My first day in New Zealand today and it’s been great for setting the context. First up I met with Esther Woodbury from the Disabled Persons Assembly New Zealand followed by Cindy Johns from People First New Zealand (who I forgot to photo). Both disabled people’s organisations form part of the coalition of DPOs who […]
Today was a day of downtime, the meetings I’d hoped to pull off didn’t happen so I had some much needed nothingness before a flight to New Zealand. Last night I caught the tram down to St Kilda to see the fairy penguins, the most gorgeous sight. I didn’t even think I particularly liked penguins, […]
Day 11 #WCMTLD and it was an early start and a bus ride up to La Trobe’s Bundoora campus for a 9am coffee with Professor Chris Bigby. Chris is the Director of the Living with Disability Research Centre. A unit committed to not just conducting good quality research, but also to translating and applying that […]
Day 10 #WCMTLD today, feels like time is flying by. Today I visited the Office of the Disability Services Commissioner (ODSC) in Melbourne. I got to spend time with their Systemic Review Team, who are a very newly formed (still forming) team charged with looking into reviewable deaths. The Disability Act 2006 was amended in […]
I took the weekend off from blogging and just enjoyed taking in the rays, wandering the city (I flew down to Melbourne from Sydney on Saturday afternoon), people watching and musing on what I’d heard and thought from week one of #WCMTLD. I know I’ve already said it but I feel so totally and utterly […]
Last day of my first week in Australia, Day 7 of #WCMTLD. I had left my diary clear this morning which I was exceedingly grateful for, my head is buzzing with ideas and reflections and it was good to spend a couple hours in another cafe, Scout’s Honour with a stunning breakfast and some time […]
Day 6 in Australia today and I spent the day at the New South Wales Ombudsman’s office for a training workshop Handling serious incidents in the disability sector. The workshop looked at handling allegations of abuse and neglect in a disability service setting. It covered: Identifying serious incidents – the legislative and policy framework Planning and […]
I’m not sure whether it was coffee consumption, nerves/excitement about today, jetlag or something altogether different but I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I woke feeling a little jaded and stumbled across the road to the cafe for breakfast. Turns out avocado on toast is like the food of superheroes, I felt […]
Pinching myself today, that I’m in Australia, spending dedicated time looking at learning from deaths. Feels somewhat surreal, a real privilege and a huge opportunity. I’ve deliberately kept my focus broad during this trip, trying to combine multiple perspectives, as much as it’s tempting (and possibly safer) to go deep on just one issue, I’ve […]
Day 3 of #WCMTLD today and my first day of face to face meetings. I spent the morning and early afternoon at the New South Wales Ombudsman‘s office, talking with Kathryn McKenzie their Disability Director and team members from the reviewable deaths team and the disability reportable incidents team. One thing I hadn’t expected was […]