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IHC Hot Issues - March/April 2018
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
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Join the conversation about reviewing our education system
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Schools in crisis trying to support students with diverse learning needs
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New Employment Support Practice Guidelines launched
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Calls for repeal of Funded Family Care
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UN Committee releases ‘list of issues’ for New Zealand Government
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Consultation on Terms of Reference for Royal Commission on Historical Abuse
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Killing prompts review of disability services
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Autistic teenager kept in mental health unit for a year
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Election Access Fund Bill to be debated
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Self-advocates make video for World Down Syndrome Day
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Community member vacancies for the Mental Health Review Tribunal
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Over use of anti-psychotics for autism
IHC Hot Issues – January/February 2018
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Census may lead to a lower reporting of disability
- Royal Commission into historic abuse announced
- Mental Health Review
- Eliminating seclusion, reviewing restraint
- Disability delegations and briefings to incoming ministers
- New initiatives on inclusive and special education
- Deportation reprieve for young disabled Fijian man
- People with autism who have experience of criminal justice system sought for research
IHC Hot Issues - November/December 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- IHC survey reveals quality of life concerns for NZers with intellectual disability
- Call for more housing for disabled people
- Maxim Institute finds barriers to employment for people with disabilities
- New Minister Carmel Sepuloni responds to concerns
- New MPs’ maiden speeches on disability
- Ombudsman’s report on Ruru Special School
- Disabled men lose High Court case
- Mothers write book about discrimination against their disabled children
- Survey on assistive technology
- Outdated term ‘Mongol’ causes offence
- Immigration Tribunal overturns Immigration decision on autistic boy
- International Disability Day 3 December
- Seacliff: remembering our history through musical theatre
- 2017 Attitude Awards
IHC Hot Issues – September 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- A decade on, IHC’s complaint about the education crisis is still waiting
- Desperate need for help for children in early childhood education
- Negative attitudes can hamper help for disabled Pasifika children
- Ministry of Social Development and ACC using fake names in correspondence with clients
- Thankyou Mojo Mathers
- How well did the election work for voters with learning disability?
- Teenager sedated in locked mental health unit now has permanent home
- Increasing use of sanctions in our welfare system
- Online UK course to improve working relationships between disabled people and personal assistants
IHC Hot Issues - August 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Election forum Tuesday 5 September, Wellington
- Gaps in early intervention
- Drop in public satisfaction with special education
- Roll out of Bay of Plenty Learning Support pilot
- Statistics NZ survey shows more support needed for disabled people
- Research reveals the hidden costs of disability
- New Bill disappoints pay equity advocates
- Supreme Court rules that relief carers are not employees
- More support for young carers
- UN plea for inquiry into historic abuse
- Auckland DHBs drop disability representatives
- IHC pays tribute to Colin Meads
- IHC library after-hour book returns to Wellington Public Library
IHC Hot Issues – July 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- People with intellectual disabilities missing from mental health announcement
- Lack of secure forensic units for people with intellectual disabilities
- Addressing the historic abuse of disabled children in State care
- Ageing parents of disabled adults
- Grandparents raising grandchildren poorly treated by Work and Income
- Cabinet Paper on Disability System Transformation released
- Transforming Respite 2017-2022
- One child with Down syndrome ordered to leave NZ and another case reconsidered
- Stats NZ proposal for disability statistics risks making ID invisible
- Ministry apologises for wrong answer on ORS funding
- Predictive risk modelling and decile funding
- Wellington Forum on Supported Living
IHC Hot Issues - June 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Tracking progress - Valuing All: leave no one behind
- IHC Service Changes
- Update on IHC education complaint
- Support Staff Day marked by calls for more money to pay teacher aides
- Election forum, Wellington, 13 July
- Claim to extend pay equity to more support workers
- Research finds large numbers of disabled people have poor housing conditions
- Brain-injured teenager in police cells for three days
- Another disabled child excluded from NZ
- Preventing Elder Abuse
- Budget 2017 and disability
- Forum for Support Workers
- Minister’s tweet makes news
IHC Hot Issues - May 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Disabled children excluded from NZ
- Children’s Commissioner’s State of Care report
- Sector Update from the Ministry of Education on new learning support projects and pilots
- Parents and schools battle for special education support
- Student Rights Service helpline
- Autistic teenage boy committed to mental health unit
- Nelson Marlborough DHB commissions review following death of disabled person
- Self-care resource kit for parents of disabled children under development
- Disabled woman who feeds the homeless becomes homeless
- Disability Connect advocacy courses and support groups in Auckland
- Disability Matters Conference, Dunedin, November 2017: Making the Convention Real
- Review of disabled people led monitoring for CRPD
- New Statistics New Zealand on-line tool for disability information (but not yet ID)
- Call for inquiry into abuse in Australian group homes
- Research shows shared home ownership is good for disabled people
- 2017 IHC Art Awards
IHC Hot Issues - April 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Disability ‘system transformation’
- Carers win big pay increase
- Changes for IDEA Services
- Inclusive Education news
- Support for ageing parents worried about the future of their disabled adult children
- New Government agency to provide surveillance on vulnerable people
- Teenage boy with Down Syndrome held in mental health unit
- Claims pregnant women encouraged to terminate Down Syndrome babies
- Robert Martin at the United Nations in Geneva
- A blood test for Autism?
