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Education Overview
Education by
advocates
Targeted
education and assistance
Train-the-trainer
programmes
Education sessions for
Māori
Encouraging
a consumer-centred approach
Ongoing
education
Education by
advocates
Education is a key part of an advocate's role. They provide
sessions to consumers about the Code and their rights, as well as
to providers about their responsibilities as providers of health
and disability services.
Advocates promote the role of complaints as a way to improve the
quality of services, and increase awareness of the role of advocacy
and the benefits of early resolution.
Targeted
education and assistance
Advocates are keen to assist staff who work in areas where there
are particularly vulnerable consumers, to help staff be proactive
in making sure the rights of these consumers are respected.
Although by no means a complete list, vulnerable consumers can
be found in mental health services, prison health services,
dementia units and rest homes, as well as facilities where there
are people who have an intellectual disability.
Train-the-trainer
programmes
This is an approach where a trained person trains others to be
effective trainers themselves, as a way of increasing the capacity
to pass on key information.
This can be applied to all of the training modules offered by
health and disability advocates and may be of interest to consumer
organisations for training their own members, or providers wanting
to train staff who are geographically spread.
Train-the-trainer programmes are available to consumers and
consumer organisations with an interest in promoting
self-advocacy.
Read more about self-advocacy here.
A train-the-trainer programme on open disclosure is available
for providers.
Education sessions for
Māori
The kaitutaki tangata role has been very successful in providing
education sessions that are relevant to Māori.
The role combines education, information and networking with
Māori as an effective way of improving the understanding of
consumer rights and the advocacy service.
Encouraging a consumer-centred
approach
Advocates aim to be influential in shifting the focus of health and
disability services towards taking a more consumer-centred
approach.
The education of consumers and providers, promoting respectful
dealings with all parties, and encouraging an approach that values
and recognises complaints as quality-improvement opportunities, are
effective ways of achieving this.
Ongoing education
As part of quality improvement, advocates take part in training
programmes to look at ways to enhance the quality of their own
presentations.
They are keen to try new and innovative ways to present and
train people on rights, and look forward to the feedback from
participants.