Posts by Hilary Stace
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By the way, most people are deficient in Vitamin D at this time of year when it is hard to get 20 minutes of sunlight on your skin every day. Vit D doesn't cure SAD but it can alleviate it, and lots of other winter conditions.
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I often feel a psychological detachment from my body, a sort of disembodiment that comes from a loss of control I feel over my own health and wellbeing
Yes, I relate to that after decades of enduring chronic asthma and eczema.
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Hard News: Now win the argument, in reply to ,
More disabled teachers generally would be a good idea. I know a teacher who became a paraplegic after a rugby accident but couldn’t get a teaching job .
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For those who want to see a real low decile NZ school and the importance of the technology here is a great little video from a Porirua school.
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There are 100 special ed teachers among those 2000 new teachers according to Chris Hipkins who is the apparent architect of the education policy. Not sure what that actually means in practice but it might mean more RTLBs and that will mean more children and their classroom teachers can get expert help. RTLBs are teachers who work in regional clusters not in specific schools with the non ORS funded kids who have extra learning and behaviour needs (kids on the autism spectrum dominate I hear). They have some really good specialist post graduate training these days too, including autism-specific courses taught by Jill Bevan Brown.
Chris Hipkins has learnt a lot about special education as an electorate MP in an area with a high proportion of students with special educational needs and many schools struggling with inclusion.
What I really care about is getting the best and most inclusive education in your local community school, whatever your learning needs or background. So any policies that work towards that goal are worthy. School donation and lap top initiatives for lower decile schools and more teachers all fit that goal.
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Australian disability activist Stella Young expresses it well http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-02/young-disabling-rorters-more-like-punishing-scapegoats/5565894
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The Abbott government in Australian has cut funding to disability projects including the Ramp Up media programme. The role of the Disability Rights Commissioner at their Human Rights Commission has been disestablished. Graeme Innes, the outgoing Commissioner in the Guardian is critical of disabling policy.
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Political party disability responses. See Anne's question here http://www.ihc.org.nz/campaigns/general-election-2014/
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Was talking to a doctor friend who does vasectomies and terminations. Demand for abortions is falling (probably because of better contraception) and services are being cut back. But because it is a legal process, not just a medical one, it is very well paid. So you would think governments would be keen to make terminations a simple medical procedure like a vasectomy, and remove the legal barriers, and they would save lots of money.
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There is a Ministry of Health database called SOCRATES that holds all the NASC information. Several years ago an enormous amount of disability funding went into establishing it (and questions were asked in parliament) in the apparent belief it would make things equitable and transparent across the various NASCs and regions of NZ (I think there are about 16 different NASCs all independent businesses left over from the 1990s 'health reforms'). We (consumer representatives) were led to believe that the information would be made publicly available. Seems not.