NDA Annual Conference 2011 speakers

Peter McKevitt

Peter McKevitt has given most of his working life to the provision of services for people with disabilities. On developing his management skills in industry, Peter has for the past 28 years worked in a senior management capacity within the RehabGroup, as a Regional Director of Vocational Training Services and as General Manager Midlands/North East for RehabCare, which provides a wide range of health and social care services. Peter has served as a board member of Independent Living Community Services, Disability Federation of Ireland, Rehab Foundation, the Combat Poverty Agency and is currently Chairperson of the NDA.

Siobhan Barron

Siobhan Barron is the Director of the National Disability Authority (NDA) since 2006. Prior to this she worked in the Disability Equality Unit of the former Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform where she worked on the development of the Disability Act 2005 and the National Disability Strategy. She represented the Department on intergovernmental disability committees at international level including the Council of Europe and European Commission. Siobhan is also a member of the National Council on Special Education. Community and independent living are a core focus of the NDA’s work as the advisory body to Government on disability matters.

Morning sessions

Bairbre Nic Aongusa

Bairbre Nic Aongusa was appointed in January 2008 as the first Director of the Office for Disability & Mental Health. Based in the Department of Health, the Office was set up by Government to bring a more integrated approach to policy and services for people with disabilities and mental health difficulties. Key priorities for the Office at present include the completion of a major Value for Money and Policy Review of disability services and the introduction of statutory regulation and inspection of residential facilities for people with disabilities. Prior to taking up her current position, Bairbre was Deputy Director of the Office of the Minister for Children. She was Principal Officer in the Mental Health Unit of the Department of Health & Children from 2000–2006. Bairbre was also a member of the Expert Group on Mental Health Policy, which produced A Vision for Change (2006).

Professor Caroline Glendinning

Caroline Glendinning is Professor of Social Policy at the University of York’s Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU) and a member of the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. She is an Associate Director of the NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) School for Social Care Research and leads SPRU’s programme of SSCR (School for Social Care Research) funded projects. Caroline is Chair of the UK Social Policy Association, 2008–2011. From 2004–2011 Caroline led SPRU’s Department of Health funded research programme “Choice and Independence Across the Lifecourse”.

Professor Gerard Quinn

Gerard Quinn is the Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the NUI Galway School of Law. Called to the Irish Bar in 1983, he holds a masters (LL.M.) and doctorate in law (S.J.D.) from Harvard Law School. His specialisation is international and comparative disability law and policy. He is a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission and helps co-ordinate the work of National Human Rights Institutions worldwide on disability issues. He led the delegation of Rehabilitation International (RI) during the UN Working Group that elaborated the basis for the new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He has worked in the European Commission (as a civil servant), and held a number of posts such as Director of Research for the Irish Government’s Law Reform Commission and Vice President of the European Committee of Social Rights (Council of Europe). He sits on various advisory boards dealing with disability law and policy issues such as SOROS-OSI (George Soros Open Society Institute, Washington, DC), Disability Rights Fund (Boston, MA), European Foundation Centre Consortium on Disability (Brussels), European Coalition for Community Living (London), and Interights (London).

Annette Bauer

Annette Bauer is Research Officer at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) since June 2010.

Her research is focused on the economic analysis and evaluation of preventative intervention in the mental and social wellbeing area. Current and future research examines the economic and political context of community-capacity-building programmes in England, Germany and in a wider European context. Over the coming years, she is aiming to explore questions such as what are the costs, outcomes and economic consequences of community-capacity programmes and what is their role in contributing to an affordable provision of welfare, in particular in an ageing society.

Her work over the last year included cost analysis in the parenting and child development area, economic modelling of early intervention to reduce depression in mothers, and the economic analysis of community capacity-building programmes.

Annette holds a Masters in Health Policy, Planning and Finance from the LSE and a Masters in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Münster in Germany. She begins her PhD in October at the LSE.

