Chief Executive’s Board Report
Date: September – November 2016
Hello everyone this is Sandra Budd, Chief Executive, with highlights from my Board Report for September – November 2016.
Since the last Board meeting 2 major pieces of work have been completed that will prepare the Blind Foundation for the next phase of the implementation of the strategic plan which has included establishing a new senior leadership team structure and a financial review to identify our key financial priorities to 2020. I will discuss these further in my report.
During this time, it was encouraging that our clients continued to register high satisfaction with our rehabilitation services and staff welcomed the opportunity to assist the Board in a series of very successful Engagement roadshows. It was encouraging to see the positive and friendly reception the Board and staff received in communities that I believe indicates trust in our engagement process and that we will utilise the information we hear to improve our services to clients.
We have also seen a number of successes in our sector leadership goals. These include the Parliamentary launch of the Prevalence research, launch of an Eye Health parliamentary friends Group and the launch of an Eye Health Coalition with key eye health professionals. Our Policy Manager has also recently made significant Canadian connections that will assist our accessibility campaign.
It was however during this time with great sadness that we farewelled a greatly respected member of our staff, Lisette Wesseling – our Braille Consultant after a long illness. Her funeral bought a large number of our blindness community together to celebrate a woman of unique ability and talent in the world of music and braille literacy. She is greatly missed by us all.
I am pleased to now share the highlights of our work over the past two months to achieve the outcomes of the current Business Plan.
Organisation review
As I indicated I have made some changes to the leadership team structure at the Blind Foundation to lead the organisation going forward. The changes have come about following an in-depth review across the organisation with the aim of improving the services we provide to our clients today and in the future. The changes to structure have been designed to:
· Put you, our the client, at the heart of service design
· Improve the services we provide
· Provide clients with a seamless service, irrelevant of which part of the organisation they connect with
· Raise awareness of the Blind Foundation and sight loss
· Strengthen our capability in marketing, technology and digital
· Increase the speed of implementation
A key goal that I want to achieve through this change to improve the flow of information between myself, front line staff, and our clients and members. In order to do that I have had to reduce the layers between myself and our clients. This means I will have a flatter structure and an extended number of direct reports. Some of these roles will be filled by existing internal staff and others will be filled by external people where we are looking for capability that does not currently sit within the organisation. These changes will allow us to be closer to our clients and the ongoing costs are built into the budget envelope as set by the Board for the next 3 and ½ years.
I will begin recruiting people into these roles in the coming weeks. During this transition I want to assure you that these changes will not affect service delivery and clients can expect the same level of service they currently receive.
I believe that the new structure will help us to improve the services we provide to our clients and increase our profile in New Zealand.
Priority 1: Independent Living
In this financial year to date we have delivered services to 3,087 individual clients providing each client with on average 6.08 hours of client services.
Our October report to the Ministry of Health included information of our survey of 24% of MOH funded clients. Over 97.2% responded that they were satisfied with the services they received.
I am pleased to report we have been actively recruiting staff for areas where vacancies have resulted in increased waiting times. An appointment of an Orientation and Mobility instructor in Palmerston North is beginning to reduce the waiting times and we look forward to an additional appointment for the Wellington and Auckland areas in the New Year. Be assured our Regional Service Managers contact and advise waiting clients of any delays providing an indicative time frame for service delivery.
Newly allocated counselling hours are also being deployed in areas that indicate increased demand. The direct benefit for clients is improved access to counsellors at the early stages of vision loss and when personal circumstances change. Areas receiving initial focus include Waikato and the Wellington and Kapiti regions.
Adaptive Communications Adaptive Technology Services (ACATS)
We consistently hear concerns about the long waiting times for ACATS or technology services on engagement roadshows and through complaints. A key focus of our work is driven by clients being placed in employment, at risk of losing employment, commencing tertiary study or referred from ACC. But we also provide ACATS support to a growing number of clients who are keen to get online, learn how to access a computer or phone, use Skype etc to stay connected with the world. We have heard from our community one way to provide additional support and expertise is to utilise the people with lived experience in your communities. As a result of this feedback we are employing 2 ACATS volunteer coordinators (in the North and South Island) to organise peer to peer volunteers to assist clients requiring this level of ACATS support. We expect these roles to commence in January 2017.
We are also developing partnerships with community providers of computer and technology training to increase the depth of community support available for our clients. One such partnership is SeniorNet which would see our clients, regardless of age, being able to access all SeniorNet services, specifically their IT courses and IT support help desk. This will be an opportunity for our clients to receive IT assistance that is outside ACATS scope of service. SeniorNet will attend the April ACATS practice meeting and ACATS will attend the SeniorNet National Symposium in May.
SeniorNet has 79 learning centres nationwide with a focus on ‘Learning, Social and Help’ and outside of the normal courses and workshops regular learning sessions with guest speakers on technology related topics. These additional sessions are linked to the more formal lessons undertaken and improve the ability of learners to use their skills (including their technological literacy) in the community. Many Centres also arrange informal get-togethers, such as questions and answer sessions where members bring to the session problems they have been having for the group to solve.
Another initiative has been the launch of Marjorie Barclay ‘Technology for Life’ 8 week programme in Dunedin recently with 15 clients and 3 support people attending the first session. This is an outstanding result and many attendees were new to technology.
