22015015 AAnnualnnual RReporteport - ImagineBetter · 22015015 AAnnualnnual RReporteport. 2 ImagineBetter Annual Report for Year Ending 30 June 2015 DDirectoryirectory CContentsontents

ImagineBetter Annual Report for Year Ending 30 June 2015 1

20152015AnnualAnnualReportReport

ImagineBetter Annual Report for Year Ending 30 June 20152

DirectoryDirectory ContentsContents

Registered offi ce

Level 1, Kings Building

36 Devon Street West

New Plymouth 4310

Board of Directors

Rachel Stephenson - Chair

Gary Williams

Julia Genet

Paul Curry

Pati Umaga

Auditors

Silks Audit Chartered Accountants

Bankers

ANZ Banking Group

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Thank You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Inspirational Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Chairperson’s report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chief Executive’s report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Key achievements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Meet Kelvin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Meet Jamie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Finance and Business Systems summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Audited Financial Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . APPENDIX


Thank You Thank You

Imagine a world where disabled people live the lives they want, with support they choose, in welcoming communities where they are valued... This is the dream we work towards.

ImagineBetter partners with disabled people and their families as they imagine, plan and go after the good things in life.

We challenge and change how people, organisations and communities think about disability.

Our team provides advice, planning support, mentoring and events throughout New Zealand.

Welcome to Welcome to ImagineBetter’s ImagineBetter’s 2015 Annual Report2015 Annual Report


Inspirational DreamInspirational Dream

BeliefsBeliefs

• He aha te mea nui? He tangata! He tangata! He tangata! What is the most important thing? It is people! It is people! It is people!

• Te whare tapa whā. Value the whole person.

• Investing in and supporting people to be their own agents of change.

• Family, whānau and friends matter.

• Sharing stories can teach, inspire and enrich lives.

• Enhancing community connections through active citizenship.

• Hope carries people a long way.

• Information is powerful.

• Sustainable practices and sustainable solutions.

Spirit and AttributesSpirit and Attributes

We aspire to be:

• thought leaders

• entrepreneurial

• infl uential

• visionary

• responsive

• collaborative

• inclusive

• authentic

• ethical.

A community approach whereA community approach wheredisabled people live well now,disabled people live well now,can dream bigcan dream bigand live the life they have imagined.and live the life they have imagined.


Chairperson’s reportChairperson’s report

E ngā iwi, e ngā reo e ngā karangatanga maha o ngā hau e whā tēnei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa,

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa, tīhei mauriora

To all people, all voices, all the many relations from the four winds, I greet you all.

On behalf of the ImagineBetter Board, it is with pleasure that I provide this Annual Report.

It has been a busy year for the Board and teams that work for ImagineBetter. As well as consolidating the good work that we have been doing in the last few years, we have taken on new projects that fi rmly position us among the leaders in our sector. Key focus areas have included:

• delivering programmes and resources for disabled people and their families. This has included re-shaping Partners; running another successful conference in 2014; and providing a busy schedule of workshops that contributed to the capacity for disabled people and their families to ‘live well now, dream big and live the life they imagine’

• embedding and delivering the Local Area Coordination service within Bay of Plenty and Lakes

• embedding a new purpose and beliefs so that we can focus our energies to Listen, Learn and Inspire

• delivering against our two-year operational plan to achieve our top challenges

• developing new strategies for investment, innovation and research

• reviewing and implementing fi nancial systems and processes to streamline and improve budgeting, forecasting and reporting

• improving health and safety reporting and analysis

• reviewing governance policies and our trustee manual

• reviewing our website and developing a plan to update it.

At the beginning of the 2014 fi nancial year, Philip Grady indicated he would step down from the Board at the end of the fi nancial year. This prompted us to consider the skills we had amongst our Board members and what we needed for the future.

In April 2015, the Board welcomed a new director, Pati Umaga. Pati brings a wealth of disability, not-for-profi t and sector knowledge to ImagineBetter. He is a highly respected member of the Pacifi c community and we look forward to strengthening relationships and providing more opportunities for engagement with Pasifi ka.

