Toolbox

A guide for making a disability program in your local community

Editors: Kalle Könkkölä and Heini Saraste
Translated by Jaana Linna

Why The Standard Rules?

In different parts of the world different kinds of laws and regulations have been drafted to improve the life of disabled people. However, everywhere and in all societies the situation of disabled people is worse than that of non-disabled people. Still disabled people are mostly outsiders or discriminated against in their societies. Over the history of mankind ignorance, neglect, superstition and fear have isolated disabled people with visible or invisible obstacles.

The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities were adopted in the United Nations in 1993. The purpose of Standard Rules is to be an international norm or standard which helps all of us - disabled and non-disabled - to turn our countries into better places to live for all people.

The fury becomes cultivated into energy.

How Do You Act?

Through the Standard Rules you can estimate how your society, your local community and your country respond to the challenges faced by disabled people.

You can point out emerging problems by using Standard Rules as a guide. When you are aware of the Standard Rules, you are wiser and better prepared to stand up for your rights.

Can you find answers to your questions in the Standard Rules? If yes, please contact the officials and politicians in your local community. Tell them about your problems and present them with proposals to solve the problems. Demand an answer from them. Demand a plan to eliminate the problems.

It is important to cooperate with non-disabled people, with other disabled people, with organizations of disabled people and with cooperative authorities who can understand your point of view. Do you already work in a local organization of disabled people? You can also influence through your own organization.

Good things tend to spread (as do bad things).

Be Brave, Be Wise

If your problem is nation-wide please contact government authorities. They represent all people. Contact the ministries, they are also accountable to you. Contact the officials, their salaries are paid by all of us. Cooperate with other activists.

Contact the media together. Make the media familiar with your life and that of the persons close to you, tell them about the everyday life of disabled person. Call, write, make contact. Do not dictate the conditions to the media, but do not allow them to walk over you either.

Do not hesitate. The decision makers are also persons with heart and weaknesses. Especially at the local and municipal level it is useful to contact directly the center of activities.

You can learn from your mistakes.

Three Kinds Of Rules

• What is needed so everybody can participate?

• What are the problems?

• What actions should you take?

The Rules are no juridical norms, but you can refer to them because they are a result of the human common sense of justice. Standard Rules are a tool, they are a reminder and an obligation, they also give us security.

Be tough; do not give up too easily!

Technical And Financial Cooperation

Most disabled people in the world live in developing countries. Solidarity in that direction means not only the ability to give, but it also means the ability receive.

International Cooperation

Your country must actively participate in the international cooperation for the equalization of opportunities of disabled people; in the development of disability policy in the UN, in exchange of experiences with non-governmental organizations, with different occupational groups in the field of disability in research institutes as well as with organizations and councils on disability.

Dear Friend, this workbook can act as a guide as you start drafting your own disability policy program for your local community. It will help you analyze problems and challenges.

• The program is based on Standard Rules, that means The Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, issued by United Nations..

• When drafting the program, it is important that cooperation partners commit themselves to promoting the social status of disabled people. You can set ambitious goals based on the disability point of view, but you cannot reach those goals alone.

• It is worthwhile acknowledging financial realities, because they exist anyway. A realistic plan creates possibilities to enjoy goals that have been reached.

• It is good to keep in mind, that many plans can be implemented with little extra costs. It is possible to reach some goals during a longer stretch of time, as long as the goals are well-planned and regarded as important.

• In the beginning of the workbook you can find more guidance on setting goals and drafting a program. It is our hope that the idea becomes clear towards the end of the workbook, and by mapping the problems you will find your goals and actions. The goals are drafted for a long interval, the actions for the next three years.

• Do not allow the multiplicity of questions depress you, use the questions adapting them to your own needs. Listen to the voice of your local community. Draft the program in your own way, in a way that works for you.

• We hope your local community disability policy program draws attention to, and emphasizes the importance of problems and challenges of disabled people!

