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This seminar report outlines the proceedings and discussions of Handicap International’s seminar “Quality Management of Global Rehabilitation Services: Global Experiences, Innovations and Shaping Future Reform”. The report closely follows the structure of the seminar week, highlighting key information, contributions, discussions and recommendations from the participants.

During the seminar week, the participants from over 12 countries shared positive and challenging rehabilitation responses and analysed the quality of services, focusing upon the management and development of the workforce. Based upon their lessons learned from rehabilitation experiences, the participants then developed short-term and long-term recommendations, to be shared widely with the aim of contributing to the enhancement of global quality rehabilitation

“Quality Management of Global Rehabilitation Services: Global Experiences, Innovations and Shaping Future Reform” Seminar

Ougadougou, Burkina Faso

11–15 June 2012

This article highlights research that has shown that in disasters, people with disabilities are among the most vulnerable. If their impairment affects their ability to move or communicate, they are not only at greater risk of death, injury and isolation, but may also struggle to access humanitarian assistance and information about relief services available. In addition, communities and governments lack information about the needs and capacities of persons with disabilities, and therefore frequently exclude them from disaster plans and protocols.  The paper aims to assist initiatives that enable people with disabilities in disaster to understand ways of becoming more “resilient” as well as proposing risk reduction practices and services

Background: Wheelchairs allow users to realise basic human rights and improved quality of life. South African and international documents guide rehabilitation service delivery and thus the provision of wheelchairs. Evidence indicates that rehabilitation policy implementation gaps exist in rural South Africa.

Objectives: The aim of this article was to explore the extent to which wheelchair service delivery in a rural, remote area of South Africa was aligned with the South African National Guidelines on Provision of Assistive Devices, The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and The World Health Organization Guidelines on Provision of Wheelchairs in Less-Resourced Settings.

Method: Qualitative methods were used. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 22 participants who were identified through purposive sampling. Content analysis of data was preformed around the construct of wheelchair service delivery.

Results: Study findings identified gaps between the guiding documents and wheelchair service delivery. Areas where gaps were identified included service aspects such as referral, assessment, prescription, user and provider training, follow up, maintenance and repair as well as management aspects such as staff support, budget and monitoring. Positive findings related to individual assessments, enthusiastic and caring staff and the provision of wheelchairs at no cost.

Conclusion: The gaps in policy implementation can have a negative impact on users and the service provider. Inappropriate or no wheelchairs limit user function, participation and quality of life. In addition, an inappropriate wheelchair will have a shorter lifespan, requiring frequent repairs and replacements with cost implications for the service provider.

"Poverty and disability are interrelated, but data that can disentangle the extent to which one causes the other is not available. However, data from Vietnam allows us to examine this interrelationship in a way not previously done. Using small area estimation techniques, we uncover three findings not yet reported in the literature. First, disability prevalence rates vary significantly within a county even at the district level. Second, the correlation between disability and poverty also varies at the district level. And most importantly, the strength of the correlation lessens based on district characteristics that can be affected by policy. Districts with better health care and infrastructure, such as roads and health services, show less of a link between disability and poverty, supporting the hypothesis that improvements in infrastructure and rehabilitation services can lessen the impact of disability on families with disabled members"
Working Paper Series, No 20

The toolkit is part of the pilot project called ‘Disability Inclusiveness in Disaster Risk Reduction Management’ in Fiji in partnership with the Pacific Disability Forum from 2011 – 2013. Fiji regularly experiences natural disasters so the toolkit was developed for the inclusion of disability within disaster management.  The toolkit is divided into three parts: part one presents an introduction to disability; part two provides detailed about disability inclusive community based disaster risk management activities in practice; and part three presents the toolbox. It is adapted from the Disability Inclusive Community Based Disaster Risk Management Toolkit for South Asia developed by Handicap International

Background: This article describes a partnership between a community-based rehabilitation organisation and a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Tanzania. The partnership focused on income-generating (IG) activities to tackle the problems of poverty faced by families with a child with a disability (CWD).

Objectives: The aim of this case study was to describe the partnership between Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania in Moshi (CCBRT-Moshi), a non-governmental organisation, and families to create an income-generating business, namely raising goats.

Method: This was a team approach between CCBRT-Moshi and Heifer International, an organisation that focuses on IG activities to create a synergy or partnership between community-based rehabilitation and IG activities.

Results: This partnership between occupational therapy rehabilitation services at CCBRT-Moshi and the NGO resulted in strengthening the effectiveness of occupational therapy services and leaving a more lasting impact on the people they served within the community by helping to reduce poverty in addition to providing rehabilitation and prevention interventions.

Conclusion: This collaboration was successful as it provided a means for families to generate income from raising goats. Although the results have not been empirically verified, observational and anecdotal evidence suggests that families with CWDs have better quality of life and ultimately improved health through this synergistic partnership.

The call for papers asked to cast “a critical eye on the practice and purpose of sustainability-focused education, and its successes and failures, thus far”. We approach this task in this paper through two lenses that have not yet been very visible in the education for sustainable development (ESD) discourse. One is the lens of disability studies which is the inquiry around the lived reality of disabled people; the other is the lens of ability studies which among others investigates (a) which abilities are seen as essential in a given context; (b) the dynamic of how an ability expectation consensus is reached, if it is reached and (c) the impact of ability expectations. We conclude that (a) no consensus has been reached within ESD discourses as to the process of how to identify essential abilities and as to a list of abilities seen as important and (b) that disabled people are invisible in the formal and informal ESD discourse. We expect the paper to be of interest to disabled people, ESD scholars, teachers of ESD in different educational settings, students of ESD training, NGOs involved in ESD as well as policy makers involved in ESD.