Change and Voluntary Disability Organisations
DFI Conference, 23 May, 2012.
International
Regional
---------National
A Positive Symmetry – Gerard Quinn
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The International Impulse…..
United Nations Convention on the Rights of persons with
Disabilities (2006).
Ireland has signed…with legal implications
Ireland is set to ratify in 2012…with legal implications
Ireland becomes answerable to the Int community
Carrier of a moral vision – a new paradigm.
Driver of Policy
Forces a Re-imagination of the Welfare State and its relationship to PWD
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Major Premise – the move from ‘object’ to ‘subject’
Equal Effective Enjoyment of Existing Rights
Core Rights – Getting a LIfe
--- Voice, Choice, Chance to make your own life – Article 12.
--- Auto-nomy – you choose how you live – Independent Living & Being Included in the
Community
--- Participation – systematic removal of barriers….
--- Support – a re-imagining of the function of economic, social and cultural rights and
Supports. From part of the problem to part of the solution.
Art 16 – protection against violence, exploitation & abuse
‘on an equal basis with others’
Progressive
Achievement
‘Duty to protect’ put back in its box….
Tangible steps &
dynamic of change
Burning Off Paternalism
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Voice, Choice & Chance….
UN CRPD gives Positive answers to these questions
What does it mean to be a ‘subject’ – a person?
Is cognition key to personhood?
Do ‘will & preferences’ exist in all people – do we all dream?
Is personhood shared?
What naturally occurring supports augment our capacity
to navigate life?
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The Art 12 Paradigm…..
An assumption of capacity…breaking the link with policy based on deficits. This applies
in ‘all spheres of life.’
An assumption that re-connecting people with naturally occurring supports will augment
a sense of personhood, capacity and self-direction. NOTE: this is not about services
In a traditional sense.
Protect people but not by withdrawing their right to choose.
Spatial Image of Bridges – connecting people, growing capacity, revealing
‘will and preferences.’
New problematics –when do we know the supports are subverting or sculpting
the will & preference
But a different set of problematics relative to guardianship.
See Oirieachtas Justice Committee Report 2012. Bill due in May/June.
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Article 19 Application – the right to live independently and be included in the Community
Note the conjunction of Independence and Community
The Core Frame of 19
Art 19 is NOT primarily about place – bricks & mortar
Its about a new posture of the person toward the community
Which can only happen if the place is in – connected with – the community
Its about identity, personhood and flourishing.
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“It’s not only other people who hold us in our identities. Familiar places and things, beloved
object, pets, cherished rituals, one’s own bed or favourite shirt, can and do help us maintain
our sense of self. And it is no accident that much of this kind of holding goes on in the place
where our families are: at home. The home...is an extension and mirror of the living body in
its everyday activity and is thus a materialization of identity...our homes manifest who we
are at the same time as they provide the physical scaffolding that supports who we are.”
Quoted from Hilde Lindeman, ‘Holding One Another’ in Eva Feder Kittay & Licia Carlson
(Eds.), Cognitive Disability and the Challenge to Moral Philosophy, (Wiley Blackwell 2010) at
163-164.
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Opening Narrative – equal right to live in the community. Stresses civic engagement.
‘with choices equal to others”….
19.a a right to chose where and with whom to live……
“the point about Art 19 is to enable persons with disabilities to have a realistic
Prospect of flourishing in the community by affording a home that reflects one’s
Personal choices and allows for the development of personhood”
Read it with Art 8 – nurturing receptiveness to persons with
disabilities and their rights. Choice & size.
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19.b. Making it happen – personalised services to enable independence & Inclusion
Traditional welfare model needs=services=delivered through proxies of needs
Art 19 mandates the personalisation of services.
But not services as we know them – services that build bridges into the community
19.c. Embedding Inclusion – Expanding Community Services to be Inclusive of
Persons with Disabilities.
Progress on 19a and 19.b can be held back unless community services opened up.
Decant resources from specialised institutions
Calls for creative mix of personalised services and community services.
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The Regional European Dimension
Nudge & Support.
Overall EU Priority
EU 2020 Strategy – toward a ‘smart, sustainable and inclusive economy & society (2010-)
Contains several Flagship initiatives including Flagship against Poverty
“design and implement programmes to promote social innovation for the most
Vulnerable….
EU has ratified the UN CRPD – increasingly a driver of EU policy
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EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020…A Vehicle for UN CRPD in the EU
“promote the transition from institutional to community based-care by using
Structural Funds to support the development of community-based services…
Achieve the transition…by using financial instrument…for training human resources
And adapting social infrastructure, developing personal assistance funding schemes…
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New EU Structural Funds regulations under consideration……to be concluded
Under Irish Presidency
Ex ante conditionality….active inclusion – integration
Of marginalised communities…
Draft Common Regulation
Requires measures for the shift from residential
to community care facilities.
ESF should also support fulfillment of
UN CRPD including transition from institutional
Draft Social Funds Regulation To community care
Art 9 – ‘testing and scaling up of innovative solutions
To address social needs’
Investment priority in …social infrastructure…and
Transition from institutional to community-based
Draft Eur Regional Dev Fund Services
Social enterprise a prioirty
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EU Programme for Social Change & Innovation
95 million for social innovation & experimentation that can be scaled up
HORIZON 2020 – to replace EU Framework 7 Research Programme
Major emphasis on grand social change, transformation of the welfare state,
Non-cohort specific, lifecourse perspectives.
Need for new innovation understood – learning from innovation needed.
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Ireland……
‘We need to get away from the language of needs and services’, President Michael D Higgins.
New ‘Services’…..
Bridges to the Lifeworld
Augment
Grow
Personhood
Bridges to social
Connectedness
Growing & Sharing Personhood
Social Connectedness
Bridges to the Lifeworld
By definition personalised
Personhood - Voice, Choice, Power
---------------------------------With flexible funding/
accountability model
This is where social
Innovation kicks in
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I’m afraid you’ve just had a Paradigm Shift…..
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