The board wishes to thank and acknowledge the support of all of ImagineBetter’s donors and supporters, in particular MSD, Think Diff erently, J R McKenzie Trust, Todd Foundation, Lotteries, IHC Foundation and Te Pou.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the active involvement of all of our Trustees in their governance role. I thank them for their commitment, passion and dedication to achieving the strategic goals and purpose of ImagineBetter.

Nāku noa, nā

Rachel StephensonChairperson


Chief Executive’s reportChief Executive’s report

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa

It is my very real privilege to off er thanks to the people of ImagineBetter for a year of work well done. Thank you.

For our Board, staff , contractors and the broad community of people with whom we work, the year has been about working with individuals towards living well today, dreaming big and living the life they choose.

During the last year we have taken up the Local Area Coordination programme in the Bay of Plenty and extended it into the Lakes District. This has increased the contribution that ImagineBetter has been able to make in its work with disabled people and their families. In this work, we have made a valuable contribution to thinking within our community as to how the disability support system might look in the future. The work of our Local Area Coordinators has been exemplary as can be seen by the stories about the people they work with.

Conference 2014; our Workshop Programme; Partners Programme; Mentoring Programme (Raise Your Bar); and Family Strategy have all been making progress with disabled people in achieving good-life outcomes. This work has been led by senior staff and contractors to a very high standard. Thank you.

Senior staff have been engaged in various conversations about the future shape of the disability support system in New Zealand. They have represented the values of ImagineBetter in their work well – thank you.

This year may be remembered as the time when system transformation broke through as a defi ning theme. System transformation is certainly required. Increasing budget pressures and short-term fi nancial thinking threaten the very good progress that has been made in New Zealand in recent years. International data sets clearly show that taking an investment approach in working with disabled people and using a Local Area Coordination system as a central component of service delivery will increase community engagement and reduce consumption of services over time. An investment approach requires a longer-term fi nancial perspective than we use in New Zealand in our annual budget process.

It is time to learn from the work of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia. This scheme takes a lifetime cost approach in its work with each individual; is not subject to an annual budget process; and is showing excellent progress in its work with 26,000 people. The scheme is working towards involving 460,000 people when fully implemented.

There is a lot to learn from the Australian example. It is time for the disability community in New Zealand to learn from the campaign that led to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and break out of the constraints of short-term, budget-focused thinking that has the eff ect of ‘locking people into the house that the street has forgotten’. If you are interested in learning more about the scheme, I advise you to take a look at ndis.gov.au and everyaustraliancounts.com.au

It is up to us.

It has been my pleasure and privilege being ImagineBetter’s CEO this year. We have opportunities and challenges ahead as we progress through system transformation. We go to that work in good heart as a team united by values and an enduring dream: that disabled people live well now, can dream big and live the life they choose.

Tony BlackettChief Executive

http://www.everyaustraliancounts.com.au/

http://www.ndis.gov.au/


Key achievementsKey achievements

2014 Conference 2014 Conference and 2015 Assembliesand 2015 Assemblies

The 2014 Conference with the theme Moving On - Success in Transition attracted 278 attendees. With eight keynote speakers and 18 workshop streams, the three-day conference in Wellington explored what it takes to create success during times of need. Keynote presenters Bob Rhodes and Patrick Schwarz provided contrasting and thought-provoking plenary presentations that challenged, informed, taught – and entertained. They were supported by a range of workshop presentations that showcased examples of disabled people and families ‘doing it for themselves’.

This year, we decided to take a fresh approach to our annual conference, replacing it with the 2015 Assemblies. The Assemblies will be run diff erently from a traditional conference. Rather than sitting in a room hearing from diff erent speakers, people will listen to short ‘conversation starter’ presentations and then take part in their choice of facilitated discussions.

