Consultation with the disability sector
This section considers consultation with the disability sector and how to plan your approach for the best outcome possible.
A diverse sector
Disabled people are not a homogenous group. They have significantly varied needs and interests. In common with other sectors of society, there are often tensions over issues of representation of the sector. These differences may be associated with their different interests, competition for resources and perceived legitimacy. When you design your consultation tools and mechanisms for involving the disability sector, make sure the perspectives of all relevant parts of the sector are included.
Another issue is that some groups, though usually identified as part of the disability sector, may not primarily associate themselves with it. For example, Deaf people may regard themselves as part of a distinct Deaf culture, with its own language and customs - a cultural minority group rather than a group which experiences disability.
Some mental health organisations do not identify with the disability sector. They might embrace an illness/recovery model of mental health and regard themselves as traditionally part of the health sector primarily.
Under the New Zealand Disability Strategy and the social model, however, both Deaf people and people with experience of mental illness will have experienced disability. They should be included in the concept of disabled people.
Also, organisations that represent the wider interests of older people may have a significant interest in disability issues (because many older people have an impairment and experience some form of disability) but do not necessarily identify with the disability sector.
Many impairment groups have rejected being called ‘disabled’ at some point, usually because of negative connotations associated with ‘disability’. They have argued that ‘there is nothing wrong with us, we are just different, with different support needs’.
However, there is much wider acceptance by different impairment groups of belonging to a disability community when using the definition of disability provided in the New Zealand Disability Strategy.
A unified sector
The disability sector today generally endorses a human rights approach to disability issues. Overall, the sector agrees on and supports:
- a social model of disability
- greater visibility of disabled people and understanding of the sector’s needs
- partnership and empowerment for disabled people
- increased acceptance and participation of disabled people within the wider community..
This philosophical base is reflected in related sectors. Examples are found in other government strategies, particularly the Positive Ageing Strategy, and health strategies such as the Health of Older People Strategy and the Mental Health Strategy (as described in the Mental Health Commission Blueprint for Mental Health Services).
Consultation methods and data collection
Consultation is a good way of getting critical information from people who are experts in their field. Consultation mechanisms include focus groups, surveys and collections of anecdotal information. If you want your consultation to be effective you need to consider specific issues.
- Previous consultation
Find out what other projects and consultations related to your policy area have been carried out. Include general issue-gathering exercises, such as the consultation around the development of the New Zealand Disability Strategy.
Make use of existing resources and research to avoid wasting the time and resources of the government and the disability community.
- Adequate resourcing
Allocate time and money to project planning so that consultation with the disability community and wider sector is adequate and useful.
Allow more time for consultation than you would with other sectors. Many disabled people need extra time to plan their involvement, such as getting to and from meetings, having personal support for the meeting itself, and to provide written feedback.
Disabled people may face extra costs to their participation in your consultation than non-disabled people. Any way you could organise the consultation process to reduce these costs will improve the level of feedback you may get from disabled people.
You may need to pay people for their time and expertise if they are working in a disability consultant capacity and not already being paid for their time.
- Maximise access
When you organise a meeting, note the physical access to meeting sites - for example, suitable toilets, parking, door width, room size, lifts and seating arrangements.
- Communication formats
Consider a range of communication formats to accommodate a diverse range of abilities. For example, you may need to budget for and book New Zealand Sign Language interpreters (you will need two if the meeting is longer than an hour). Provide Blind people with electronic copies of text in advance, provide vision impaired people with large text formats and intellectually disabled people with plain language text. People with hearing impairments may find the use of a hearing loop will help their ability to access spoken information.
- Ethics
Consider the ethics of research (either formal or informal) that seeks the views of consumers.
- Give feedback
Provide feedback on the outcomes to people involved in your consultation process.
More information
Building capacity in the disability sector
The government has said that government departments need to build capability in non-government organisations and to avoid disempowering practices. This includes organisations that represent disabled people.
Ideally, the government wants to involve the disability sector by facilitating co-operation, adding value, and complementing and supporting the work of individuals and their organisations in the disability sector. As a policy maker or service provider, you can do this by using the disability sector’s collective knowledge and appropriately compensating individuals and organisations that provide this knowledge.
Any mechanisms you use should avoid fragmenting or disempowering by encouraging unnecessary competition or spreading people’s energies too far.
Employing disabled people and recognising their experience of disability is an effective way to build capacity, in both the government and the disability sector. Make use of the resource of disabled people currently employed in government by providing opportunities for their input to your project.
More information
- The Treasury Guidelines for Contracting with Non-government Organisations for Service Sought by the Crown is a useful resource. The guidelines, updated in December 2003, signal the government’s expectations of government agencies and their relationships with non-government organisations.
- Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship
- Good Practice Participate - provides advice to departments on engaging successfully with community, voluntary, iwi and Māori organisations when decisions are being made or input being sought.
- Good Practice Funding - provides advice for improving government agency funding practice, with a focus on government funding of non government organisations.
How far should you go?
There are many approaches to consultation and ensuring a partnership approach to policy development. Involving the disability sector in your work can range from a phone call or meeting with a few key people to check critical issues in a particular policy area to the establishment of an ongoing advisory board of disabled people.
What is appropriate will depend on the policy area, the size of the policy task and other related consultation. A large policy review may have only one component particularly relevant to disabled people. Here you can design focussed consultation meetings. Alternatively, a large review may be relevant to disabled people in general, and the most effective consultation method may be to include disability organisations on the mailing list of the discussion paper you send out to the public. (Make sure the discussion paper is accessible in various formats.)
Seek advice from a disability organisation or a government disability contact as to what is most appropriate.
Keeping costs down (including consultation costs) will always be an issue for government projects. You can keep costs down by determining critical disability issues early in the policy process, rather than use resources to deal with problems later on.
Policy processes that do not understand disability issues may lead to policy problems. In the past these have involved court cases, last minute additions to legislation or implementation failure.