I look forward to keeping you updated on these initiatives as they develop
Braille Awareness
With Lisette’s Wesseling’s passing we have been fortunate to have Julie Woods’s continuing to actively promote braille as part of the wider awareness of the Blind Foundation. She presents a weekly Radio NZ program called “The Braille Biscuit Show” supported by the Blind Foundation and NZ on Air. In the short segment she promotes braille with biscuits iced in a different braille letter each week. Presenting with the puppet, she tells great stories about braille. We have shared through social media channels. The main benefit is that it is accessed through podcasts and social media as well as people being able to listen in on the day
Youth Engagement Strategy (YES)
This Strategy has been successfully co-created with youth and focused on building stronger relationships with them while providing services that they value. It was launched in October, during Youth SEED. Priorities, timelines and project teams are being finalised, including plans for an annual event. CVR National Manager, Blair Gilbert, will be responsible for leading the YES implementation with youth.
A key first step of the strategy was the implementation of a closed Facebook group dedicated to youth and it is encouragingly attracting a broader low vision youth group than our current members since it was launched in September. This will organically grow as youth continue to invite each other. The Blind Foundation is represented in the group so that we can share information about upcoming events / activities / news of interest and respond to any queries or concerns.
Life Enrichment
The 7 Day Challenge, which was outlined in the previous report to the Board, was successfully completed by all 7 participants with the support of four BF support staff. A film crew followed the challenge and will be creating a documentary that is intended for mainstream viewing that will provide an audio soundtrack to emphasis what the participants experienced.
I was privileged to join them in Wellington to present them with their medals with National List MP Paul Foster Bell and Mary Fisher, para-olympian, as we celebrated their amazing achievement. Not only did this highlight our Life without Limits vision but it was a superb awareness raising promotion of the Blind Foundation and blind and low vision people to New Zealand communities and the world. The activity also gained excellent levels of media and social media coverage, including an international following.
Peer to Peer Support programme
This programme is currently running in Christchurch with eight active mentoring partnerships and an increased demand for mentors since it began. Feedback to date is positive and formal review of the programme will be completed by December 2016 to determine future opportunities and development.
Deaf Blind Association
Deafblind Association is progressing development of its infrastructural needs and communication strategy for supporting the deafblind community. The Blind Foundation has informed all deafblind members about the association and its purpose by facilitating two mail outs of introductory information. We understand that the executive officer is receiving calls from clients and these are increasing now that an 0800 number for the association is available.
Carer Burden Research - “Listening to caregivers: Exploring the experiences of those supporting people with visual impairment”
A joint initiative between Victoria University and the Blind Foundation has resulted in a Carer Burden qualitative research project. Led by the Victoria University Department of Psychology they are being supported by Claire FitzGerald, Registrations Adviser and Orthoptist as our lead “clinician” on this research.
The general aims of the research are to work with us to enhance understanding of, and engagement with, the informal carer networks providing support for Blind Foundation clients, to enhance the wellbeing of carers and the sustainability of the care they provide. The project seeks, for the first time within the BF, to document and learn from the detailed personal experiences of informal caregivers.
The final analysis is still being completed and we expect the outcome of this study to include recommendations for further work to understand and enhance engagement with informal carers of existing and potential clients of the BF.
This is a timely research project that will inform the anecdotal narrative from the recent Engagement Roadshows.
Booklink Training
A BookLink queue has been added to our database. This if for clients requesting an iPad or who need higher level support than the national contact centre can provide. Clients requesting devices can be assessed for suitability before a device is sent. This has been worked out in conjunction with ACATS and is to ensure that clients are enabled to take full advantage of devices delivered. BookLink training sessions were held in Auckland, Christchurch, Wanganui, and Nelson.
Training was also held in Wanganui for ten SeniorNet staff at their training centre. SeniorNet has expressed interest in providing support for Blind Foundation clients using BookLink around the country. A further session is planned for Rotorua senior Net and with 79 Senior Net locations throughout the country this is a significant resource for support of our clients moving to digital.
Increasing Library Content
A significant agreement has been reached with Vision Australia to bulk swap library content. This agreement will add over 10,000 titles to our library in one exchange, increasing our collection of audio titles by over 33% at no cost. We will be adding 4,894 Audio titles and 6,517 e-braille titles that have been produced by Vision Australia over the past ten years. These titles cover both adult and youth content. Discussions are also underway to establish a direct exchange of content as it is created. Meaning that as soon as a title is available in New Zealand or Australia it will be available to members of both organisations. This fits in with the overall strategy of increasing content, making content available as soon as possible and working to have a federated search across multiple organisations collections.
We now have four publishers providing book and magazine content to the Foundation prior to print release. They are Penguin Random House, RSVP Publishing, Tangible Media, and Juno Magazine with the goal is have content released to clients concurrent with the print release. The first of these publications was released on the 3rd October 2016 in Audio, electronic braille and hard copy braille. We are continuing to work on the co-release strategy with 4 titles in February. The amount of content released is currently largely dependent on publishers’ schedules. However, as we increase the amount of publishers signed up the releases will even out and become increasing frequent.