Disability Community Network

Purpose

Vision

A strong, self-mobilised and collaborative disability sector that makes sense of needs and take collective action to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

Mission

A coherent network of disability organisations, VWOs and other relevant community assets that truly and authentically represent the interests of the disability community

This network will also democratise knowledge production (as knowledge is power, it puts power back in the hands of those close to the ground) and strengthens civil society (by allowing collective action without the need to rely on government resources).

Objectives

1. Knowledge of disability sector through consolidating insights and producing new information

2. Advise and advocate to the government on existing or emerging issues

3. Monitor the implementation of government policy

4. Peer exchange, learning and collaboration among members

This Network aspires to achieve the same functions that a Council might, but without the overheads or the centralised decision-making and bureaucratic structure.

Disability Council	Disability Network
Hierarchical - Chain of Command	Network - Affiliated but Autonomous Organisations
Legitimacy of official positions	Persuasion of peers
Centralised decision-making	Decentralised decision-making
Constitution, Terms of Reference, Bylaws	Objectives, Guiding Principles & Rules
Need Board to redefine	Constantly refined by members
Representative Democracy	Direct Democracy

The Work and Its Uses

1-Knowledge Work: Take stock of information and updating the knowledge base through wiki pages

-collective understanding of the sector is more comprehensive and robust than individual vantage points by themselves

-information on needs, community resources and gaps allows strategic planning for members' own organisations, in response to and coordination with other organisations

2-Policy Advocacy: Deliberate on issues & write position papers representing the views of members

-instead of Enabling Masterplan led by MSF that consults the sector every 5 years, an annual needs & gaps report based on research and deliberation with other members can be sent to MSF

-such analyses is more likely to be taken seriously by government if they represent the collective wisdom of disability organisations and groups, and especially if they arrive at consensus on certain positions

3-Collaboration Among Members:

-members can share resources and collaborate on projects without the need to rely on a central authority

-eg joint research projects, collective fund-raising, sharing venues or pooling manpower etc.

How Will the Network be Run

-Members will decide on agenda items, and Facilitators will help structure each meeting based on the agenda.

-Issues selected for discussion at main meetings should be relevant for the majority of members (e.g. broad themes like Employment or Education). These will be spread out over 4 main meetings (one per quarter).

-Members with an interest in niche issues (e.g Deaf culture, Disability Arts etc) can host subsidiary meetings pulling together those with common interests. Their findings and proposals will then be shared with the main network.

General Guiding Principles

Play-testable; not need to get it all right in the beginning: These principles and rules should be work in progress and seen as such. There is no need to be overly concerned with getting them right if they will continuously be reworked and refined. More important to focus on the work itself, and getting to a set of principles that allow the work and objectives to be done. We expect these principles and rules to be more functional after a year of experimentation.

All-can-contribute: it doesn’t matter who you are, as long as you are interested and have something to contribute, we aspire to find a place and role for you to play that you feel comfortable with

Collaboration across community assets: empowering individuals and organisations to mobilise others operating in their sector, overcoming artificial boundaries (VWO, NGO, social enterprise, self-help groups, cooperatives, faith-based organisations etc) and competition as the only viable operating principle.

Persuasion instead of politics: No need for politics or power plays if there is no need to have one view and everyone move towards it; we can capture the diversity of views

Network Issues to Discuss and Resolve

-Should we devise a system to reward members who contribute to sector knowledge?

-Do we need a formal process to certify or legitimise members or facilitators?

Membership

Membership Criteria and Rules

Roles

Facilitator: [High commitment]

1) Visit NGOs or other organisations part of a particular sector to get them on board;

2) Custodian and curators of knowledge base, translates knowledge of member organisations onto the wiki page;

3) Convene meetings with members to talk though the knowledge base;

4) Liaison with backbone teams that are part of the collaborative to secure support for your social cause (eg meeting rooms, funds for wikithons, communications campaign etc).

Facilitators are 'custodians and curators' of a knowledge base, always on the look-out for ways to expand knowledge into areas that will help practice or policy

Members: [Medium commitment]

Organisation or group that plays a role or has core interest in the disability sector (VWO, NGO, Social Enterprise, Support group etc). Members will share information, show up for meetings, provide inputs and deliberate on issues.

Members are at the core of the Network, and the Network exists to serve them.

Associates & Contributors: [Low commitment]

Associates: Programmes or departments of government agencies can be an associate member (e.g. MSF Disability Division, SGE, NVPC Disability CoLabs).

Contributors: Interested individuals who are able to provide useful inputs to the knowledge base (Researchers, students, caregivers or clients etc.).

These are partners and friends.

List of Members

Facilitators

IPS - Justin Lee

Disabled People’s Association - Marissa

Members

Able

Disabled People's Association

ExtraOrdinary Horizons

[Add link to contact information accessible only to members]

Associates and Contributors

Victor Zhuang - PhD Candidate at Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago

Roshini Prakash - NVPC

NVPC Colabs - Disability

Meetings

Meeting Structure and Rules

General

-Aspire to have quarterly meetings per year: members set agenda and simple polling can be done to prioritise

-All members will automatically be invited to attend. Associates will be invited based on the issue at hand and members can deliberate who they want to invite. e.g. VWOs may not want their funders or regulators present as it may impede forthcoming dialogue or sharing.

