Posts by Hilary Stace
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Were probably all the way through. Cheap. Look at the aged care institutions. Many are lucky to have a trained nurse on site and a doctor may have to be called in from elsewhere. The staff may be wonderful but unlikely to be specifically trained or paid for that training.
At Kimberley and other places, as Robert Martin reports in his book, Becoming a person, there were also some good people with the best of intentions. Some were in official roles and some were just kind staff. But the systems were set up to oppress them all.
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Yes my Oscar got his job several years ago via Mainstream. But successes are scarce and getting rarer. But sign up if you can as it is a brilliant concept. Mainstream was set up decades ago in the State Services Commission as a specialist supported employment scheme for disabled people for jobs in the public service.
For approved providers it paid the employed person's full wages for the first year and half for the second. The idea was that by the third there would be a real sustainable job. Of course that rarely happened and after two years many disappointed people were let go to start again on the employment ladder. But there were incentives and annual awards for good employers. A few years ago it was extended to government agencies such as schools and many permanent employees from the scheme are in schools.
However, following the change of government in 2008 the scheme was transferred to MSD, resources cut and for a few years the books were closed. They apparently opened them to new applicants last year. Not sure how it is going now but I know a lot of people have high hopes for employment via the scheme (often fostered by Workbridge or Work and Income).
It seems to work best when a good employer (with a designated contact who will do the liaising with the rest of the workplace staff as well as those providing the employment support and training of the Mainstream worker) has a clear idea of what the new job will be, and the contracted employment agency has someone specific on their books - so they work around that person's needs. The contact person in the employing place has to be in a position to ease that disabled employee's road into employment and have the right attitudes. Of course if they leave the whole thing might collapse if the infrastructure hasn't been built around them.
When that is all in place it seems to work. Often the actual job is only part time, however.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
One good aspect of the slow final closure process of Kimberley was the effort put into the relationship between the family support group RESCARE and the Ministry of Health. Ruth Dyson as Minister of Disability Issues got lots of flack over those final few years of Kimberley as some of the earlier deinst processes had been rushed and poor. But the stroppy families and the stroppy minister seemed to work it out so those last residents - who were some of the most complex re support needs - had proper support in the community, monitored by families. The Donald Beasley Institute in Dunedin evaluated the whole process from the perspectives of staff, families and residents and the reports are on their website if anyone cares to read them. Pity those processes had not been in place from the 1970s.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Wonder if they were paid the going rate? Possibly then, as now, very easy for employers to claim a minimum wage exemption and pay however little they want.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Kimberley site was sold a few months ago (apparently the DHB sold it very cheaply), numerous trees now cut down, some of the old buildings seem to have disappeared and new ones appearing. Rumour is that it is going to be some kind of gated older people's community, with a respite facility for kids at one end of the site. I drive past regularly and lots of change happening now after years of inaction and decay.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
This young Australian man was in supported residential care. But staff couldn't cope (not properly resourced, trained etc), called the police and he ended up shackled to a hospital bed and heavily drugged including for his 21st birthday. Ok he wasn't in an institution but the attitudes sound similar (stories of restraint and drugs are very common in institutional care). His parents set up a petition and with the help of the new Labour government in Victoria seem to have some solution. But parental lobbying very much still required. I don't think big institutions would be any sort of improvement.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's…, in reply to daleaway,
In about 1950 the parents of children with intellectual disability won the right to use a couple of rooms in the old Basin Reserve stand as a temporary educational facility (although it probably wasn't really a school as such). After a long battle in 1949-50 they had their request for their preferred site in Oriental Parade turned down, but with the help of local MP Peter Fraser (just before he died) they got the use of the Basin Reserve rooms. It apparently took a lot of effort by the parents to clean it up and make it a usable space. They then bought a section in Coromandel Street Newtown and built their own place so the Basin Reserve was only a short term site. At that time education for children with ID wasn't seen as necessary. Those stroppy parents who founded the IHC had to do a lot of fighting and lobbying.
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Porirua has kept a a little of its history
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Socially concerned even as a young person. Not surprising.
Many of the Templeton residents transferred to Brackenridge when Templeton closed and it opened but that facility was in the news last year. Some aspects problematic.
Re recycled institutions: I think there is a plaque at AUT? commemorating its earlier use as Oakley. And Mangere is now depressing private housing for desperate and poor people – that has also made the news from time to time. -
There is some controversy going on with the Kimberley site as part of it is going to be respite centre for disabled children. This is causing some concern because of the history of the site including unmarked graves.