Disabled Customer Working Group
We are currently seeking expressions of interest for people to join our pilot Kāinga Ora Disabled Customer Working Group. The group would be made up of 5 – 8 members located throughout New Zealand.
The purpose of this group is to test, explore, input, and provide lived experience insights from disabled customers living in a Kāinga Ora home. These unique experiences and insights will inform our operational, planning, and strategic initiatives.
The working group will aim to:
- suggest new ways to strengthen and improve our support of disabled customers and their households.
- discuss new ways of working that could benefit all our customers and the people we support.
Your input will help us provide better support to disabled customers living in Kāinga Ora homes.
Who are we looking for?
We are seeking expressions of interest from:
- disabled customers of all ages who are currently living in a Kāinga Ora home (you don't need to be the primary tenant, you can be a regular household member).
- we are also looking for disabled parents or caregivers, as well as caregiving whānau of disabled children and adults living in Kāinga Ora homes.
Share insights and knowledge
You would support Kāinga Ora by sharing your thoughts and lived experiences of disability. This would include raising important and/or pressing challenges that disabled people face. You would also share your opinions on new or existing ways of addressing these challenges.
Maintain relevant networks
You may already have good relationships with other groups, individuals and organisations that are related to disabilities or disabled people. This might include communities of disabled people, advocacy groups or government organisations.
Meet regularly
This group will meet up to four (4) times per year, with meetings expected to start in January 2025, and finish in June 2025.
Meeting times and days will be flexible and accessible to meet your needs, but you will need to be available for at least 3 out of the 4 meetings.
You will be given plenty of time in advance to prepare for each meeting. This may include reading, researching, discussing ideas with others, and noting down your own thoughts to share with the group.
To do well in this group, you will be:
- a forward-thinking person that can advocate for other Kāinga Ora customers living with disability, and who has lived experience of one or more disabilities.
- committed to working with other group members and meeting with them in person and online or over the phone.
- willing to discuss a range of topics related to past, present and future experiences related to living with a disability.
- able to provide real life examples of the impacts of living with disability while living in a Kāinga Ora home.
- motivated to share your experiences and knowledge of the support, services or impacts on the wider community.
- excited to make a difference for disabled customers living in Kāinga Ora homes.
Submit your expression of interest
We are seeking applications from Kāinga Ora social housing customers with a wide range of abilities and experience with disability.
Applications are now closed
Through our existing Accessibility Policy, Kāinga Ora is fully committed to improving the accessibility of our homes and supporting our disabled customers to be able to live well in their homes and communities without barriers.
From a customer perspective: Our disabled customers have told us they wanted a way to share their thoughts, insights and ideas on some of the key areas which specifically impact them and their lives. For example: universal design features, improvements around the accessibility of service delivery, improvements to the current housing modifications processes, data capture and collection.
From a Kāinga Ora perspective: Establishing a Disabled Customer Working Group supports our ongoing commitment to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)(external link) and recognises the principles and outcomes that underpin our existing Accessibility Policy. By bringing together customer insights and perspectives, the Disabled Customer Working Group will enhance our understanding of how best to support all our disabled customers and demonstrate our commitment to improving overall customer wellbeing.
Kāinga Ora strives to continuously improve and strengthen our approach, services and practises for all our customers, including disabled people. As part of this ongoing improvement work, we are developing a new Kāinga Ora Customer Strategy.
We are proposing the following academic definition of disability which will change and evolve over time.
Disability definition
Disabled people are people who have long-term physical, cognitive, intellectual, neurological, or sensory impairments including neurodiverse conditions such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. Impairments do not need to be formally diagnosed for someone to be disabled.
Disabled people and their champions refers to disabled people and their family, whānau, hapu, iwi, carers, and community. We take a collective view of the impact disabling barriers have, recognising that although individuals have impairments, they are part of a whānau or a family, and part of an iwi and/or a community. We recognise the role of all whānau, family, caregivers, iwi, and community members to support each other as time and circumstances change.
A social and rights-based model should also be used when working with people experiencing mental health and addiction. We acknowledge that there are different views within disability and mental health communities about where mental health sits within a definition of disability. This definition is a prototype so it can evolve alongside communities thinking.
Page updated: 16 September 2024