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In July 2000 DPA Auckland entered into a partnership with the Northern Region Health Funding Authority (HFA) (now the MOH) to build the strategic vision of Disability Support Services in Northland and Auckland. NZCCS, as the organisation that first assisted in brokering the partnership played an interim host role of support and it was agreed that that would cease when disabled people determined that sufficient capacity was in place to be fully autonomous. DPA's role in the partnership with the Auckland based DSS Team (now Disability Issues Directorate (DID)) was to facilitate the participation of disabled people in the future planning of disability services purchasing. This provided social, rights and cultural perspectives of disability, essential to the promotion of more responsive, better targeted funding directions. The catalyst to the partnership was created in 1999 when the DSS Team recognised that their strategic feedback process included only service providers and lacked a professional voice representing disabled people. The Team identified DPA as an appropriate body to provide that voice, being the only advocacy organisation of disabled people (and service provider organisations) in New Zealand advocating on generic issues to do with disability regardless of impairment. The partnership agreed to work on several funding strategy development projects, including a strategic vision for children and families, a strategy for residential accommodation for young people, a cultural effectiveness audit, home-based support service development and a Needs Assessment Service Co-ordination (NASC) consistency project. These projects aimed at generating positive future visions for disabled people with a view to work with the DSS Team to devise specific service purchasing strategies to make that vision a reality in the next five to ten years. The partnership focussed on ensuring that the needs of disabled people were held paramount in purchasing directions and that services respond to these needs, not the other way around. Another important aspect to the partnership was the capacity building that it would foster within the disabled community. As the partnership unfolded and grew, DPA employed and enhanced the abilities of disabled people to take positions of leadership in the various projects. The partnership presented many opportunities for disabled people to become acquainted with an element of service planning from which, until now, they had been mostly excluded. Throughout the partnership process ongoing issues arose in MOH consultation and focus groups about difficulties disabled people and their families had accessing relevant supports and services. Poor access and use of services by Maori and also Pacific People was also identified as an issue but DPA, through no fault of its own, did not have the capacity to adequately address it. Hence, the drive behind the DEAS service specification was to widen the representation of perspectives contributing to the Partnership, namely Maori, Pacific and parents and families. The DEAS service supplements the spread of support services funded by DID. However, instead of being provided by generally non-disabled people and service providers, the programme is governed and delivered by disabled people for disabled people. It recognises that it is disabled people who best understand the values and concerns of their communities and can communicate effectively with members of those communities. The overall goal of the DEAS service is to contribute to a society that highly values the lives of disabled people and continually enhances full participation. The focus of the service is on empowerment, advocacy and support of individuals, their families/whanau and communities so that they are better enabled to lead the lives that they themselves find satisfactory in a manner that integrates their cultural values and perspectives. Ripple Trust was set up to provide the Generic component of DEAS. Three other organisations - Te Roopu Waiora Trust, PIASS Trust and the Parent & Family Resource Centre - provide Maori, Pacific and parent and family components of DEAS, respectively. Ripple Trust works collectively with these organisations - and in Partnership with the MOH DID - to provide the DEAS service. While the DEAS service provides the initial means for Ripple Trust's existence, it is envisaged that the Trust's scope will grow to extend far beyond this one service in order to reach its vision. Top of page