- They work for us election kits
IHC Hot Issues - March 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Deaths of those with ID often incorrectly recorded
- Disability support system to be ‘transformed’
- Government response to Education and Science Select committee inquiry disappoints
- Education for All petition handover
- Children’s Commissioner wants disability screening for all five year olds
- Disabled people more likely to live in cold damp houses
- Ashley Peacock gets international attention and another incarceration case revealed
- Proposed new design and framework for Ministry of Health’s DIAS and NASC
- Ministry of Health developing new Respite Strategy
- Health and Disability Commissioner inquiry into those who cannot give informed consent
- Access Alliance established
- Government gives first ‘social bond’ to Australian provider
IHC Hot Issues - February 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- ‘Never again’ campaign calls for inquiry into historic abuse
- New Ministry of Health guidelines to prevent abuse
- Second killing of an autistic young woman by mother
- IHC makes submission on seclusion amendment
- Lack of post-school options for disabled young people
- Accessing support from Work and Income gets even harder
- Yes, there is a mental health crisis
- Are we sleepwalking into a world without Down syndrome?
- General Election 2017 and advocacy for intellectual disability
IHC Hot Issues – January 2017
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Urgent action needed to improve the health of people with intellectual disabilities
- School principals need more Government support to make inclusion a reality
- Education (Update) Amendment Bill Supplementary Order Paper on seclusion and restraint
- Children, Young Persons, and their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill
- Many early childhood education services substandard
- Latest case emphasises lack of services for young people with complex needs
- Time for change – addressing the issues in New Zealand’s mental health system
- New Human Rights Toolkit for Australian disabled women and girls
- Australian disabled workers finally win fair pay
- 10 interventions for families to encourage their child’s autistic neurodiversity
IHC Hot Issues – December 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- New NZ Disability Strategy launched
- New Bill is victory for disability advocacy
- Unfair Funded Family Care legislation highlighted
- More school seclusion rooms revealed
- Safeguards needead for online schools
- Dunedin School Principal’s open letter to Government to ‘Help our children’
- Education for All? Best Practice and the Community Voice forum
- Child poverty rates remain high - disabled children start life with disadvantage
- New contracts for community organisations will require handing over client details
- Statement on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at UN General Assembly
- United Nations report on New Zealand’s children
IHC Hot Issues - November 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Select committee finally publishes report on dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism
- New Ministry of Education seclusion and restraint guidelines
- Youthlaw questions use of seclusion
- Education For All rally in Auckland
- Autistic Nelson boy receiving only four hours of education a week
- Consultation on Te Whāriki Early Childhood curriculum
- Families in Otara missing out on Child Disability Allowance
- Supreme Court to decide employment status of respite care workers
- Calls for inquiry into historic disability abuse
IHC Hot Issues - October 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Seclusion rooms in use in several schools
- Increase in ‘informal removals’ from schools of students with special educational needs
- Education for All petition
- Feedback required for Ministry of Health’s respite review
- Depression and sleep problems common in adults with autism
- People’s review of the mental health system
- Optional Protocol for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities comes into force
- Human Rights Commission review of Seclusion and Restraint
- What is a home? Workshop with Michael Kendrick
- Immigration denied to disabled child
IHC Hot Issues - September 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Education for All Rally at Parliament 22 September 4.30pm
- Youthlaw report finds educational barriers for disabled children
- Does the Ministry really think early intervention will cure impairments?