1. Information Is Needed

a. Situational Analysis

How much information about disabled people is disseminated in your local community to disabled people themselves, to local authorities, to all citizens (family, school children, business owners, others)?

b. Goals

Who needs information about disabled people, and in what form? How can information become part of peoples actions?

c. Actions

Draft an action program for the next three years. What kind of information is to be disseminated, in what way, and who does it? What is the role of disability council (if there is one), organizations of disabled people, social and health authorities, school, educational authorities, technical authorities, local community authorities, local leaders, etc? What about church and other non-governmental organizations? Does your local media carry stories about disabled people, and if so, what kind of stories? Are disabled people allowed to speak for themselves?

When giving general information, are you including information for disabled people? Is it available in alternate media?

2. Right To Health Care

a. Situational Analysis

Are disabled people getting the same level of health care as everyone else does? i.e. Do they get every access to dentistry, general practitioner s surgery, cancer screening? How much does the health care system in your community cover? Are all the local health care units accessible? Is specialist service available to everyone in your local community? Does any doctor or nurse know sign language? Are there special services available for people with severe disabilities?

Is there acute mental health service available for people who need it? Are there community open care health services available for people with chronic mental illnesses, and if so, what kind of services? Do the health care professionals have general knowledge about disabled people, or are disabled people only patients? How does the early discovery of disability happen in your local community? How far are the special nursing services that are so important to disabled people? How well does occupational health service work as concerns disabled people?

b. Goals

What kind of improvements would you like to have in your local community health care, especially for disabled people? The attitudes and expertise of the staff? Accessibility? Unavailable services? The connections of local health care to any other activities in the local community? Cooperation with disability organizations?

c. Actions

What kind of improvements can you make during the next three years? What are the costs of planned actions? What is realistic? What can disability councils, disability organizations, health care officers, elected officials, local leaders do? (It makes sense to organize a meeting with local health care officers.)

3. Right To Rehabilitation

a. Situational Analysis

What is the quality of rehabilitation in your local community, as concerns disabled people? Are there any community based rehabilitation (CBR) projects? What shortcomings are there? Are some groups excluded? Are rehabilitation services available nearby, or do people have to travel far to get these services?

Are people allowed to choose the place where they prefer to be rehabilitated? Are there daily activities available for mental health clients? Are there sufficient physical therapy services available in the local health center? Is there financial support available for therapy users? What about adaptation training? Are disabled people included in local groups for rehabilitation cooperation? What kind of private services the local community offers? What about the availability of speech therapy, different aids for disabled people, and support services? Who are members of rehabilitation work groups in your local community? Are there technical devices available, and at what cost? Is there any peer support available?

b. Goals

What kind of goals do you set for the rehabilitation services at your local community? What is the role of disability council, disability organizations, local authorities, local business owners? How much additional information about rehabilitation do disabled people and their families need? Are disabled people involved in planning rehabilitation services?

c. Actions

Draft an action program for the next three years. Use other peoples' expertise to ensure the program is realistic, but ambitious. What can disability council, disability organizations, health center, employment officials, employers do? What kind of new rehabilitation services should be started, and to what groups?

4. Right To Support Services

a. Situational Analysis

Are there services prescribed by law for disabled people in your community, and if so, how is the law applied?

• Personal assistants?
• Housing services?
• Interpreter services?
• Mobility services?
• Housing repairs?
• Different forms of support; nutrition, clothing, devices, and aids?
• Adaptation training?
• Counseling and guidance?
• Peer counseling?
• Disability benefits?
• Anything else?

How are support services of intellectually impaired people organized?

• Housing services: how many people are institutionalized, how many people live in small units, how are families supported?
• Employment and day centers: what are the prerequisites for intellectually impaired peoples' independence. How are support services organized for mental health users?
• How much institutional care and how much outpatient care?
• Day centers, employment, organizational activities? What is the role of disabled people themselves in planning and organizing the services?

b. Goals

What do you think are the shortcomings in disability services, and in the support services of intellectually impaired persons and mental health users? What would be an ideal situation?

c. Actions

Draft a three-year-action plan, to eliminate shortcomings and reach part of the goals. Discuss essential goals with disability council, elected officials, local authorities, and discuss how to reach the goals and what kind of commitments can people make. What does everything cost and what can you gain from cutting down institutional care?

