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Whaikaha Ministry of Disabled People View our
NZSL name

Early intervention support services

The Ministry provides and oversees supports related to early intervention for tāngata whaikaha Māori and disabled people who are early in life, in life transitions, or in vulnerable situations, to enable them to live good lives.

Quality and safeguarding

The Ministry aims to ensure all quality and safeguarding mechanisms are implemented according to good-quality management principles, underpinned by Te Tiriti o Waitangi and EGL principles.

The Ministry has delivered the following mechanisms, programmes and initiatives to improve quality and safeguarding:

  1. Reviewed 182 critical incident reports, 11 death reports and six complaints on average each month, and took appropriate actions: updated and published complaints operational guidance.
  2. Commissioned annual evaluations of a risk-stratified sample of contracted providers and conducted investigations in response to serious complaints, incidents, deaths or quality concerns. In 2023/24, the Ministry commissioned 221 evaluation days, which covered 68 contracted providers.
  3. Commissioned a DAPAR prototype, a new disabled-led community-led team of specialists in family violence and safeguarding from abuse of disabled adults referred by the Ministry and NASCs. This prototype builds capacity and capability across communities, agencies and sectors to be responsive to the situations of abuse of disabled people.
  4. Published the Quality and Safeguarding Framework and contracted Sapere to work with the Ministry, the disability community and sector to research how to improve the Framework to ensure disability supports are of high quality and that disabled people and their whānau are safeguarded from violence, abuse and neglect.
  5. Commissioned People for Us, a peer visiting service for disabled adults who live in residential services to find out if they are safe, living a good life, and experiencing high-quality support, and to find the best way to resolve safety or wellbeing concerns.
  6. Completed the design and procurement of Assisting Change, a new quality and safeguarding initiative to support disability providers to address and resolve specific quality issues and improve the quality of their services. This initiative matches advisors with the right skills, including Kaupapa Māori and Pacific advisors, to providers to improve the quality of their services.