- Visit of UN Special Rapporteur on Rights of Persons with Disabilities
- ‘A Life for Ashley’ Petition presented to Parliament
- New Zealand needs a new constitution to uphold disability rights
- NZ disability providers say system in crisis
- Supported decision-making resources available
- Amy Street – a documentary web series
- New Zealand ASID conference, November, Wellington
- Kia Noho Rangatira Ai Tātou Human Rights and the UN CRPD – free education programme
- Mourning disabled people killed in Japan
Hot Issues August 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- What is going on in Education?
- Learning support resources to shift from older to younger students
- Autistic boy expelled from pre-school
- Communities of Online learning (COOLs)
- Salisbury School fights closure
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline updated
- What statistical ‘Enduring Questions’ do we need to ask about disability?
- High Court hears institutional abuse allegations
- Enabling Good Lives evaluation
- Union to appeal decision that respite care workers are not employees
- Outdated medical codes in Work and Income forms
- Quality jobs elusive for beneficiaries
- Workability International Conference in Auckland
IHC Hot Issues - July 2016
Inside Hot Issues:
- Making citizenship and rights real in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities
- A Life for Ashley Petition and other “cruel, degrading and inhuman” cases
- Win for paid parent carers
- Join the Conversation for a new Disability Strategy Part
- Optional Protocol of the CRPD will mean individuals can take complaints
- IHC Advocacy’s submission to Social Security Rewrite Bill
- Homeless family has four disabled children
- Lack of post-operative care for boy with Down Syndrome
IHC Hot Issues - June 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- New Zealander Robert Martin elected to United Nations Committee
- A life for Ashley
- Changes to out of home placement for disabled children
- Ombudsman responds to IHC request for data on involuntary sterilisation
- Court case to improve funding for respite carers
- Family threatened with prosecution unless son sent to residential special school
- Disability stocktake: new data released
- Disability protests against movie ‘Me Before You’
- Submissions sought for Parliamentary Inquiry into Captioning
IHC Hot Issues May 2016
Inside Hot Issues:
- IHC makes case for strengthened New Zealand Disability Strategy
- 2016 Budget and disability issues
- Neurodisabilities Forum exposes unmet need in prisons
- Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill provides legal basis for welfare system
- New Margaret Mahy playground will now be accessible after protests
- Ministry of Education Special Education Update – questions welcomed
- Assistance dogs are essential technological support for some disabled people
- Australian Support Group established for LGBTI people with intellectual disability
- Feedback sought on residential services
Hot Issues - April 2016
Inside Hot Issues:
- Challenging the Minimum Wage Exemption
- Will the CYF review improve the lives of disabled children?
- Are schools ‘demonising’ children with challenging behaviour?
- Join the Conversation to update the New Zealand Disability Strategy
- Will revised New Zealand Health Strategy benefit people with intellectual disability?
IHC Hot Issues - March 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Better advocacy needed for our children and young people
- Changing school decile rating: warnings from ‘special’ education.
- Boy shifts 500 kilometres for inclusive school
- Teacher aides in most poorly paid occupational group
- In-between travel settlement for home support workers
- Inquiry into the future of New Zealand’s mobility needs
IHC Hot Issues - February 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Why do we still lock up disabled people in seclusion?
- Immigration New Zealand Declines Residency for Disabled People
- Unveiling of Memorial to Forgotten Patients at Tokanui Hospital
- Back to Court for Payment for Years of Caring
- SENCO Survey Reveals Unmet Need for Diverse Learners
- Does Attack on Elderly Disabled Man Reflect our Attitude to Disability?
- Disability Makes Life Harder for Refugees
IHC Hot Issues – January 2016
Inside IHC Hot Issues:
- Disability Strategy and Action Plan updated
- New National Care Matching Service launched
- New Year Honours for services to disability
- Ministry of Health’s Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Plan
- New series of IHC Workshops for 2016
- Sib Shops in Wellington in March
- NGO Health and Disability Network seeking positive video clips to highlight work
- State care abuse claimants suing Government
- Zika virus can cause intellectual disability
- Christchurch’s Margaret Mahy playground not disability-friendly
- Students with disabilities not allowed to type school work
- Invercargill special school’s isolation room causes concern
- Teacher laments reduced support for students
- Australian court denies parents bid to sterilise disabled daughter
- Australian Senate Inquiry into disability abuse and violence
- Is screening sperm donors for autism eugenics