Before Annette joined PSSRU, she worked on developing formal and informal support provision for people with mental health problems, addictions and physical long-term conditions. In Germany, Annette has worked as a research consultant in hospital and healthcare management for the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Valerie Bradley

Valerie Bradley is President of the Human Services Research Institute and has guided it to become a leading resource for public managers in human services across the USA. After getting her Masters in Political Science, she helped develop landmark legislation in mental health and developmental disabilities. Ms. Bradley authored a book on deinstitutionalisation, and was co-director of a 5-year study of the closure of Pennhurst State Center. She explored best practices in quality improvement, worked to enrich quality assurance systems, and edited 2 volumes on quality assurance. With the Administration on Developmental Disabilities and U.S. Department of Education, Ms. Bradley led efforts to organise families to initiate legislation that established flexible, family-centered community supports. Ms. Bradley helped the Institute to collaborate with the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities, resulting in the creation of National Core Indicators—a performance measurement system that facilitates comparisons and that generated a database of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Ms. Bradley was Chair of the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities, and President of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. She has received numerous awards including the Compass Award from the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services.

Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson is Director of the Mamre Family Support Association in Brisbane, Australia, which has been assisting families to self-manage funding and directly employ support staff for over ten years. Mamre has developed a philosophy of the “natural authority” of families in the care and support of their loved ones, which underpins its radically innovative work. Mamre believes that, regardless of capacity or skill, families have a natural authority and are entitled to influence the direction of their family member’s life, if they have remained faithful and committed to that person's development and well-being. Mamre intends to be a radical Christian community response to the expressed needs of families, rather than a professional service response.

Afternoon workshop: “Using assistive technology to participate fully in the community”

Dr Gerald Craddock

Dr Gerald Craddock is the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (CEUD), a state body setup by the Irish government in 2007. The Centre’s role is in developing standards, infusing Universal Design into educational curricula and raising awareness about Universal Design. The Centre’s staff expertise is in the areas of Information Technologies, Products/Services and the Built Environment. It is part of the National Disability Authority (NDA), which is the lead state agency on disability in Ireland.

Prior to taking on this role, Ger was head of an Assistive Technology department which was part of a national rehabilitation centre. Dr. Craddock is a visiting lecturer at a number of the universities in Ireland. His primary degree is in Electronic Engineering and his PhD is in Disability Studies.

Stephen Johnson

Stephen has held a number of policy roles in the UK Department of Health, including system reform, establishing PCTs (primary care trust), commissioning, workforce planning, NHS (National Health Service) pay reform and, since the Summer of 2008, Head of Long-Term Conditions. Prior to joining the Department ten years ago, Stephen worked in the NHS in both provider and commissioner roles. This includes experience in primary care, general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, A&E (accident and emergency), theatres, learning disabilities, performance management and joint working with local authorities.

Dara Woods

Dara Woods is an Information Executive at the Citizens Information Board, where she has responsibility for the Assist Ireland website. This website provides information on aids and appliances available in Ireland for older people and people with disabilities. She has been interested in Assistive Technology from an early age and has completed a number of specialised Assistive Technology courses to keep up-to-date with new developments in this area.

Elfrieda Carroll

Elfrieda Carroll is the recently appointed Manager of Sign Language Interpreting Service (SLIS). She has returned to work in the Deaf community after an 11-year absence during which she worked in frontline service in the drugs and homeless sectors. Although her signing skills have become rusty over the years, she still remembers enough signs to be understood (or so she hopes). SLIS, as the National Sign Language Interpreting Agency, is funded through the Citizens Information Board, with the mission “to promote, represent, advocate and ensure the availability of quality interpretation services to Deaf people in Ireland”. Its overall goal is to ensure Deaf people can easily exercise their rights and entitlements under the Equal Status and Disability Acts and access their rights and entitlements to public and social services.

