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Look I’m absolutely delighted to be here
this morning to talk about what I’ve
called Disability Leadership Musings From Abroad
and I was absolutely delighted to be invited
to give a presentation at the Adult Autism
Health and Wellbeing Conference in Perth in Scotland
and this conference was a conference with a difference.
Scotland reminded me very very much of New Zealand,
it has a similar demographic, it has rural areas,
it has urban areas, it has a strong commitment
to social justice, the importance of education and
a holistic view on what education was and is.
These three words that have been bandied about
a lot in the disability sector.
Local area coordination, what’s interesting about
their local area coordination is that
they focused first on people with intellectual
impairment and autism and that’s really
really interesting in terms of, and that’s why
there’s a lot of placement in the Scottish
consortium on learning disability.
Now I also have to say that Scotland is
given as an example in New Zealand’s
work on better public services.
So Scotland has a lot of resonances
for New Zealand and I certainly
picked up a lot in the two weeks that I was there.
Disability Leadership - I saw many examples
of disability leadership on both a micro and
macro level when I was in Scotland
and in terms of the macro level the conference
and the organisation of the conference
was excellent and magnificent in my view,
what I really liked about the organisation of
this conference was that people with autism
themselves decided what the topics were
that they wanted to explore, what were issues
that were important to them and the issues that
they cared about and they tied it into the
strategy so there was a really clear definition
and purpose around why we were doing this work.
The topics were interesting I thought,
dealing with officialdom which was my
personal favourite and it’s really interesting
and being quite serious and some officials
up the front here particularly are laughing
at that, I said to people that actually you know
something you realise that actually in terms
of the road blocks this doesn’t have to be as
much as a road block as you think because
sometimes officials can be right and you know
you can engage well with them. Sometimes
they can be wrong and I think for some
members of the Aspie forum from their experiences
that was very revelatory that actually officials
could be wrong and I said well actually my
experience officials are human beings
and you know it’s about the dialogues
you have with those people and the way
in which you work with those people
that is going to be important.
The other topic which I thought was really
interesting was getting the best start in life.
This Aspie forum of adults on the spectrum
were really really clear that in order for
the strategy to work and work well
there had to be an acknowledgement of
a generation that was coming through.
And some practical leadership things
came from the conference which I think is great.
The Aspie forum are now meeting weekly
because they want to write papers to
inform the strategy development and
to tell their own stories.
I was fortunate enough to meet both
the Deputy First Minister and the Minister
of Public Health during my visit, it was
really interesting.
I mean Nicola was great and it was really
interesting to meet with her
but also to encourage members of the Aspie
forum to say actually these are politicians
who are interested in this issue and they
are interested and they care and you can
talk to them but what was interesting
that forum members knew that they wanted
to take leadership but they weren’t quite
sure how and the conference was really
important because it gave people confidence
to say, "You know actually we can."
I met a remarkable man named
David Seagrave, he was the oldest
member by a country mile
of the Aspie forum.
He was first diagnosed with ASD at 64.
Up until that point he was just
seen as strange, weird, bizarre whatever
pejoratives you want to throw out.
His diagnosis has actually been a
validation, becoming disabled
was the best thing that had ever happened
to him and one of the things that was
really nice, somewhat challenging but
what really nice was to sit down with
David and say you know something sir
you can take a leadership role here,
you can be the elder statesman of all
these young people who don’t know what
they’re about, including me, because
we haven’t lived the life that you
have lived. And I think for him that
was a really important step because
he could see himself as a leader
having for the vast majority of his
life been told you couldn’t lead.
So for me that was really really important.
Tricky Reflections. Are we ensuring
that we get the best out of the rich potential
that’s in our community.
And the disability community is incredibly
wide, incredibly wide and incredibly rich
in my view.
Here’s a tricky one though for New Zealand
disabled leaders, would we welcome and
celebrate David and give him opportunities to lead?
And can we be quite innovative about how we invite people
to lead because for David his special field
of interest was the Scottish Highlands.
So if there’s a Scottish Highlands Walking
Commission I don’t know?
Maybe he could be a good member, and
would we give him the chance to be a good member?
Although I have put up "can it please not just be governance!"
Because we do that a lot
in the Disability Leadership, we put you on this governance
group, whether its education, whether it’s health and it’s
like well actually… And what we do also - discomfort factor -
is we actually pick a few people because we like them
and they’re safe and I’m not sure about that, so I thought
about that in relationship to New Zealand.
Sophie Pascoe.
Sophie Pascoe and David Seagrave are about as different
as you could possibly imagine.
Sophie is 19, she’s a paralympian, she has been described
by Westpac, now that’s got to be a validation, she has
been described by Westpac as one of New Zealand’s
most successful sportswoman at 19.
David 72, you know different ends of the age scale.
They do have a thing in common, they see impairment positively.
Sophie says that impairment, disability was the best thing to ever
happen to her because she gets to go to Beijing,
she gets to go to London, why don’t I see Sophie
at the events I attend?
Now it maybe we just work in two different spheres of humanity
which is absolutely fine but surely here is someone
who is a disabled leader. I think there surely a space
where she can lead but do we in our government
structures open that up for her and how do
we do that in an authentic way?
We do have policy frameworks that allow
and say that they allow Sophie and David
to lead, you know we’ve got NZDS,
UN Convention, Disability Action Plan
and the joined up nature of that
planning is good and that was one
thing that I kind of sensed in Scotland
was that there were some parts
of the planning process that were
kind of missed out so for example
the UN Convention was kind of
a bit of a revelation to some people
in Scotland, it was kind of
"Oh my gosh, right." And admittingly
this was at the Perth conference
you know so this was the Scottish
Consortium on Learning Disability
but when I mentioned it, it was like,
"Actually yeah, we’re still part of the
UK so we can actually use this."
Scotland has reinforced for me that
we need to be generous around
how we see leadership in this space.
Leadership is action and it’s challenging
people's and your own perceptions of yourself.
So that can happen in lots and lots of different
ways and I suppose my invitation
from Scotland is to think innovatively
and differently about how we can include
people right across this incredibly
diverse, amazing community which is
our community.
What could this mean?
We might need to be open to lots of different
styles of leadership.
Matt might love sitting around a table
at New Model Reference Groups.
David might have a contribution to make
in Scotland Highland preservation.
Sophie might love to organise swimming meets.
And all those forms of leadership
are valuable and they need space to grow and flourish.
And that can be a government response,
it can be community response, it can be
lots and lots of different ways of responding.