Highlights from Highlights from workshopsworkshops

Workshop presenters this year have included Ric Thompson, John Armstrong, Ruth Jones, Lawrence Chok and Rebecca Wood, Tony McLean and Sue Robertson. Topics have included:

• Seeds of Participation: Important ingredients for making community life happen

• Establishing and maintaining family collectives

• Community Inclusion – the ‘Power of Ten’ and the ‘Art of Asking’

• The Good Life – how to get there

• Asset Based Community Development

Feedback from people attending workshops is consistently strong and as we move through a period of complexity and change in our sector, the appetite for knowledge and connection within the community remains fi rm.


Community DevelopmentCommunity Development

Local Area Coordination

In September 2014, ImagineBetter secured the contract to run Local Area Coordination in the Bay of Plenty and Lakes District.

In the fi rst six months, we focused on the transition from Inclusion Aotearoa; recruitment; and systems and infrastructure development. In the second half of the year, we turned our attention to the expansion of Local Area Coordination into Lakes; community building; and ongoing Local Area Coordinator (LAC) development.

Local Area Coordination in Lakes and the Bay of Plenty has continued to grow in the past year. Within a few months of the programme being off ered in the Lakes community, LACs had made more than 50 connections and been invited to walk alongside eight individuals in Rotorua and Taupo. We expect that interest in the Lakes District will continue to increase as more people become aware of Local Area Coordination.

LACs are very active in the Lakes and Bay of Plenty communities, which collectively have about 320,000 citizens. In the last 12 months, 295 individuals have connected with an LAC for either information and initial support (189) or an ongoing relationship (106). The number of individuals who are connected with an LAC, in an ongoing capacity, has risen by 35 per cent from a year ago.

Raise Your Bar

In recent years, many disabled New Zealanders have led social change and asserted the rights of their community.

ImagineBetter’s new project ‘Raise Your Bar’ harnesses that unique leadership talent by connecting disabled people with disabled mentors, who can work with them to lead the lives they imagine. The mentors have been selected for their personal life experiences and knowledge of systems – and how to navigate them.

Ruth Jones has been leading the project which started in June 2015. So far, 20 people have been connected with four mentors. The mentors share peer support, strategies, skills, information and wisdom so that the mentees can be informed and motivated to set and achieve life goals. The mentors were hand picked by Ruth. “We wanted people in sound leadership places themselves. The aim was not just to goal set, but to actually raise the bar,” Ruth says.

The mentors work with people in Auckland, Christchurch and Queenstown and engage with them remotely in most cases.

Ruth has been impressed by the results so far and feedback has been positive. She has been surprised by the broad range of issues and challenges for the

group being mentored. “The group of people we work with include people at diff erent stages in their lives. We have people with huge dreams and we have people who need help with how to survive a weekend at home alone.”

The project, funded by Te Pou, is scheduled to run until the end of 2015. Uptake has exceeded expectations, reaching almost double the 12 expected participants.

Community Conversations

Our Community Conversations series ran between 2012 and 2014. During that time we held more than 50 conversations and one Conversation Leaders workshop.

Last year, we held two new series in Dunedin and Invercargill and revisited the existing communities of Tauranga, Hamilton, Taupo, New Plymouth, Wellington and Nelson.

Community Conversations was part of our ‘thinking like a movement’ set of strategies. By bringing families together to participate in a series of conversations, we began a process that enabled them to develop a new vision about what is possible. People were linked with others who shared a similar, positive vision for the future. These conversations provided them with the tools and resources they needed to pursue that future.

Update from Tony McLean, Local Area Coordination Manager


On 24 July 2006, Kelvin’s life changed forever. He was at work, driving a bulldozer, when he had a stroke that ended his 30-year career in the logging industry.

“It pretty much took everything away from me,” Kelvin says. “It aff ected my vision and my balance. It aff ected everything I had to function properly.”

Almost a decade later, the determined 58-year-old is feeling optimistic about what the future holds. He is ready to work again and is actively job hunting. He is also training for the 2016 Rotorua Marathon and spends about eight hours a week in the gym or out running. Since the stroke, he has lost an impressive 28kg.