5. Right To Accessible Environment And Right To Gain Information

a. Situational Analysis

Which public buildings are accessible?

Do you have access to your local community administration building, church, movie theatre, other theatres, art exhibitions, concert halls, library, administrational offices, schools? Are parks and streets accessible? Are floors slippery? Are streets muddy? Are there places where to take a rest? What about commercial services? What shops are accessible, what are not? What about banks, barbershops, etc. Are there induction loops available?

What is the attitude of building authorities? Is accessibility important or is it a nuisance? Are people aware of building standards? What kind of standards do you have? How well have local designers adapted the disability point of view? Are local disability organizations and disability councils ever asked for statements? Has anyone with a disability had training in understanding construction drawings?

Are the residential buildings in the local community accessible? Do the buildings that have been built by the local community have elevators or large bathrooms, do disabled people have residences only in ground floor, or at least in ground floor?

Access to information: How are disabled people told about things that concern them? Are there services in sign language, is there material in Braille or in cassettes for blind people? What about tape recordings and diskettes? Is there a spirit of open communication in your community, or is there an atmosphere of secrecy and hiding? Are there enough sign language interpreters?

b. Goals?

What buildings should be repaired so that disabled people could use them? What should the building standards be like in the future? How large area of the environment outdoors should be repaired, streets, walkways and outdoor recreation places? What kind of ramp is good?

c. Actions

What central buildings must be repaired during the next three years? What building standards must be revised?

How can communications be improved during the next three years?

Especially communication that is directed to disabled people, what about adapting general communications? What about people with severe disabilities, how can their access to sources of information be improved?

What about cooperation with building authorities and elected officials, how can local disability councils and disability organizations improve accessibility and open communication?

6. Right To Education

a. Situational Analysis

How many disabled children are integrated into mainstream schools? Are there disabled children without access to education? Do they have support services in ordinary schools or are they placed in special classes? What is the attitude of teachers, headmasters, and other education authorities towards children with disabilities? Are the school buildings accessible?

How is the education of intellectually impaired children organized? How many special schools and special classes does your local community have? How is the cooperation between parents, disability organizations and teachers? What services do disabled children have at school and what services do they lack they lack?

Where do deaf children go to school?

Do disabled children have possibilities for higher education - and not only in the traditional professions of disabled people.

b. Goals

What kind of goals do you set for inclusion? What about developing services and repairing buildings? What is flexible cooperation between teachers and other authorities like? What is the best way to organize education of deaf children in an environment that uses sign language?

c. Actions

Draft a three-year policy program based on inclusive education.

How could the children who are now placed in special schools study with other children? What services must be developed, what schools must be repaired? What is the role of disability council, disability organizations, local authorities in renewing the education system?

How can you enhance the possibilities of disabled people to gain further education in vocational schools, community high schools, universities? How can different educational institutions be developed?

7. Work Is A Disabled Person's Right

a. Situational Analysis

What is the general employment situation in your local community?
What is the employment situation of disabled people?
What do the statistics of employment office tell about disabled people?
What kind of services does the employment office offer?
Does the employment office have staff available to serve disabled people?

Are there business owners who are ready to employ disabled people in your local community? If not, why? What about local authorities? What kind of experiences do they have about employing disabled people? Are disabled people considered when designing and building workplaces?

Does your local community offer sheltered employment? What kind of jobs does the sheltered employment have? Are employers aware of disabled peoples possibilities to work?

Do disabled people know about existing support systems to change the workplace or get a personal assistant? What about rehabilitation financed by government? How is vocational rehabilitation organized in your local community? What does it include? How willing are disabled people to work, what prevents employment?

b. Goals

How many jobs should disabled people get, so that their unemployment rate would be the same as the unemployment rate of non-disabled people? What services should be developed at the employment office?

