1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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?

9. Thank you all for listening!