This week DPA made a submission to the Ministry of Social Development on their draft Social Cohesion Framework.
DPA considers the following to be fundamental elements for any social cohesion framework to be meaningful for disabled people:
- Economic equity,
- Wellbeing,
- Trust,
- Safety,
- Non-discrimination,
- Social connection, and
- Sense of belonging.
Without all of these in place, genuine, enduring social cohesion will be very difficult if not impossible to be achieved.
While there are components of the proposed social cohesion framework, such as “tackling all forms of discrimination at all levels” that align with our understanding of social cohesion, we consider that there are a number of significant and necessary elements that are either missing or not given sufficient emphasis and/or prominence in the framework.
In our submission we focus on the first four elements above: equity, wellbeing, trust and safety.
Read DPA's submission on the draft Social Cohesion Framework