How much information about existing services should be disseminated to disabled people and to employers? What goals do you set to the qualitative and quantitative development of employment services? What goals do you set for vocational rehabilitation? How could private-owned businesses be encouraged to employing disabled people? Are there self-employment training and self-employment programs?

c. Actions

Draft a three-year-program to improve the employment situation of disabled people. Talk with local employment authorities about the development of their activities. How does your local community inform employers and disabled people about disabled peoples possibilities to work?

Discuss with social authorities and health care authorities how could they develop issues related to employment and rehabilitation?

8. Right To Subsistence And Social Security

a. Situational Analysis

What is the social status of disabled people in your local community? Does your local community have lots of disabled people living on a small pension? Are they taken care of? Are there disabled people living in your local community, who cannot afford even the most fundamental things?

Are disabled people granted any kind of financial support? What is the situation of young disabled people? What about mentally disabled people?

b. Goals

Set goals to disabled peoples subsistence and social security. Are there any limits in disabled peoples' social benefits? Are disabled people aware of their social security benefits?

Draft a three-year program to improve the shortcomings in social benefits. Do this in cooperation with social welfare authorities. Also, draft a program to inform disabled people about their social benefits. This can be done in cooperation with local authorities and disability organizations. Part of the process could be discussions with local elected officials, so that they would be aware of disabled peoples' social status in their own local community.

9. Right To Family Life And Personal Integrity

a. Situational Analysis

Are there families where one or both spouses are disabled, living in your local community? Are there families, where disabled parents have children? Do pregnant disabled mothers receive support during their pregnancy? Do disabled teenagers get sex education?

Is fetal diagnosis automatically performed on all pregnant mothers in your local community, or is it performed only on request? Is selective abortion on the ground of an impaired fetus a tradition? Do parents, who are likely to have a disabled child, receive support during pregnancy? Are there biased attitudes towards disability in local community health care?

Is the general attitude of local authorities and professionals in your local community patronizing and domineering, or is it encouraging and supporting? Describe differences between different authorities?

How many disabled people in your local community are institutionalized, especially mentally disabled, intellectually impaired and severely disabled people? In what kind of circumstances do they live in the institutions? Do people living in institutions have possibilities to form relationships, can couples live in the same room if they wish ? Can disabled people living in institutions decide themselves on their daily schedule? How are disabled people protected from becoming the subjects of abuse by the staff in institutions?

Are coercive measures used in institutions, and if so, what kind of measures? What about those places, where people stay only during daytime?

b. Goals

Set goals based on the situational analysis.

c. Actions

Draft a three-year policy program based on situational analysis, in cooperation with social and health care authorities and organizations. How are disabled peoples' families supported, or families who have disabled children? How are disabled peoples' freedom of choice or privacy improved in institutional care?

10. Right To Enjoy Culture

a. Situational Analysis

Do disabled people have possibilities to enjoy cultural events? Is non accessibility a problem? What about blind people in art museums, is touching the art objects allowed? Do museums offer tours in sign language or interpreted tours for deaf people? Do concert halls or theatres have induction loops for hard of hearing people? Can hard of hearing people read the scripts in advance? Are audio descriptions of performances available?

Are disabled people taken into account in educational establishments? What about art schools, are disabled peoples needs considered of? Do disabled people have cultural pursuits of their own in your local community? Are disabled peoples cultural activities supported in addition to other cultural activities? Are disabled peoples cultural activities considered as real culture, or just as rehabilitation and therapy?

b. Goals

Set long-range goals based on the text above.

c. Policy Program

Draft a three-year policy program based on previous text.

11. Right To Recreation And Exercise

a. Situational Analysis

Accessibility: Are sport centers, sport grounds, gyms, miniature golf courts, fishing places, nature tracks, ice stadiums, public swimming pools, discotheques, etc. accessible?

