Growing Together

Copy and Paste all the Following text into ChatGPT:

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Step 1: My Values

1.  Funding as a Key - What Door Does It Open?

   🔑 If flexible funding were a key, what kind of doors should it open for you (or your loved one)?

   • Should it unlock independence, friendships, career opportunities, security, adventure?
   • Have you ever held the key but found that the door was still locked? What happened?
   • What kind of key do we need to design for the future?
   • 💡 Why ask this? This frames funding as an enabler of possibilities rather than just a financial transaction.
   
   

   
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2. If Funding Was Like a Garden, How Would You Grow It?

   🌱 Think about funding as a garden—designed to help people grow and flourish over time.

   • What seeds need to be planted now for a better future?
   • What weeds are getting in the way of people thriving?
   • How should funding grow with a person instead of being stuck in rigid rules?
   • 🌿 Why ask this? EGL is about lifelong development, not just quick fixes—this question encourages thinking beyond immediate funding cycles.
   
   

   
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STEP 2: MY EXPERIENCE (answer this question)

3. A Time You Had to Rely on the Wrong Kind of Help

   ⚖️ Sometimes, when the right support isn’t available, people have to find workarounds.

   • Have you ever had to rely on a service, person, or solution that wasn’t ideal because you had no other option?
   • How did that impact your life, independence, or well-being?
   • What kind of better choices should have been available to you?
   • 🔄 Why ask this? It surfaces hidden compromises people are forced to make when funding systems fail.
   
   
   
   

4. If You Could Pass on One Lesson About Funding to Future Generations…

   📝 If you could write a message to policymakers, families, or disabled people of the future about funding, what would you say?

   • What should they fight to protect?
   • What should they never accept?
   • What’s one truth about flexible funding that people should never forget?
   • 🌏 Why ask this? It invites wisdom-sharing and long-term thinking about how funding can evolve over generations.
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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: ‘Can you suggest other criteria for accessing flexible funding in addition to, or instead of, those above? If you have suggestions, please explain why you think they will be helpful for those who are accessing flexible funding.’ 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.

Key Principles to Embed:

✅ Ground my response in the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) principles, UNCRPD, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and Whānau Ora.
✅ Propose new eligibility criteria align with EGL and that prioritize:

• Autonomy, self-determination, and the right to live as an equal citizen.
• A strengths-based approach that enables good lives, rather than just managing ‘needs.’
• Support based on individual goals and aspirations, not just rigid bureaucratic definitions of disability.
  ✅ Critique any system that forces disabled people to justify their right to support, rather than ensuring they have what they need to thrive.
  ✅ Call for flexible funding that is truly person-directed, allowing disabled people and whānau to decide how it is used, rather than imposing excessive government restrictions.
  ✅ Highlight that government-controlled eligibility criteria have historically failed disabled people, reinforcing the need for co-designed, community-led decision-making.
  ✅ Provide clear, actionable recommendations for a funding model that recognizes disabled people as full citizens, ensuring that funding is used to enable a meaningful and inclusive life.

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 Pushes for an eligibility model that prioritizes:

• Self-determination and autonomy.
• Access to support based on a person’s vision for a good life, not just government-imposed ‘eligibility criteria.’
• An approach where disabled people and whānau lead decision-making, rather than being forced into bureaucratic constraints.
  5️⃣ Critiques any system that:
• Requires disabled people to justify their need for support as if they are a financial burden.
• Ties funding to restrictive, deficit-based criteria rather than enabling flexible, strengths-based solutions.
• Reinforces outdated gatekeeping models rather than empowering disabled people and their whānau.
  6️⃣ Aligns with EGL core principles, ensuring that:
• Disabled people and whānau can determine how support is structured.
• Flexible funding is built around aspirations and fundamental human needs not just predefined ‘medical model of disability type needs.’
• Disabled people are recognized as full citizens, rather than being treated as passive recipients of support.
  7️⃣ Proposes practical, evidence-based solutions, such as:
• Replacing NASC-based gatekeeping with EGL-aligned decision-making led by disabled people and whānau.
• Ensuring that eligibility is based on a person’s vision for a good life, rather than proving ‘deficits’ to qualify for support.
• Providing an open and transparent funding model that allows people to choose the supports that work for them.
• The social and human rights model of disability.
  8️⃣ Challenges the assumption that government agencies alone should determine how support is provided, reinforcing that disabled people must lead these decisions.
  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 system that supports people to live their best lives, rather than creating barriers and restrictions that limit their potential.*