Genuine partnership recognises the rights and responsibilities of service users to be fully involved in what is happening to them. In the case of young children, good practice requires us to work in partnership with their parents / carers. 

Genuine partnership can operate at two levels -

Firstly, it involves representative service users (and parents) in the design of local services. This can include:

• giving regular informal and formal feedback about the support they are receiving
• helping develop improved services based on key feedback messages. This is done in partnership with managers
• being involved in overseeing how the new service is operating. This can mean sitting on the management committee or board.
• helping design and run fresh surveys of user satisfaction

Secondly, genuine partnership involves the service user (or parent) in designing their particular package of support. This can include:

• full involvement in the assessment of needs
• designing the support package alongside the service provider(s)
• giving regular informal and formal feedback about their support

Please send your views, experience and good practice to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for Issue 3 of the TAC Bulletin for Australia & NZ.

News and views from service users will be warmly welcomed.

Peter Limbrick

'Children who are blind or have low vision need hands on materials to hold them captivated and listening' 

Imagine you are a grandparent and you have your loved grandchild on your knee. You take one of your favourite stories from the table and start to read. But when the child reaches for the book he or she feels only flat pages and grabs the book and throws it on the floor. The book is meaningless for the child because it does not have a tactual component to hold the child's attention. This is why the Feelix Library began. 

Children who are blind or have low vision need hands on materials to hold them captivated and listening. It is then they will hear the lilting language patterns and rhymes that will help them develop language and eventually literacy. Real things in their hands and then braille under their fingers help promote learning of concepts and story line. Also they begin to learn very early, that the dots under their fingers represent the words coming out of mum's or dad's mouth. 

Feelix is about providing equity for pre-school children who are blind or have low vision, by allowing them the same experiences that sighted children get through stories. Also it strives to allow them the opportunity to be experienced with braille and large print so that they are on an equal footing with their sighted peers when they start school. By the time they start school they will have had braille books at home, in their Child Care Centres and in their Kindergartens. They will have an expectation that this is the way they will learn. Already they see themselves as capable and are becoming self-advocates when they are 5-6 years old. 

In each little Feelix suitcase there is a picture book with print and braille, a CD or daisy recording of the story, some hands on materials that open the world of the story to the child.  In older stories a tactile handbook is included that tells the same story in simple tactile pictures. A small suitcase contains all these components. It is designed to aid organisational skills in keeping things together.

 The tactile graphic component of the handbook is to encourage searching interpretive fingers. We hope that with parent and sibling support children will flip through the tactile book and retell the story in their own words, in the same way as a sighted child flips through the illustrations of a book and reads a story. This early retelling and connecting memorable parts of a story is a vital step in the road to literacy. 

Feelix story kits are sent to children from birth to seven years. They are sent and returned Freepost, as braille materials. Contact: http://www.visionaustralia.org/

NSW Council for Intellectual Disability  (NSW CID) is the peak body representing the rights and interests of people with intellectual disability in NSW.

We also run a state-wide Information Service, ASK CID, which provides information on all matters relating to people with intellectual disability. NSW CID has just completed a third reprint of our extremely popular Healthier Lives Fact Sheets. 

The Fact Sheets aim to provide much needed information on a range of health issues that are important for people with intellectual disability.  The Fact Sheets are available in two versions; Easy Read and Standard.

The Standard Health Fact Sheets have been designed to be used by families, advocates, disability workers and other professionals. 

The Easy Read Health Fact Sheets use stories, pictures and easy to understand language, making them accessible for many people with an intellectual disability.

The Fact Sheets were developed from extensive consultation with health and disability professionals and with people with intellectual disability themselves.

Topics in the standard version include;

• Diagnosis and Assessment of Disability
• Children – Signs of Illness
• Children – What kinds of Health Services are There?
• Mental Health
• Sexuality
• Getting the Most Out of Medicare.

Topics in the Easy Read version include;

• Me and My Doctor
• Me and My Medication
• Some Signs of Sickness

Limited copies of the Fact Sheets are available free, for larger orders postage will be charged. For hard copies of the Health Fact Sheets please contact the Information Officer at NSW CID on 02 9211 1611 or 1800 424 065 (toll free) or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Fact Sheets can also be downloaded for free from our website at www.nswcid.org.au