| Facing the Future Individualisation event great success |
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| Written by Avril |
| Wednesday, 02 November 2011 |
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For more information on our evening, please see disabilityinfo.ie. The Irish government is currently looking for submissions on the future of disability policy in Ireland, through a survey on the night, we gathered valuable research and feedback which we are compiling into a submission for government. See http://www.dohc.ie/consultations/open/disability_policy_review/ We will be posting our submission on disabilityinfo.ie We would like to thank everyone involved in our evening and especially Lily O’Brien Chocolates who provided a box of chocolates for everyone in the audience! We look forward to seeing you at our next event. Best wishes as always,
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Our Facing the Future: Individualisation event last week went really well. Kathryn, Emer and I were nervous as we don’t organise events like this on regular basis! We were delighted with the attendance of more than 230 people.
Minister of State Kathleen Lynch introduced our evening, giving us the government’s perspective on how things will change in the disability sector. We then had a very interesting presentation from Bairbre Nic Aongusa Director of the Office of Disability and Mental Health, outlining planned reform of disability services. The stars of our evening were family members, Seamus Greene, Nora Johnston, Catherine Finneran, Thecla Farrell and our self advocate Lisa McNabb, accompanied by her key worker Theresa Nolan. They shared their stories and inspired us of how they have ‘individualised’ the services they receive.
I’m Avril, married to Robert and I’m Mum to 3 kids, Stephen, Michael and Rachel. Stephen has special needs (he has a rare chromosomal disorder). We can see he has lots in common with children on the autistic spectrum and children with down syndrome. As well being a Mum, I’m an advocate/lobbyist for those with disabilities. I feel strongly about the importance of including Stephen is as many everyday activities and I have created the Off We Go! series of books to help Stephen and kids like him manage with everyday events.
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