Making the right connections to get the resources he needs has been an important part of Kelvin’s journey. Assisting him to do so has been Mary Barnett, ImagineBetter’s Local Area Coordinator (LAC) for the Lakes District. Sometimes Kelvin needs support to approach an employer, so Mary will accompany him. “However, Kelvin is very good at cold calling, knocking on people’s doors and giving them his CV,” Mary says.

When Kelvin wore out his old running shoes this year, Mary suggested he apply for a grant through the H E Fairey Trust and CCS Disability Action to fund replacements. She also helped Kelvin with the application forms. Now Kelvin has a good quality pair of trainers.

“They have made a massive diff erence to my training,” Kelvin says. “I feel as though all the training is helping with the stroke, which aff ected my left side. I have more sensation down that side now.”

One of Kelvin’s goals is to move away from CCS supported living assistance to being completely independent. Mary says they have been working on strategies to achieve this, such as expanding Kelvin’s knowledge of recipes and food preparation, along with his budgeting skills. She has also assisted him to set up an automatic payment system with his doctor that is also used to pay for prescriptions.

Other goals for Kelvin include having a long-term relationship and moving home to the South Island.

“I am enjoying working with Kelvin and supporting him by encouraging him and making sure that he knows he is a valued person,” Mary says.

Meet KelvinMeet Kelvin

Kelvin is training for the 2016 Rotorua Marathon.


Family StrategyFamily Strategy

Family Leadership Alliance

ImagineBetter, Parent to Parent and Standards and Monitoring Service (SAMS) formed the Family Leadership Alliance in 2013.

Its purpose is to promote social inclusion and active citizenship for disabled people and their families in 10 communities across New Zealand. This work is made possible by the Ministry of Social Development’s Think Diff erently fund.

Highlights from this year include:

• Enabling Good Lives Waikato: As a member of the Family Leadership Alliance, ImagineBetter is involved in delivering workshops, facilitating community conversations and developing supporting resources. Our involvement continues into 2016 as the Enabling Good Lives work unfolds.

• Think Diff erently: The Family Leadership Alliance hosted a series of three Think Tank discussions to talk about increasing home ownership options for people on low incomes and people with disabilities. ImagineBetter is also contributing to a shared resource as part of the overall project. Two DVDs have been fi lmed, featuring three people who live in their own homes and their parents.

• A World of Possibilities: ImagineBetter is involved in interviewing and featuring people willing to share their stories for the second edition of A World of Possibilities. This work was made possible through Parent to Parent.

Partners

Partners off ers quality information and advice to disabled people as they plan for and build a good life.

Working with an ImagineBetter Partners Advisor, people can build community networks and connections through roles and relationships, develop small businesses, and be supported to establish Circles of Friends. Partners will soon be relaunched in Auckland with a new pricing structure to off er 12-month partnership packages and provide professional development for support staff .

Planning with families

ImagineBetter has supported many people over the past 12 months to use Individualised Funding as a resource in moving towards their vision of a good life.

Facilitation and visual planning continue to be an attractive and eff ective way of planning for a range of people and agencies throughout the country. Planning has included Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope (PATH); Making Action Plans (MAP); roles-based plans; Pre-Assessment plans; Deep Quality Design; and advice and planning for Micro-Business.

Update from Sue Robertson, Family Strategy Manager


Until Auckland mother Jo took part in creating a PATH plan for her son Jamie, she didn’t think he would ever go to a mainstream school.

“We had bottomed out. Jamie was getting more aggressive and cracks were starting to show. We had compartmentalised our lives and Jamie’s life. He went to a special needs school and to respite care. People would say they thought we only had two sons, because they never saw Jamie with us. There was no vision of where we could go from here, it was very much a holding pattern.”

The family’s home had high fences and locks on every gate and door to prevent Jamie from wandering away. In 2012, a friend put Jo in touch with Sue Robertson from ImagineBetter, who gave her a new perspective. “We were told that we couldn’t expect society to accept Jamie if we hadn’t given society a chance to know him,” Jo says. “We realised that we couldn’t change him but we could change how we communicated with him.”