Do the disability organizations and sports clubs in your local community organize physical exercise for disabled people? Is physical education available for disabled children? Do disabled children have possibilities for exercising and playing with non disabled children? Are disabled people accepted in non disabled peoples' organizations?

b. Goals

Set long-term goals.

c. Action

Draft a three-year policy program.

12. Right To Practice Religion

a. Situational Analysis

Are churches, chapels, and parish meeting halls accessible? When it comes to attitudes, are congregations and religious communities open to disabled people? Is literature available in Braille, cassettes, and diskettes, do staff know sign language or is there interpreting available? Are there disabled employees and laymen?

Set long-term goals.

c. Action

Draft a three-year policy program in cooperation with a religious community.

13. Information And Study

a. Situational Analysis

Has your local community studied the circumstances of disabled people? Have disabled people participated in this study? Has your local community disseminated information to disabled people about their rights and possibilities? What about existing services and shortcomings in services? Are disabled people informed about future plans of their communities, like new buildings, community plans, budgets? Do local newspapers write about disability related issues, what about disabled people themselves?

b. Goals

Set long-term goals based on the previous text.

c. Action

Draft a policy program.

14. Political Decision Making And Planning

a. Situational Analysis

Is the local authority aware of the UN Standard Rules? Can disabled people become elected officials in your local community, do they keep in touch with organizations and other disabled people?

Are political decision makers aware of disability issues, do disability councils and disability organizations frequently discuss with decision makers? Are local authorities aware of disabled peoples' needs? Are political meetings/debates accessible to disabled people?

b. Goals

Draft a three-year policy program.

15. Legislation

Local community is not authorized to act as a legislative body. Ideas about local policy that really work for disabled peoples' rights can be presented to national coordination committee of disability organizations, if there is one, to disability organizations themselves, ministries or government.

16. Economic Policy

a. Situational Analysis

Are disability issues taken into account in the budget of your local community? Have you compared the costs of institutional care and the costs of living at home? What are the human rights that you cannot measure with money?

b. Goals

Draft a long-term plan based on the previous text.

c. Action

Draft a three-year action plan.

17 Coordination Of Disability Issues

a. Situational Analysis

What kind of disability council (if any) does your local community have, are there council members who are disabled themselves, are they active? Does the council have a secretary? Are the council s statements taken seriously? Does the council have goals for disability policy? Has the council set goals before? Is the communication good between local authorities and disability organizations?

b. Goals

Draft a target program based on the previous text.

c. Action Plan

Draft a three-year action plan.

18. Disability Organizations

a. Situational Analysis

What disability organizations are active in your local community, are there any disability groups that lack representation, are the organizations active? Are disabled people in the majority of the members of these organizations? What are the prerequisites for the activities of the organizations? Do the organizations have offices or paid staff? Does your local community support the work of disability organizations? Are disabled people themselves, and parents of disabled children fully involved in the decision-making and activities of disability organizations? Describe the activities of the organizations, what is your opinion of the activities, what should be done? What about cooperation between disability organizations? Are disabled people themselves having an impact on policies and programs that directly affect them?

b. Goals

Draft a long-term plan.

Draft a three-year action plan.

19. Staff Training

a. Situational Analysis

What is the education level of staff serving disabled people, and are they aware of disability equality issues? Does your local community organize staff training in cooperation with disability organizations? What about the private sector? Do disabled people receive training that enables them to act as spokespersons in disability issues?

b. Goals

Set long-term goals.

c. Action

Draft a three-year action plan.

20. Monitoring Disability Issues On National Level

Monitoring disability issues on national level is a task of national coordination committee of disability organizations and government authorities, but it is also important to report on the situation of disabled people and the development of that situation in local communities, where people actually live.

Has the UN Standard Rules had any impact on the situation of disabled people in your local community? Develop a way to report disability issues on national level, and to national disability organizations.

Toolbox is available at:

PO Box 23
00033 State Council
Finland

Phone 358-9-1604311
Fax: 358-9-1604312
email kalle.konkkola@stm.vn.fi

Editors: Kalle Könkkölä and Heini Saraste
Translated by Jaana Linna