News From The Board (February 22nd 2021)

This article contains the latest information about our voucher programmes. However, this is not the latest update from the board – please click here to find our latest articles. 

Tena Koutou Katoa,

We hope you have had a nice summer and managed to have a break at some stage and that those of you in Auckland are keeping home and safe during this lockdown period.

We wanted to update you all with what we have been up and let you know about some of the things that we are currently working on. This year, we started board meetings again in February and have so far had two meetings in February. Our plan going forward is to have fortnightly meetings with at least one in person meeting each month.

A few updates for you:

Strategic Plan

This is in the process currently, we have engaged with the team at Advocacy Answers who work expertly with strategic advice for community organisations, government and businesses.

With combined international and local experience working for corporate organisations, local government and for-purpose organisations, they have some great experience to help develop strategy to rebuild and create positive social change that has real impact.
We are really looking forward to working with Advocacy Answers and the whole board will be workshopping with them in the very near future.

Cerebral Palsy Clinical Network
We have now formalised our involvement with the CP Clinical Network through a memorandum of understanding and are thrilled to be hosting the second ever in-person meeting with the CP Clinical Network.

At this meeting updates will be shared from the workstream leads. The current workstreams include working to improve health services with regards to:

• Timely diagnosis and early intervention for CP.
• Improving the transition of young people with CP from paediatrics into adult health services.
• Ensuring that the voices of children and young people with CP and their families are heard.
• Supporting the development of a sustainable pathway for the NZ Cerebral Palsy Register.
• Supporting the provision of care for diagnosis and understanding of key aspects of specific treatments e.g., SDR & Intensives amongst all DHBs and Ministries.
• Establishing a plan to enhance opportunities for education & networking across the sector.
• Promoting active participation in all aspects of life for people with CP.
• Developing a 5-year Strategic Plan for Cerebral Palsy Health Services.

Society moving into the current age of technology

We recently approved improvements to the way staff are working, either remotely or in the office. It was brought to our attention that many operational staff were using their own devices or the older CPS devices were very much out of date and no longer fit for purpose.

The Board feel it is especially important for our staff to have the right tools required to do their jobs in the most efficient ways possible. We approved a technology overhaul of the societies laptops and desktops which they will have up and running in next little while.

Vouchers

We are currently working on an exciting new streamlined voucher system for organising and processing vouchers. This will make is easier for you to apply for and use vouchers. We hope to have more information about this in the coming months.

In the meantime – from the end of February you will be able to apply for $300 worth of vouchers which will be valid through until the end of June.

You can choose to split the $300 between multiple programs or just choose one program.

When applying through the portal, the value will automatically be split between each programme equally if you choose multiple programs (if you want different amounts allocated you will need to email the sara@cpsociety.org.nz or michael@cpsociety.org.nz for them to manually load your choices)

If you are having any issues with accessing the portal, please get in touch with the team in the office.

Incorporating Te Reo into CPS communications

We recently had some feedback from a member about the use of Te Reo in our communications and are interested in hearing further thoughts or suggestions from members on how we could all work together to integrate Te Reo into the Society communications. We want any information that goes out to be accessible and understandable for all our members.

If anyone is open to being part of a focus group of members in the future for some Society initiatives around this it would be great to have you!

As always, the Board are really keen to keep as connected to members as possible and welcome you all to email us at any time with thoughts, ideas or comments at board@cpsociety.org.nz.

Nga Mihi

Meg, Reuben, Daniel, Renata, Emma, Anthony, Pippa, Merryn.

About: Freedom & Choice