reflect the aspirations of disabled people and have more choice and control over their life – it their families today. This Strategy will guide is simply their right to do so. Achieving this right current and future governments in the is only part of the answer. We need to see the decisions they make affecting disabled people. rest of society and the structures that support it It should also guide more general decision- changing as well. Choice and control will not making so that New Zealand becomes more guarantee a more accessible environment, inclusive – a country where everyone has a affordable and accessible housing, more place and an equal opportunity to participate. employment opportunities, improved transport We have just completed the first round of options or more inclusive communities. To consultation and later in the year a draft achieve this will require brave political Strategy will be circulated and a range of decisions and all New Zealanders to demand more. opportunities provided for feedback – please take this opportunity to have your say. If we achieve all this, New Zealand will become In the wider sector there are a number of a truly inclusive society and one we can all be demonstrations taking place of different ways proud of. to support disabled people. The learnings from these and other approaches will be assessed with the goal of designing a new approach. David Matthews CCS Disability Action will be sharing its Chief Executive experiences of how it supports disabled people 3 My New Life by Don Ramsay I had had a stroke. After one After I arrived home I started receiving visits month in Intensive Care and from the community team at ISIS. The High Dependency Unit I had community team consisted of Debbie, Claire ended up at ISIS. As I lay in and Sheree. bed I wondered how I would Debbie was concerned with my exercise earn my living. My brain had programme and getting me to walk. The been damaged by the exercise programme had to be changed many prolonged flow of blood. I did not have the times as I started to improve. The focus of the normal signs of a stroke. No drooping face, exercise programme was balance and Debbie no loss of power to my right arm, no slurred introduced Toni from Access to take over the programme after she had departed. The speech. I was working when I felt dizzy. I programme was loosely based on the Grasp had time to call out to my wife, and then had exercises which were in a book I was given.