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Growing Voice and Safety

The Growing Voice and Safety services have two main aims. These are to: 

  • increase the focus on the voice, good lives and human rights of disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori, and 
  • reduce the risk of neglect and abuse in disability support services funded by Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People. 

From April to July 2023 Whaikaha engaged with disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori, whānau networks and providers on the design of two new quality improvement services.  

We are very grateful for the input and feedback received during this engagement process and thank everyone who participated. 

Whaikaha is committed to progressing the implementation of two new services: 

  • Growing Voice and Safety - People for Us  
  • Growing Voice and Safety - Assisting Change  

Information in alternate formats

Growing Voice and Safety - People for Us

The Growing Voice and Safety - People for Us service will provide another way for Whaikaha to listen to the voices of disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori. It will help us to better understand what concerns, issues and trends need to be addressed in disability support services. 

People for Us will be staffed by disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori and whānau. They will work with disabled adults who live in residential services and assist those with concerns to follow the relevant pathway to resolve them. Concerns could be related to safety or issues affecting their happiness. 

Over time People for Us will extend from disabled adults who live in residential services to include others. 

Whaikaha will contract with an external organisation(s) to deliver the People for Us service. 

Growing Voice and Safety - Assisting Change

The Growing Voice and Safety - Assisting Change service will be an intensive advisory service. It will work with providers who do not have the capacity and capability to make improvements. 

The service will provide specialist advisors with a diverse range of skill sets and extensive experience. Advisors will be matched to a provider and assist them to fix any specific quality issues. Culturally appropriate matches will be available for kaupapa Māori and Pacific providers.  

These specialist advisors will be sourced from a brokerage service that will be contracted by Whaikaha, and linked to the Whaikaha audit/developmental evaluation programme. 

The seven key outcomes

Feedback and learnings from the engagement process led to the development of seven key outcomes from these two new services: 

  1. Disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori, whānau and families will experience safer lives and increased wellbeing in Whaikaha funded services. 
  2. The access, experience and outcomes achieved are equitable across a range of dimensions, particularly for tāngata whaikaha Māori and their whānau. 
  3. Disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori, and family and whānau members have what they need to be effective People for Us workers. 
  4. The organisation(s) delivering People for Us is led by disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori and includes whānau and family perspectives, is independent, well-connected, effective and achieves equitable outcomes. 
  5. The organisation(s) delivering Assisting Change is led by disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori and includes whānau and family perspectives, is independent, credible, well-connected, and effective. 
  6. Disability support providers are supported to deliver safer services that are aligned with the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) vision and principles. 
  7. Whaikaha has more evidence that the services it commissions are safe and are of high quality. 

How we will be procuring these services

For the People for Us service, organisations are invited to submit a Registration of Interest (ROI) that needs to briefly outline how they will deliver the seven key outcomes, with the exception of outcome five, and meet specific criteria. Organisations that meet the ROI criteria will then be invited to submit a Request for Proposal (RFP). 

More information on submitting a ROI for People for Us is available in the next section.

For the Assisting Change service, organisations will not need to submit a ROI, they will only need to submit an RFP. 

The procurement process for organisations interested in delivering the Assisting Change service is outlined below and will also be linked to the Government Electronic Tenders Service (GETS) external URL website.

The closing date for submissions to this RFP is Friday 23 February 2024 at 5pm.

Register your interest to deliver People for Us

Suppliers can register their interest to deliver People for Us, registrations close 9 February 2024. 

The registration of interest is the first stage of a two stage tender and successful respondents will be invited to submit a more detailed proposal for evaluation. 

To submit a registration of interest you must submit a Response form (DOCX 73KB) to community_admin@whaikaha.govt.nz. 

More information:

Assisting Change RFP - suppliers invited to submit proposals

Whaikaha wishes to engage suppliers to deliver Assisting Change, a provider improvement advisory service linked to the Whaikaha audit / development evaluation programme.

The organisation(s) will source a pool of specialist advisors with a diverse range of skill sets and experience, then act as a broker, matching an advisor to work alongside a provider for a short time to support them to address their specific quality issues.

The closing date for submissions to this RFP is Friday 23 February 2024 at 5pm.

Submissions and questions relating to this project can be emailed to: community_admin@whaikaha.govt.nz

Questions and answers from the January 31 2024 Supplier Briefing

Related documents

Get in touch

If you have any questions about the Growing Voice and Safety services please email community_admin@whaikaha.govt.nz