Growing good leadership

A new Disabled Leadership Group brought together by Life Unlimited will bring a valuable mix of expertise, lived experience and fresh thinking to help inform the future direction of the organisation and the services it delivers.

Members of the nine-person group have experience covering a range of disabilities, geographic locations and cultural backgrounds. Members include people either living with a disability themselves or supporting immediate whānau with disabilities.

Get to know the members of our Disabled Leadership Group.

The group will have a hands-on role with wide-ranging responsibilities which include reviewing the delivery of disability information to ensure ongoing quality. It will also provide continued input into the development of the Online Information Hub including contributing new content and story ideas.

Another challenge for the Disabled Leadership Group will be the exploration of new ideas for service improvement, plus they will be responsible for testing and providing ongoing feedback on the management of newly-implemented initiatives.

The group will also focus on advocacy, raising any issues or concerns for the disability community on the implementation and management of services and improvement initiatives across the sector.

Mark Brown, Chief Executive Officer

Life Unlimited chief executive Mark Brown said the new Disabled Leadership Group is a welcome addition to the organisation and demonstrates Life Unlimited’s commitment to listening to disabled people’s voices.

“By establishing a Disabled Person’s Leadership Group we intend to underpin the support we deliver and the service improvements we make with input and guidance from people who live with a disability or support a person living with a disability.”

Life Unlimited welcomes Anne Wilkinson, Darya Small, John McIntosh and Joanne Pudney from Hamilton; Freedom Nathan from Te Kuiti; Dan Carswell, Genevieve McLachlan and Elizabeth Taefu from the Wellington region; and Sandra Wood from Gisborne to the Disabled Leadership Group.

My name is Dan Carswell. I have lived both in the community and in residential care over the past 25 years.

I want to be involved in the leadership group as I believe I can add a lot of experience in terms of dealing with caregivers in your own home.

I also believe that more organisations need to have people in leadership roles that use the service that is being provided as it is only those persons that have first hand experience on what is being offered.