Consumer conference attendance sponsorship

Clear, visionary leadership by disabled people is essential for service and sector development. Sponsorship of conference attendance provides opportunities for participation, networking and learning, and for the voice of disabled people to be included.

Each year, Disability Workforce Development sponsors and contributes to the costs of disabled people attending various disability-related conferences.

From November 2011 to March 2012, we contributed more than $10,000 towards supporting 17 consumers from nine different organisations to attend conferences. To add to this, every eligible application received some level of funding. The conferences sponsored were ‘Everybody In: Disability Studies’ held in Otago in November 2011 and ‘NZDSN: Light the Fire for Action on Inclusion’ held in Wellington in March 2012.

We had a huge response to our sponsorship offer to attend the Individualised Funding and Self Directed Services Conference in Hamilton in June 2012. We secured additional funding and were able to sponsor 20 consumers (disabled people and family/whanau) $480 each to support their attendance at the conference.

Conferences

Only disability related New Zealand conferences as identified by Te Pou will be sponsored.

Check the criteria below and send us a letter of application if you're interested in attending a conference.

Criteria

1. Applicants must be eligible to receive disability support services funded by the Ministry of Health.
2. Priority will be given to people who have not received any previous Te Pou conference sponsorship.
3. Applicants must be willing to share with their peers, the learning gained from attendance at the conference. 
4. Successful applicants will be required to write a short report outlining three key things learned at the conference that they found of significance and will be required to submit receipts of expenditure.
5. Applicants will be assessed against the eligibility criteria and other criteria that Te Pou deems fit and fair.
6. Decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Letters of application

Letters of application must:

• describe how you plan to share your learning from the conference attendance with your peers
• describe the value to both the attendee and the people with whom the learning will be shared
• advise Te Pou if you have received conference sponsorship from Te Pou in the past
• declare if you are going to receive any funding from other sources for the same purpose.

Please email letters of application to disability@tepou.co.nz.

Terms and conditions

1. If successful, conference sponsorship recipients will be required to enter into an agreement with Te Pou.
2. If recipients cannot attend the conference any refundable portion of unspent costs will be paid back to Te Pou.
3. Recipients will be required to write a short report outlining three key things learned at the conference that they found of significance and how they have shared this learning with their peers.
4. Recipients will be required to submit evidence of their actual expenses.