Steering Group Terms of Reference for Equality and Rights Committees Presentation by Steering Group members: Christina Burke, Gerard Byrne, Fiona Gallagher, Kathryn Griffin, Úna Coates, Paul Alford and Martin Dooher

Terms of Reference Every service should have An Equality and Rights committee   The committee should abide by an Equality and Human Rights statement This means the committees should serve to promote equality and rights in the service It should do more than just look at rights restrictions

Terms of Reference There should be no more than 12 members on these committees The chairperson needs to be an external member of the committee There should be at least 2 independent external advocates

Terms of Reference There needs to be an equal amount of persons with disabilities, staff from the service and external members For example: 4 persons with disabilities 4 Staff members 4 external members The committee should represent no more than 40 – 50 people who use the service If there are more than 50 people using the service then there needs to be more committees to represent them

Terms of Reference The committee should meet once per month People using the service should be updated on the work of the committee Residents should be actively supported to bring issues and ideas to the committee

Terms of Reference The Equality and Rights Committees should communicate with other committees in the service Such as: Advocacy and self-advocacy committees Staff committees Persons with disabilities could be elected from parts of the service Or Elected from self-advocacy committees So that they can sit on the Equality and Rights committees

Terms of Reference Some members of the committee should rotate every 2 years Elected self-advocates should rotate every 2 years Persons with disabilities sitting on these committees should have support workers assisting them if they wish so

Some questions for everyone to think about What do you think about 12 people being on the committee? What job should the chairperson do? Who should the external advocates be? Who should be on the committee from inside the service? What ways should the committee tell people about their work? What ways should the committee hear from people? How can committees engage and support those who communicate differently to participate?

Thank you all for listening!