One size does not fit all

When Minister of Disability Issues, Tariana Turia, formally launched the Whanganui Region Disability Strategy on October 22, she was putting the finishing touch to a two-year $40,000 project of research and consultation that was carried out across the Wanganui district.
The strategy sets out to change society's attitude towards people with disabilities in the Wanganui, Ruapehu and Rangitikei districts.
But well before the formalities, copies of the strategy had been sent to local bodies and companies around the region.
There will be other disability projects around the world but those behind the Whanganui Disability Resource Centre (WDRC) strategy say it's the first in the world driven by a local community.
Its essential focus was to assess the attitudes of able-bodied people towards those with disabilities and the boundaries people with disabilities face living in an able-bodied world.
And for the first time, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the New Zealand Disability Strategy have been aligned to create action points.
Mike Gourley, a former national president of the DPA (the National Assembly of People with Disabilities), worked on both these documents and said he was impressed with how the Wanganui strategy has included both.
"One of the best things about it is that it realises disability is a process that happens, rather than what people have. It's about fixing the environment and community rather than the individual," Mr Gourley said.
He hopes the strategy will help people with transport, education and living.
People with disabilities do not have a total choice of which communities they live in because only a few are disabled-friendly. The strategy has special relevance for Wanganui because it's estimated about a quarter of the region's population - that's 16,000 people - has some form of long-term impairment.
Project director Sue Watson said those involved went out and talked and listened to people before creating the action plan.
Ms Watson said those they talked to wanted to make life easier for people with disabilities and help them be more accepted.
She said it was not about needing extra money so much as organisations changing how they spent their money.
The strategy had been a goal of the WDRC before the completion of the National Disability Strategy in 2001 and much of the local organisation's display at the first Disability May Day expo in 2001 was devoted to promoting the development of a strategy.
Its aim is to eliminate the barriers people with disabilities face.
These barriers include the physical, such as access to buildings and facilities that have been constructed to meet the needs of only able-bodied people.
The thinking on disability is focused on those with disabilities having the same rights of citizenship as non-disabled people - the opportunity to participate in society and to lead an ordinary life.
But some barriers still remain.
The strategy challenges the protective and segregational approach of the past; the approach that led to children going to "special" schools and those with intellectual disabilities living in residential institutions rather than in communities like everyone else.
The Wanganui strategy says many people with disabilities are unable to reach their potential or participate fully in the community because of the barriers they face.
"Society needs to design systems that make room for all its citizens, not just the majority," it says.
People of all ages and ethnicities have impairments - intellectual, psychiatric, physical, neurological, or sensory - and the term "disabled people" is the term that reinforces this disabling process.
"The way services are delivered to disabled people has undergone dramatic change in recent decades.
"This is particularly noticeable in the public sector where the Government has been shifting health and disability support services into the community, known as 'mainstreaming'.
"Education provides a good example of 'mainstreaming' in New Zealand, where students with impairments are supported to attend 'normal' schools in classes with non-disabled students," it says.
But the strategy says despite this shift, old beliefs and attitudes persist.
"The challenge is for Government services and regulations to respond to disability issues while ... dealing with the legacy of an institutional approach."
Les Gilsenan, from the WDRC, said the strategy addressed one of the major boundaries people with disabilities face - the very term "disabled people".
Mr Gilsenan said he preferred the term "impaired" because the disability comes from not being able to overcome boundaries put in place by able-bodied people.
"This (strategy) takes a snapshot of the general attitude towards the disabled and the communities they live in and the boundaries they face.
"Disability arises out of the interaction and attitude towards disabled people.
"It's society which disables us with the way non-disabled design buildings, for example, and how houses are built without wheelchair access," he said.
The strategy includes the perspectives of those with disabilities for the design process of buildings and other architecture.
A shift in thinking includes
* Seeing disability as a problem for society; not just the individual
* Regarding differences in abilities as assets rather than inadequacies
* Seeing personal strengths rather than deficits
* Being tolerant and inclusive
* Letting the disabled make decisions rather than society choosing
* A shift from charity-based thinking to rights-based
* Seeing individuals as citizens, not patients
* Shift from institutional to community orientation
* And a shift from a medical model of disability (control or cure) to a social model (change environment and attitudes)