-Members will also discuss and source for speakers where their presence is required to shed light on kowledge gaps of interest.

-Between the quarterly meetings, members are free to have separate meetings, commission studies or seek partnerships to investigate or discuss issues not on the main agenda, but will be integrated into the annual needs and gaps report.

-All reports will be sent to members for their inputs and final approval before it becomes 'official' and published online.

-Where a member is not able to make a meeting, they should aspire to send a deputy. Reports will be sent to all members so that they get a chance to provide inputs even if they were unable to attend. (In order not to hold back publication dates, reports will reflect which members who were unable to provide inputs in time, and these rpeorts be amended once they are able to).

-Where members disagree on the content or position taken by the paper there are various options:

1) If there is a majority view, the paper can be written to reflect that, but capturing the organisations who dissent and their reasons.

2) Not publish a position paper if the opinions are relatively split.

3) Publish a paper that reflects the diversity of views and their rationale, so that there is a documentation of the report.

Meeting Structure

PRE-MEETING:

1-Take Stock of Needs and Gaps

2-Convene to Prioritize Knowledge Gaps

3-Set Meeting Agenda for the Year

EACH MEETING:

1-An issue brief will be sent out to members before convening

2-Take stock of knowledge gaps and prioritise them

3-At the meeting, members will deliberate on proposed policy recommendations or advocacy positions: policy or position paper will be written based on deliberations

4-Decide on how to present position if there is no consensus

5-Coordination and division of labour: Follow-up items; who will investigate what?

6-At the end of each session, there will be an opportunity for members to reflect on and suggest amendments to all the various the guiding principles and rules of the Disability Network (Purpose, Membership or Meetings)

AFTER LAST MEETING:

1-Consolidate all findings for Annual Needs and Gaps Report

2-Facilitator will write up and send to all members

3-Once approved by members, report will be published online

Deliverables and Products

1-Issues briefs prior to each session

2-Position papers or policy briefs as a result of each session. There can also be feasibility studies, programme proposals, collective impact plans depending on the interests of the members.

3-A needs and gaps report to be written at the end of the year

Agenda for 2018

Main meetings should be based on broad themes of general relevance to most of our members. For example: Early intervention, education, employment, caregiving, community inclusion etc. Specific or niche issues can also be studied by sub-groups of the network and brought to the Network for incorporation to the annual Disability Needs & Gaps Report.

Meeting 1: Employment?

Date - ?

Venue - LKYSPP

Proposed Agenda

- Take stock of employment landscape; facilitated dialogue based on issue brief (IPS)

- Employment discrimination findings and follow-up: more research or take a position on anti-discrimination legislation? (DPA)

- ? (Invite SGE to update on __)

- ?

Papers

- Issue Brief: Employment Policies and Services for People with Disabilities

- Position paper: Recommendations on Anti-Discrimination Legislation

Follow-up Actions

- ? (eg Survey on employment discrimination commissioned by __)

- ? (eg Employment Sub-group formed to investigate job procurement issues, will update at next Meeting)

Meeting 2: Education?

Date

Venue

Proposed Agenda

- Take stock of Education landscape; facilitated dialogue based on issue brief (IPS)

- Compulsory Education Act and its implications for ramping up services (APSN)

- ?

- ?

Papers

- Issue Brief: Special Education in Singapore

- Position paper:

Follow-up Actions

- ?

- ?

Meeting 3: Community Inclusion?

Date

Venue

Proposed Agenda

- Take stock of Community Inclusion; facilitated dialogue based on issue brief (IPS)

- Present findings on 'What Counts as Inclusion?' from a study commissioned by SGE (IPS & SGE)

- ?

Papers

- Issue Brief: Special Education in Singapore

- Position paper:

Meeting 4: Caregiving?

Date

Venue

Proposed Agenda

- Complete Collective Stock Take of Needs & Gaps (IPS)

Useful References

On building networks

http://www.networkimpact.org/

On how to facilitate good conversations

Some principles of facilitating group dialogue https://www.icasc.ca/resources/holding-space

Disability Councils and what they do

http://www.disabilitycouncil.nsw.gov.au/

On referendums and democratic decision-making

Switzerland's unique form of direct democracy allows groups of citizens to call for national referendums on specific policies if validated signatures of 100,000 Swiss citizens are collected in support of a proposal. Possible to consider a similar mechanism for networks here.

Justifications for running networks like this

From Steven Johnson (2001) Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software: complex systems exhibit emergence because they “solve problems by drawing upon masses of relatively (simple) elements, rather than a single, intelligent “executive branch.” They are bottom-up systems, not top-down. They get their smarts from below. In more technical language, they are complex adaptive systems that display emergent behavior. In these systems, agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies one scale above them: ants create colonies; urbanites create neighborhoods; simple pattern-recognition software learns how to recommend new books. The movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication is what we call emergence” (Johnson 2001: 18)

Tips for giving good feedback at Networks

-be honest

-be specific (explain what you disagree with or don't understand)

-be constructive (suggest how to improve)

-comment on the most important things first