SLIS’s 2011–2014 Strategy covers five aims and objectives:

• Promoting and advocating for the right to high quality interpreting services—particularly in relation to the interaction of Deaf people with State agencies and services
• Promoting best practice in the field of sign language interpreting and advocating quality standards among interpreters and their client organisations
• Meeting social interpreting needs—which might otherwise remain unmet
• Actively working towards the introduction of new technologies with the potential to improve the quality of interaction for Deaf people
• Facilitating the delivery of a national emergency sign language interpreting service.

Elaine Grehan

Based in Meath, Elaine Grehan is married to a Deaf man with three hearing young children. Originally from Longford, she is the youngest of ten siblings; eight of them are Deaf. Their first language is ISL (Irish Sign Language). After her education in St Mary’s Cabra, Elaine challenged her way through her third level education and previous employments. After ten years’ working in Aer Lingus, she followed her dream in becoming an advocate. Today she works in the advocacy service, known as Deaforward based in the Irish Deaf Society (IDS) for eight years as an Advocacy Manager and with her two staff, they work together in empowering and educating Deaf people about their rights and increasing Deaf awareness to the mainstreamed society. She is involved in the exciting project, “Remote Interpreting Service” (RIS) where IDS, DeafHear and Sign Language Interpreting Service (SLIS) are in partnership in providing better access between service providers and Deaf people.

Mary Connolly

Mary joined the Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI) in the last 6 months as the Practice Development Officer. Her work centred around quality assurance in the provision of person centred care throughout ASI Day Care, Home Care and Respite Services. Part of her role also involves advancing the use of assistive technology/telecare in homes by ASI service users nationally.

Mary’s interest in ageing began at undergraduate level in the University of Limerick and she went on to study both Gerontology and Physiotherapy at Masters level in Kings College London. Mary has worked with the ageing communities of both London and Dublin in clinical and community settings. Mary has a particular interest in independent living, fall and fracture prevention and true person centred care for people living with dementia.

Lisa Domican

Lisa Domican wanted to enable people with a communication difficulty, to be able to express themselves independently, through the provision of education and innovative communication technologies. She developed a simple picture communication App in collaboration with a successful Games Developer that allows non-verbal people with Autism and other disabilities to communicate effectively, by building semantic sequences from relevant images to form sentences. Her company, Grace App Communication, sets out to demonstrate that independent communication support can be affordable, accessible and adaptable.

Afternoon workshop: “Sexuality, Parenting and Family Relationships”

Gert Job

Gert Job worked as a Social Worker in Germany, where he obtained an equivalent of a Masters in Education with focus on adult and sex education. Gert moved to Ireland in 1988. He worked in St. Michael’s House as a Sexuality Specialist for 10 years. Gert has been involved in training and development projects with a variety of Disability Services, Parents’ Organisations, Special Schools, and Colleges as a staff trainer, sexuality educator, independent consultant, or lecturer for almost two decades. Gert is currently employed as a Social Worker in a service for people with physical disabilities in Dublin.

Inclusive Research Network

The Inclusive Research Network (IRN) is a group of researchers and supporters from all over Ireland. All of the Inclusive Research Network have research experience. Some have learning disabilities and some are paid professional researchers. This group was started in 2008. IRN members work as a team doing research tasks. These include:

• thinking about the research topic
• choosing the research questions
• getting the data (doing interviews, running focus groups, doing surveys)
• presenting the results of the research at conferences.

The IRN is sponsored by the National Institute for Intellectual Disability and the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies. They do research about things important to them, for example, places where they live and relationships.

Patricia Rickard-Clarke

Patricia Rickard-Clarke is a Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission. Formerly, she was a partner in McCann FitzGerald Solicitors. She was the lead Commissioner with regard to the Commission’s work on Vulnerable Adults and the Law (which includes the reform of the law on Capacity). She is Chair of the Law Society’s Mental Health and Capacity Task Force. She is a member of STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners).

