B. Increase the capability of Work and Income staff to work with disabled people and people with health conditions.
382 people provided feedback on this proposal.
Level of support for proposal
What we plan to do in 2014/15 and later years:
- 92 people strongly agreed
- 198 people agreed
- 44 people neither agreed nor disagreed
- 26 people disagreed
- 22 people strongly disagreed.
The order we are planning to do them:
- 55 people strongly agreed
- 186 people agreed
- 77 people neither agreed nor disagreed
- 35 people disagreed
- 24 people strongly disagreed.
Suggested changes to the long term plan
Multiple people said:
- knowing about the functions of other agencies is an important part of increasing the capability of Work and Income’s staff, so bring forward the plan to provide staff with opportunities and time to work with other agencies involved with a client and opportunities and time to use available networks to coordinate services for their clients
- working with disabled people and people with health conditions requires specialist skill, so bring forward the establishment of mentoring support for Work and Income staff that work with disabled people and people with health conditions.
A number of people said that re-evaluating the capability of Work and Income staff working with disabled people or people with health conditions should be done on a regular basis (yearly and/or as part of everyday practice).
Suggested actions for Work and Income
To increase the capability of staff, training should focus on:
- the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
- matching people with the right skills to the right job
- understanding the different communication needs of some disabled people and people with health conditions
- strategies to use when working with people who have different impairments
- how work environments impact on people with different impairments (mental health, sensory impairments)
- creating the right job within an existing role (job carving)
- motivational interviewing techniques
- the differences between the medical model and the social model
- strengths based approach
- disability awareness
- involving others when appropriate
- reasonable accommodations
- working with health professionals.
Other points follow:
- Make sure all new staff receive the same training previously provided to existing staff.
- Make sure people employed with lived experience of disability bring a broad focus on health and disability issues, rather than an individual focus.
- All people employed into Work and Income need to have fundamental attributes of integrity, respect and diligence.
- Disabled people need to be employed at all levels of the organisation.
- Make sure disabled people’s organizations and families are involved in any training.
- Contracted providers and other specialist providers have knowledge in this area, so working with them would be beneficial.
- Use Regional Health and Disability Teams for support with training.
- Disabled people’s organisations should monitor outcomes of training.
- Prior experience working in the area of health and disability should be key attributes to look for when recruiting new staff.
- Establish ‘Disability Consultant’ positions in MSD and recruit people with lived experience who can advise on policy, provide leadership and help with training.
Make sure MSD provides a range of reasonable accommodations and other supports (ie flexible working hours) when employing disabled people and people with health conditions.
