Hard News: An open thread while I'm down with #OGB
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Hilary Stace, in reply to
The NZ ASD Guideline contains over 300 recommendations graded according to international guideline methodology.So yes as evidence-based as you can get which is not really that helpful as there is no real research evidence base yet for many of the services and supports required. Many just graded as good practice by the various teams who worked on them (included paediatricians, psychologists, parents, teachers etc). But already probably a bit out of date considering they were published in April 2008 and bulk of research dates from mid 2000s.
And the main problem is implementation which is a totally different area. Great to have best practice guidelines, but turning them into real services and support for real people and families is another thing altogether and we have only gone a tiny bit along that path.
Need to know anymore (my recently submitted thesis had a bit of a focus on the ASD Guideline)? You can download the Guideline from the MoH website (big file) or ask for a free hard copy via their site. -
Thanks Hilary. I will have to read them now. :-)
However, I think I was pointing out the WHO was at least referencing NZ material. Maybe that might make "powers that be" sit up a wee bit and mayber get round to implementing meaningful and activated guidelines. If the rest of the world pick up on it and action it then NZ - again - dumps it's own world leading ideas. It gets up my goat that others pick up our great ideas and we then dump on the shakers and movers and then totally ignore it. And nail it's death by removing funding.
Great country. Nice people.
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Sacha, in reply to
the WHO was at least referencing NZ material. Maybe that might make "powers that be" sit up a wee bit
We are acknowledged world leaders in some of the policy. This seems to have little impact on the motivation of governments of either stripe to match that with adequate resources for implementation. If anything, I would have expected to see more of NZ in the WHO report.
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The ASD Guideline site for practitioners and the MoH page to download the full document.
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Ross, thanks for telling me that the Guideline get a mention in the WHO disability report. I had a quick read of that the other day but it was a such a big file I only printed off the summary to read later. I noted that they had included NZ information so good the Guideline gets a mention. I (and possibly others) have mentioned it in conference presentations here and in Australia, and my major publishing achievement was getting a letter on the topic in the New Scientist last year. The compilation was a very good and worthwhile exercise to do - but it is only part of the picture. Really needs to be implemented, which isn't really happening. There is a Living Guideline Group which has updated the evidence on about three small areas and is currently looking at autism and employment (and not finding much of that randomised control trial evidence because it just hasn't been done). The earlier LGG reports are at www.nzgg.org.nz if you are interested. Otherwise my Guideline serves as a handy rest for my computer mouse.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
It gets up my goat that others pick up our great ideas and we then dump on the shakers and movers and then totally ignore it. And nail it’s death by removing funding.
What I struggle to get past is the great and apparently sincere speech that BIll English gave at the launch of David Cohen's book about his autistic son, back when English was in Opposition. In government: not so much.
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The Springbok Tour Protest - Eden Park - The Third test - I went along to protest with a friend, I caught the bus from Mt Eden to Titirangi, met my friend at his mothers and drove to Morningside.
On the way in we stopped at another friend’s place, he was at Uni and into Radio B – we intended on taking him with us but he excused himself along the lines of "Civil Disobedience" and "breaking the law" and where we mad. What is interesting is that in polite civil social discourse I have heard Mr B spout on about how he was there, I have never challenged his delusion. It is what it is BS.
After parking the car we met up with one of the columns and marched. We stayed for a while with the column but go frustrated at being barracked at through a megaphone and not being able to understand any of the commands.
After perhaps ¾ s of an hour of standing around not knowing what was going down my friend and I broke away from the column and made our way towards Eden Park going through people yards, jumping over and through fences and hedges. We eventually got to Reimers Ave and were effectively behind the cordon. We made out way across the car park area to a surround of storm fencing outside the grandstand. At that point we got called out.
The officers that bailed us up asked for an explanation as to “WTF do you think you are doing, Stand still do not move?” The answer I gave was, “Trying to watch the game, Sir”.
They let us go and told us to, ‘FO back home”. We made our way outside and watched a column of riot squad in a march/jog heading toward Sandringham Road, one of the squad members peeled off and ran up to a hedge to relieve himself, he saw us and turned put his finger to his lips and went “Shish”, we all laughed - it was so funny.
We made our way down Sandringham, Road and stood with a bunch of locals watching a column of protestors come up to a barricade of Riot Squad who were in Jumbo Bins partially filled with sand.
My friend and I climbed Tree and watched the collision and the fracas – it was surreal. The adrenaline rush made us feel as if we were floating above it. The stoush was intense and physical; the tide of abuse over whelming. There was more going on than just a protest – it was a vicious game of hit and hit back – batons and signs flying.
On the way back to the car we were chased by rugby supporters and had to run. We were taken into someones yard – they closed the gate and kept us there till the trouble had passed.
It is regrettable about the clowns.
