Define Terminology Identify Attitude

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

New Zealand has good services for disabled people however in the past this country did not provide good services to them like present. Therefore, if you comprehend the history of disability in New Zealand you can add a disability perspective to policy and service. In the late 1800s, services for disabled people were very poor and Government did not give disabled people many helps. In 1900s, disabled people were placed in large institutions meant for people who had mental illnesses. From the 1970, the Government’s approach to services for disabled people became more community and rights based services. During the 1980s the move away from institutionalised accommodation for disabled people continued. At the same time government increased community-based services for disabled people. In 2004, a review of long-term disability support services was begun. Various aspects of disability have changed radically for long periods from 1800s. There are changes of strategies, policies and funding in New Zealand over the past 100 years in detail.

2.1 & 2.3 Identify a national situation is being discussed

In 1800s

* Service provision in New Zealand

Global changes has influenced on New Zealand society in the care of disabled people. In colonial New Zealand in the 1800s, pioneering families faced many challenges including accidents and infectious diseases. Government provision for disabled people was inadequate and families were the expected caregivers. In the middle 1800s, disabled people were not provided with nursing provision. However the arrival in the 1880s trained nurses was the beginning of professionalism in nursing practice in colonial New Zealand.

* Strategies

In the 19th century the eugenics movement became popular. Eugenics applied the ideas of biological natural selection to people (also known as ‘racial fitness’). It advocated keeping good genetic stock by weeding out weak characteristics such as ill health or mental shortages. People with less desirable characteristics were to be inhibited from having children – one way was for these people to be eliminated from society by placing them in plan built institutions. Towards the end of the 19th century, people with intellectual disabilities began to be allowed to institutions previously reserved for people with mental illness. Men and women were strictly kept apart so they could not have children. In 1880 the first school of deaf children in New Zealand opened.

* Policy

Government policies aimed at including the number of disabled people living in New Zealand and retaining financial aid to a lowest. In 1840s, ( Eugenics movement ideas of racial fitness , Racial supremacy) support for disabled people was expected to be met by their families and care for the families were not available. In 1860s, some disabled people were placed in homes intended for the destitute, unwed mothers; and orphans. Government policy was to decrease immigration and to retain financial costs down. Legislation discouraged disabled people from settling in New Zealand. The Imbecile Passengers’ Act 1882, for example, required a bond from the person responsible for a ship that discharged any person ‘lunatic, idiotic, deaf, dumb, blind or infirm’ who might become a charge on public or charities.

* Funding

Support for disabled people was provided by their families, and any financial support was usually small and temporary, and was given by charity.

* Access frameworks

Access to care or support for families was not available.

In 1900s

* Strategies and Policies

Social beliefs in racial fitness increased, becoming reflected in the government’s social policy on disabled people. The Mental Defectives Act 1911 was different between persons of unsound mind, persons mentally infirm, idiots, imbeciles, the feeble minded and epileptics. Sheltered employment opportunities for disabled people began with the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act 1960. Operators of sheltered workshops were exempted from applying the same employment conditions required elsewhere. The Industrial Relations Act 1973 established the under-rate workers’ permit. This allowed a person with an impairment to have a job in the open labour market and get a salary that corresponded with their productivity. In the 1990s more concerns were indicated with the limitations of the government provision for reducing social barriers experienced by disabled people.

* Service provision

The Ministry of Health, formerly the Department of Health from 1903 to 1993, is a department of the New Zealand government. This is the approach through which the government approachs its funding for health services. During the 1990s the National government attempted to stream-line the system in a series of reforms such as separating the government purchasing and provision of health care services. During this time the name of department was changed with the Ministry of Health(MOH). In the 1970s District Health Boards(DHBs) were first introduced as an idea in the Green and White Paper. The Committee of Inquiry into Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders of 1924-1925 expressed concern at ‘feeble-minded’ children. Action was needed to prevent ‘the multiplication of these degenerates’ and infection of ‘an inferior strain’ in the New Zealand population. The goal was to ‘increase the elements of the mental, moral, and physical strength of the nation’.

* Funding

Following the 1972 Royal Commission into Psychopaedic Hospitals, government funds were increasingly directed into building small residential facilities rather than large institutions. Government funding for disabled people moved from the welfare agency (Department of Social Welfare) to health agencies (Regional Health Authorities).

* Access frameworks

From the middle 1900s Government had realized that disabled people increasingly need to have access to a wide range of community-based support. The Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act 1975 gave disabled people, who were not ACC claimants, access to services to help them stay in the community.

In 2000s

* Strategies and Policies

The New Zealand Disability Strategy was developed in 2000 in partnership with disabled people and their representative organisations. In 2000/2001, the government has developed the New Zealand Disability Strategy. The Strategy was based on the social model of disability, which makes a distinction between impairments (which people have) and disability (which lies in their experience of barriers to participation in society). In 2002 the Office for Disability Issues was established. New Zealand has taken a leading role at the United Nations in the development of a convention making specific the rights of disabled people. A review of long-term disability support services was begun in 2004. Led by the Office for Disability Issues and working across government agencies, the review aims to improve the fragmentation and incoherence of services as experienced by disabled people.

* Service provision and Funding

In 2003 the Ministry of Health(MOH) began forming Primary Health Organisations in an effort to move health care services from fee-for-service arrangements to capitation funding for health professionals who are members of these organisations. District Health Boards (DHBs) in New Zealand are established by the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000, responsible for making sure the provision of health and disability services to populations within a defined geographical area. They have existed since 2001 when the Act came into force. DHBs receive public funding from the Ministry of Health(MOH) on behalf of the Crown, based on a formula which takes into account the total number, age, socioeconomic status and ethnic mix of their population.

* Access frameworks

There are various service provisions for disabled people in New Zealand. Many residential care, home supports, associations and school for disabled people receive support from government fund and donation. Disabled people in New Zealand can involve easily in those provisions.

2.2 Define terminology, identify attitude, distinguish stereotypes, and explain barriers

Using positive words can empower people. Inappropriate terms carry inaccurate information and harmful stereotypes. The terms below are taken directly from the publication Word Choices: A lexicon of preferred terms for disability issues, published by the Ministry of Citizenship in 1993. Four words to be avoided that make people with disabilities cringe when they are used: Afflicted, Suffer or Sufferer, Victim.

For example: Instead of blind; please use "a person with no vision". Instead of brain-damaged; please use "brain-injured". Instead of crippled; please use "disabled". Instead of he's handicapped; use "he has a disability". Instead of mongolism please use "down's syndrome".

The strategies and policies have been changed like this however many people are still living in the prejudice about the disability. They have unfair attitudes to the disabled people and this can be one of the barriers. Disabled people say that people's attitudes and behaviours can be as big a barrier to participating in society as physical barriers can be. Promoting greater understanding of disability, and disabled people's desire to live a life on an equal basis with others, is a key action in the New Zealand Disability Strategy and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These barriers are made by the stereotypes that lots of people have. Most of them have stereotypes about disability. Physically, People often tend to focus on the impairment of a person or the limitations caused by it as opposed to the varied qualities and attributes the person may have. Emotionally, it is also easy to imbue people with emotional or moral qualities - whether positive or negative - based purely on an impairment they may have. Disability is neither impairment nor a shame thing they have rights to speak loud in the society and to be involved in the society.