Service Learning COP

Purpose

Sharing and mutual support for service learning offices from different Institutes of Higher Learning

Vision

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Mission

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Objectives

• Collectively mapping out the needs and gaps of the disability sector
• Providing inputs to the government on existing or emerging issues
• Peer exchange, learning and collaboration among partners

Products of the COP 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 partners' own organisations, in response to and coordination with other organisations
   • Partners will get user ids that allow them to directly edit the wiki pages if they want to. This allows the wiki pages to be constantly updated with new information partners think will be pertinent to share with one another.
2. Policy Advocacy
   • Deliberate on issues & write Policy Briefs representing the views of partners
   • Partners will get reports of the issue to be discussed before every Roundtable to establish an overview of basic information. This will allow the facts to be quickly established and corrected before moving on to the deliberation of key issues.
   • Instead of Enabling Masterplan led by MSF that consults the sector every 5 years, this can culminate in an Annual Needs & Gaps Report based on research and deliberation with other partners that can be surfaced to relevant stakeholders. 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 Partners
   • Partners have access to one another's contact information, possibly start a LISTSERV or other modes of communication among partners
   • Partners can share resources and collaborate on projects without the need to rely on a central authority (e.g. joint research projects, collective fund-raising, sharing venues or pooling manpower etc)

How Will the COP be Run

1. Participants will submit agenda items, and Facilitators will help structure each meeting based on the agenda.
2. Issues selected for discussion should be broad themes (e.g., Employment or Education). These will be spread out over 4 main Roundtables (one per quarter).
3. Those 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 can then be shared with the main network.
4. For those who are keen, Planning Meetings can also be convened to discuss the content and structure of subsequent Roundtables.

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

Facilitator(s)

Institute of Policy Studies - Justin Lee (email: justin.lee@nus.edu.sg)

We welcome other disability organisations or groups who would like to co-facilitate the Network

Associates and Contributors

• Victor Zhuang - PhD Candidate at Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago
• Roshini Prakash - NVPC's Disability Colabs

COP Agenda for 2019

Main meetings should be based on broad themes of general relevance to most of our partners. 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.