If the front few ranks of the column had gotten hold of a Riot Squad member they would have beaten the living carp out of him.
The images that stick in my mind are viewing the column and riot squad collision from up of a tree and making our way from Morningside to Mt Eden and seeing police in riot gear on the railway lines; “Smith’s Dream” live the reality.
Two years ago I did a roof repair for an academic who lives in the Eden Park area. I needed a peice of timber to extend an outrigger – his wife took me under the house and we pulled out a 1981 Tour Protest Sign from which I pulled off the framing from the back and used it to make the repair. It was lucky for them and for me.
Although it was tumultuous time people were clear about what side they were on and generally there was a degree of respect. The protests were necessary on many levels. It took me along while to watch another Rugby game again – I was sick of it.
Politically we have the leaders of the two main parties who are to my view Mr Wishy – Phil Goff and Mr Washy John Key and overall they just don’t get “it” do they.
Looking back at NZ in the 1970s through to the early 1980s the degree of poverty that is now taken as a given would not have been tolerated, that so many of us are to be and remain disenfranchised and that this is a structural component of the economic landscape taken as a given.
It is surreal that out breaks of measles and other diseases are becoming prevalent, the amount of condescension directed at the poor- including the working poor – via the media.
If you have read this far thanks for taking the time, apologies if you are bored shitless, and all the best we all need it.
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Che Tibby, in reply to
It is surreal that out breaks of measles and other diseases are becoming prevalent
more surreal considering that it's entirely preventable. immunisation for measles is almost free. we've been working on immunisation at work, the range of people who don't get their kids immunised is very broad. they're not all poor. many are well-heeled, educated parents who think they have enough information from trawling the web...
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Sacha, in reply to
people were clear about what side you were on
Unless they were an aspiring money trader who now has a convenient lapse of memory
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TonyC, in reply to
A-fucking-men
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DexterX, in reply to
Mr Washy was always on his side.
A broad issue like social justice doesn't register with him.
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DexterX, in reply to
Cripes.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
If you have read this far thanks for taking the time, apologies if you are bored shitless, and all the best we all need it.
At its best, this place is about people telling their experience. Your comment just there was one of those times. Thanks.
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For a while now, I've felt that TourismNZ really isn't making enough of the reputation of Kiwi women...
I'm not sure that would go so well with the 100% Pure brand we're spinning overseas.
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What I struggle to get past is the great and apparently sincere speech that BIll English gave at the launch of David Cohen’s book about his autistic son, back when English was in Opposition. In government: not so much.
Did he realise that these services cost money? Real money? Or was he sufficiently disconnected from the first principles he runs the country on (a small state, with limited capacity for intervention in anything)? I ask these as real questions.
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Dear old Bill made strong, sincere commitments to the humanities sector as well, while in opposition.
One almost laughs now.
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Probably another outcome of the tussle between English, Joyce, McCully and other Cabinet players. If we reclassified disability services as motorways or business slush funds, who knows?
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
If we reclassified disability services as motorways or business slush funds, who knows?
Like I always say, our main shortcoming is that we are not able to get people from Wellington to Levin 23 minutes faster. We need to seriously work on that.
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Sacha, in reply to
Very true, if we're going to successfully relocate all the disabled folk to Levin yet preserve their excellent access to responsive govt decision-makers. And to think some would call it a ghetto.
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Hilary Stace, in reply to
Careful Sacha. There was a ghetto of disabled people at Levin for many decades - up to 800 at its height in the early 1970s from small children upwards. It was called the Kimberley Hospital later Centre and it took until 2006 to close it. I drive past it often and think of those who had no identity or choice in their lives to the extent they had no clothes of their own and were called after the name of their dormitory. Attitude had some good coverage of it when doing a documentary on Robert Martin a couple of years ago. The camera panned around the empty buildings while Robert described what life was like there.
(But, on the other hand, it was probably cheaper to keep disabled people ghetto-ised.) -
It will be interesting to see what happens if the predicted late 2011 oil price spike and associated recession hits pre-election. Since our starting point is not far below current record prices, we could see $2.40 - $2.50 at the pump - and that could whack GDP by about 10%.
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Sacha, in reply to
There was a ghetto of disabled people at Levin for many decades
Sshh. You weren't meant to make the connection.
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Sacha, in reply to
if the predicted late 2011 oil price spike and associated recession hits pre-election
You reckon the big pre-borrowing by govt wasn't timed around the election cycle? High currency suppresses imported oil prices nicely.
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Sacha, in reply to
Robert Martin
An amazing man and forever the first intellectually-impaired person to address the United Nations.
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Richard Grevers, in reply to
It's not doing a very good job so far. According to the Ministry of Economic Development's modelling, in a high exchange rate scenario we should be paying $1.75 a litre this year. The model is badly broken
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