Dr Harriet Clarke

Dr Harriet Clarke is Director of Doctoral Research in the School of Social Policy and lectures in social research and social policy. Harriet joined the Institute of Applied Social Studies in September 2001 from the University of Leicester where she was a researcher in adult social care. At the University of Birmingham she has contributed to social work, social policy and social research education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Harriet supervises PhD students within the Institute of Applied Social Studies. She provides support to postgraduate taught students on research ethics and supervises taught course dissertations and doctoral research. Themes within currently supervised work include adult social care, supporting paid carers, and whole family approaches in policy and practice. Harriet is particularly interested in the ways in which policy makers in Adults’ services and Children’s services seek to develop strategies and approaches which attempt to bridge “the gap” which individuals and families can experience when seeking support. Much of Harriet’s research is focused on lived experiences of disability and impairment (including mental distress) and on individual and family experiences of social care and health services.

Beth Tarleton

Beth Tarleton is a Senior Research Fellow with the Norah Fry Research Centre in the University of Bristol's School for Policy Studies. Beth joined the Centre in 1998, is a qualified primary school teacher and has been involved in supporting adults with learning disabilities for many years. Beth has undertaken research in a wide range of topic areas including transition, short breaks (respite care), easy information and supported housing. Beth’s interests include inclusive research and the development of accessible information. Beth co-ordinates the “Working Together with Parents Network” which aims to improve policy and practice in supporting parents with learning difficulties and has undertaken research in this area.

Beth’s other research projects include an evaluation of a specialist service supporting parents with learning difficulties and a research project about the process of transition for young people with special needs in one Local Authority. Beth is unit tutor for the “Citizenship and Participation” unit on the “Inclusive Theory and Practice — Empowering people with learning disabilities” MSc Level course. She is currently supervising dissertations for MSc and DEd Psychology students.

Afternoon workshop: “Choice and Control: Person Centred Budgets in the UK”

Cate Hartigan, D. Gov, BSc (Hons), RGN

Cate is a native of Wexford and is a registered nurse having trained in the UK. Cate moved into general management in 1994 and returned to Ireland to live in 1999, working in the Eastern Health Board and the East Coast Area Health Board, primarily in Child Care and also in services for Older People, acute hospitals and emergency planning.

Cate worked on the Change Management Team for the Health Service Reform Programme from its inception in November 2003 and was subsequently appointed Assistant National Director of Primary, Community and Continuing Care for the Health Service Executive (HSE), with responsibility for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. Cate also worked as Acting National Director of Corporate Planning and Control Processes for the HSE.

In January 2011 Cate was appointed as Assistant National Director, Disability Services, HSE.

Justin Hammond

Justin Hammond is the Project Manager for Leicester City Council’s Right to Control Trailblazer; this Government funded pilot programme introduced personalisation across adult social care, housing related support and employment services, covering 7 local authority areas across England.

Initially starting work as care assistant due to his dyslexia and then moving in to advocacy, Justin quickly learnt that supporting others to reach their potential was something he was both passionate about and could make a carer out of. During the past 10 years, Justin has lead an award winning innovative information and consultation service in Leicester city council aimed at disabled people and their family carers. The project utilised information technology and multi-media techniques, including DVD production, to engage people with a variety of disabilities to provide information to them in a way that’s exciting and engaging.

In 2009 Justin was seconded to the East Midlands Department of Health to lead employment initiatives for people with learning disabilities and mental health conditions. During this 2-year period, Justin challenged the barriers to employment across all sectors, making the East Midlands one of most improved employment areas for people with learning disabilities in the country.

Jude Wells

Jude Wells is Service Manager for Personalisation and Consultation in Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council. Jude has worked in Adults Social Care since 1984 where she started her career in the voluntary sector before moving to work in Central Manchester for 12 years as a psychiatric social worker and then as a team manager in Moss Side.

Since moving to Stockport she has worked in a number of project management roles that have involved significant service redesign.

