In the community
With the support of the Todd Foundation, Diversityworks Trust has begun a six month project that aims to design a flexible, multi-faceted and sustainable peer-based coaching model to support disabled people, especially young people and whanau/families, to better manage their disability support needs. The project seeks to design a model that gives information, educates and demonstrates techniques for the management of disability support workers, providers and services. Read more »
William Levack has been doodling again. Doesn't he have anything better to do with his time? This week: Wheelchairs of the Future. Read more »
- 30 Jun 2009
Tsaousides and Ashman (2008) conducted a cross-sectional study looking at the relationship between the perceived importance of work, achievement of return-to-work and improvements in various aspects of health status in a population of people with traumatic brain injury. Read more »
Over the last five or six years it has become increasingly apparent to me that as a health professional I have had too little education in the history of the disability rights movement. So it was with interest that I took the opportunity to view ‘The Music Within' on DVD this week - a movie about the life of Richard Pimentel, the man attributed with pushing the Americans with Disabilities Act into law in 1990. Read more »
- 14 Apr 2009
Since I came out as a gay man at 19 years old, I've been a user of home-based support, needs assessments, wheelchair assessments, physiotherapists as well as other health professionals and services, even rehabilitation at times. Every service provider, in my experience, has assumed I am heterosexual. Unless I actually say, ‘I'm a gay man', people assume I'm straight. That assumption operates at all levels of the organisation - from management, to administration, to individual staff. Read more »
- 01 Oct 2008
In August I attended the APA Conference in Boston. This was my first trip to the US and I was excited to be travelling to that great mythical place to see it in reality. I was mostly excited about travelling to the home of the American With Disabilities Act; had the land of the free really become the land of access and inclusion? How would it compare to the land of the Human Rights Act where access and inclusion are tolerated so long as they are reasonable? Read more »
- 08 Sep 2008
Claire Freeman ponders the reclaimation of derogatory terms about disability, by people with disability, and speculates on the extent to which she herself identifies with language associated with disability - particularly the language that is used in the current health science literature. Read more »
Quality Rehabilitation: An Integral Component of Disability Management as a Strategy Designed to Promote Return to Work Following the Onset of a Significant Disability. Read more »
- 02 Jul 2008
The 'Stay Up Late Campaign' is a social movement to put a halt to people with learning disabilities having to leave clubs and music gigs early because their staff finish their shifts at 10pm! Read about the movement and its main champions, "Heavy Load", a UK punk band consisting of musicians both with and without intellectual disability. Read more »
- 20 Jul 2007
Wahington et al. (2007) set about developing and testing a measure of community participation for children and teenagers (aged 8-20) with disabilities. This is an interesting endeavour: there is already considerable information about the impact of disability during childhood on levels of social participation – but can this be measured in any meaningful way? What does ‘community participation’ mean for children anyway? Read more »
- 17 Jul 2007
Diversityworks Trust has announced it plans to host a major international Symposium in the world-wide calendar of Disability Arts festivals. This is Momentum'09 - a showcasing of the best disabled artists and performers from around the world. Read more »
Shakespeare wrote 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'. What about an institution by any other name? William Levack debates claims regarding the closure of the Kimberley Centre marking 'the end of institutionalisation in New Zealand'. Read more »
One of the challenging aspects of rehabilitation is the interprofessional and intersectorial nature of it. There is a need for greater opportunities to share and discuss ideas between the various stakeholder in the rehabilitation sector... Enter the NZRA website! Read more »
- 10 Dec 2005
Directed by Henry Rubin and Dana Shapiro, "Murderball" is a documentary about the lives and exploits of the players in two wheelchair rugby teams - one from the Canada; the other from the USA - in the lead up 2004 Athens games. Read more »
Julian Verkaaik