One of the visions in Jamie’s fi rst PATH plan in 2012 was for him to enrol at a mainstream school. Jamie joined his brothers at their school but he only

lasted a term. Despite the diffi culties the family experienced, they refused to give up. “We still had that really strong vision from the PATH that this was the way to go.”

This year, now that Jamie is 11, he has moved to an intermediate school, where Jo says he has settled in well. “We’re fi nally moving forward.”

In March 2015, the family created another PATH plan, this time with Jamie’s teacher, two teacher aides and carer in attendance. His teacher has since helped with establishing a Circle of Friends and his Circle recently organised an autism fundraiser in Jamie’s honour.

Jamie’s school experience has improved his communication and behaviour, Jo says. “We are no longer reliant on services. Jamie now catches the bus to and from school with his brothers and we can leave our front gate open and not worry that he’ll bolt. We’re happy as a family and Jamie’s happy.”

Jo says ImagineBetter’s PATH plan is great for “pulling people in and sparking what could be”. “It’s taken two years to get to this point, but the vision in Jamie’s PATH plan was so strong and made such sense.”

Doing a PATH plan and then later joining Partners inspired Jo to help others through the process. She recently became a Partners Advisor and is working with two women in Auckland - a role that she says is “challenging and exciting”.

Meet JamieMeet Jamie

“We’re happy as a family and Jamie’s happy,” Jo says.


Powerful organisational change and the successful implementation of the Local Area Coordination contract with the Ministry of Health ushered in many challenges and opportunities this fi nancial year.

Financial framework

ImagineBetter’s fi nances operate in a dynamic environment that requires more than a standard fi nancial structure off ers. This year, the Finance and Business Systems team overhauled the ImagineBetter fi nancial recordkeeping and reporting framework to align it with the organisation’s structure. This change has improved the way individual work streams can be reported to support strategic decision making. Other changes have been made to improve recording, billing and report tracking for individual projects.

Finance and Business Systems summaryFinance and Business Systems summary

Technology and telecommunications implementation

The ‘Simple Technology Toolkit’ supplied to staff for the new Local Area Coordination contract has enabled them to be fully mobile and accessible. They can be reached via direct dial landline numbers through their laptops, anywhere that wireless internet is available. The simple setup of laptop and headset has proven its worth and has been rolled out to other staff and managers, so that face-to-face video meetings, screen collaboration and cheap mobile communication have become part of a normal day’s work for the ImagineBetter team.

Lync technology has also been used on a regular basis for leadership team meetings and even with external partners, which has improved communication and collaboration, while reducing telecommunications costs.

Dynamic data for Local Area Coordination

A signifi cant contribution has been made by ImagineBetter, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and other partners, to developing a new reporting framework for Local Area Coordination activities and outcomes evaluation.

Call Centre consistency

A new approach was required to ensure that callers to our national 0800 number had a consistently positive experience. The national Call Centre was enhanced during the last year to achieve this. Local staff time has been freed up and callers receive personalised service, even when local offi ces are unattended.

Making it easier

Financial Administrator Bronwyn McCurdy has taken on the role of managing and streamlining national sales of ImagineBetter’s books.

In the last year, Bronwyn has also supported people who experience challenges with invoicing (fl exi funding recipients and families who receive supports), by developing a user-friendly invoice template that people can use to generate their invoices.


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National Offi ce

18 Girven Road, BayfairMount Maunganui 3116

PO Box 10343, BayfairMount Maunganui 3152

Phone 0800 787 587

[email protected]

imaginebetter.co.nz

@_ImagineBetter

Documents

22015015 AAnnualnnual RReporteport - ImagineBetter · 22015015 AAnnualnnual RReporteport. 2 ImagineBetter Annual Report for Year Ending 30 June 2015 DDirectoryirectory CContentsontents