For the last few years she has been working to deliver the Putting People First programme that has involved implementing new personalisation models to support greater choice and control. This involves significant work with service users and carers to redesign the current customer journey to deliver a more person centred approach. See Stockport Adult Social Care for more information.

Stockport in partnership with 4 other Greater Manchester local authorities is one of only 7 national Trailblazers taking forward the implementation of Right to Control in partnership with the Office for Disability Issues.

Sarah Ward

Sarah Ward has worked in health and social care for over 25 years. She started working in a small school for children with disabilities in the 1980s, and that prompted her to apply for nursing in the learning disability field. After qualifying, she worked in the independent sector and then in the management team in a Local Authority’s respite unit for children. At the end of the 1990s, she completed her social work training and worked in various adult social care teams across Hartlepool. She worked in direct payment development, and progressed to working on personal budget development. She is now the Social Care Transformation Manager in the Adult and Community Services Department of Hartlepool Borough Council.

Throughout Sarah’s career, she has been aware of the difficulties in providing everyday, practical, individualised responses to people’s needs …so the personalisation agenda is music to her ears.

Afternoon workshop: “Building safe communities”

Éimear Fisher

Éimear Fisher is the Executive Director of Cosc, the National Office for Prevention of Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence. A career civil servant, Éimear has worked in a wide range of posts from central Departments to State agencies. Most of these have been in the justice area including the Legal Aid Board. Éimear also worked for many years in the Courts Service—where she served as Registrar in the Dublin Circuit Family Law Court, the Dublin Civil and Criminal Circuit Courts and the Central Criminal Court—and in Policy divisions in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Prior to taking up her current post, her work focussed on cross-cutting issues, including an assignment as Deputy Director of the National Children’s Office, and a management position in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform where she led efforts to streamline the State’s assistance to victims of crime.

Dr Chih Hoong Sin

Dr Chih Hoong Sin is Principal at the Office for Public Management (OPM). He heads up OPM’s evaluation work and has joint lead responsibility for equality and diversity. He directed the impactful study for the Equality and Human Rights Commission on targeted violence and hostility against disabled people in Great Britain. This research contributed to the Commission’s decision to launch a Formal Inquiry, the final report of which has recently been published. More recently, Chih Hoong directed the study informing Mencap’s “Stand By Me” campaign aimed at tackling hate crime against people with learning disabilities. He has been working closely with a range of public bodies and voluntary and community sector organisations in relation to disability hate crime and hate crime more generally. He was Guest Editor of a special issue of the journal, Safer Communities, looking at the similarities and differences across the different types of hate crimes; and also convened a national hate crime conference: “No Place for Hate”. Prior to joining OPM, Chih Hoong was the Head of Information and Research at the Disability Rights

Doris Rajan

Doris Rajan is Director of Social Development and Public Education at the Canadian Association for Community Living. Doris has a Masters degree in Social Work with a specialisation in Social Policy, Research, and Social Development. Doris has worked on non-profit projects that focus on people with disabilities, ethno-racial people, immigrants and refugees, First Nations’, Métis and Inuit people, seniors and women. She has focused on qualitative community-based research projects with international, national, provincial/territorial, and local level organizations in the health and social services sectors particularly in Canada. This has involved identifying and consulting the target populations for developing strategies and resources to address their socio-economic needs. Doris has written many evidence-based, community-designed, practical, training resources, and advised NGOs about designing and conducting qualitative community-based research and development strategies.

Doris has taught social research and community development courses at post-secondary institutions. She has an extensive list of academic, public, and community-based publication credits, along with training manuals, guidelines and resources. She is a plain language expert.

Doris is also a professional actress, playwright/screenwriter, producer, and film-maker. Doris was Creative Consultant on Pierre Tétrault’s and the National Film Board of Canada’s “This Beggar’s Description”. She produced and co-wrote “The ‘R’ Word”, a documentary about people with intellectual disabilities and societal inclusion.

Lastly, in keeping with her mid-life crisis, she has finally decided to begin her PhD in 2012!