Growing Together

Copy and Paste all the Following text into ChatGPT:

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STEP 1: MY VALUES (answer these questions)

1. If disabled people are citizens of New Zealand, and citizenship includes the right to access support to fully participate in society, do I believe they should have to pass an eligibility threshold to enjoy the same rights as other citizens?
   (Consider whether requiring disabled people to meet specific criteria to receive flexible funding reinforces discrimination and inequality, or whether true citizenship means access to the support needed to live an ordinary life.)
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2. If flexible funding is only for some, is it really a rights-based approach?

   • Does setting criteria uphold the UNCRPD’s principle of full participation and equality, or does it create a two-tiered system where some get real choice, and others don’t?
   • How do we ensure funding models don’t reinforce outdated, charity-based thinking, where people have to justify their worthiness to access a good life?
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STEP 2: MY EXPERIENCE (answer this question)

3. If flexibility is only available to some, what happens to everyone else?

   • Can you think of someone who might miss out because they don’t meet strict eligibility rules?
   • How would that impact their ability to build a meaningful life?
   
   
4. Do you have any other insights or experiences that could help shape a better solution?
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STEP 3: GENERATE MY RESPONSE (press enter) 

"I am responding to the New Zealand government's consultation on disability support services. The question I am answering is: ‘Do you support the introduction of criteria for receiving flexible funding? Please let us know why or why not.’ Make sure you answer this question.

Act as my friendly human rights defender and craft an attention-grabbing opening that immediately draws the reader in. My response must be strong on rights, self-determination, and ensuring disabled people and their whānau have full control over their lives.

Push back against restricting funding to only contracted providers, as this limits autonomy, creates power imbalances, and risks repeating past failures seen in institutional care. Reference the Royal Commission findings on how system-driven models failed to protect disabled people and emphasize that self-directed, community-based supports provide stronger safeguards.

Ensure flexible funding does not come at the cost of privacy. Any cross-agency information sharing must require explicit consent. Automatic data sharing undermines disabled people’s rights and must be rejected in favor of consent-driven models.

Key Principles to Embed:

✅ Ground my response in the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) principles, UNCRPD, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and Whānau Ora.
✅ Recognize that introducing eligibility criteria for flexible funding contradicts the EGL vision, which supports self-determination, person-directed supports, and true flexibility in funding.
✅ Highlight that disabled people are full citizens, and citizenship includes the right to access the support needed to fully participate in society.
✅ Explain how the existing EGL-aligned flexible funding model already provides choice, control, and personal responsibility without requiring restrictive eligibility criteria.
✅ Critique the introduction of rigid criteria, explaining how it would:

• Create unnecessary barriers and administrative burdens.
• Reduce true flexibility and self-determination.
• Lead to inequities, exclusion, and crisis-based decision-making.
  ✅ Challenge any approach that limits disabled people’s autonomy over their own funding, highlighting how this contradicts:
• EGL’s core principle of self-determination, which ensures disabled people and whānau are in control of their own lives.
• The UNCRPD’s guarantee of autonomy, dignity, and full participation in society.
• Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which upholds Māori disabled people’s right to tino rangatiratanga (self-determination).
  ✅ Demand transparency from the government about how criteria would be determined and whether they align with a rights-based, person-centered approach.
  ✅ Advocate for a strengths-based approach, where funding:
• Is guided by the disabled person’s vision for a good life, rather than compliance with rigid rules or heavy oversight.
• Flexes with people’s evolving needs, ensuring long-term stability and reducing the risk of crisis-driven decision-making.
• Is supported by capacity-building, ensuring disabled people and whānau have the tools and knowledge to self-direct their supports.
  ✅ Provide clear, actionable recommendations on how to ensure flexible funding remains genuinely flexible while maintaining accountability.

Now, based on my answers, create a strong and persuasive response that:

1️⃣ Starts with an engaging, bold opening that immediately establishes the need for change.
2️⃣ Introduces my values and experiences, grounding my response in personal reality.
3️⃣ Makes a persuasive argument that the introduction of rigid eligibility criteria contradicts the UNCRPD, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and EGL principles.
4️⃣ Explains that true flexibility means support should follow the person, rather than people having to fit into rigid funding categories.
5️⃣ Describes how past restrictions on flexible funding have led to inequities, exclusion, and crisis-driven decision-making, preventing disabled people from fully participating in their communities.
6️⃣ Aligns with EGL core principles, ensuring that:

• Self-determination: Disabled people should control their own funding and make decisions that align with their vision for a good life.
• Beginning early: Funding should be proactive, supporting people to live well before crises arise.
• Person-centered: Disabled people and whānau should be able to direct their supports based on their individual needs, strengths, and aspirations.
• Ordinary life outcomes: Funding should enable disabled people to access employment, relationships, housing, and other aspects of an ordinary life.
• Mainstream first: Funding should support disabled people to access community services rather than being restricted to disability-specific options.
• Mana enhancing: The process of receiving flexible funding should be respectful, strengths-based, and uphold dignity.
• Easy to use: Funding access should be simple, transparent, and free from bureaucratic barriers.
• Relationship building: Government, disabled people, and whānau should be partners, not adversaries, in ensuring funding supports a good life.
  7️⃣ Pushes for an alternative, strengths-based approach, ensuring that flexible funding:
• Remains fully person-directed, adapting to changing needs over time.
• Supports self-determination and long-term planning, rather than forcing people to reapply, prove their ‘deficit,’ or meet arbitrary thresholds.
• Is supported by capacity-building initiatives, ensuring that disabled people and whānau have the tools to self-manage their supports effectively.
  8️⃣ Challenges any approach that adds unnecessary layers of control, explaining that trusting disabled people to direct their own funding is key to achieving true inclusion.
  9️⃣ Ends with a compelling summary that reinforces the key message and calls for urgent reform.

Use clear, direct, and persuasive language to make this response as strong as possible, ensuring that it highlights the need for a funding model that upholds choice, dignity, and self-determination rather than reinforcing restrictive bureaucracy.*