| Ministry of Health and Social Affairs | 30.11.1999 |
AN ACTION PROGRAMME ON DISABILITY POLICY 4
III Target areas for equal participationEqual opportunities should be realized in all spheres of life. This programme deals with the following central spheres of human life: 1. EducationThe basic principles of education According to the UN Standard Rules, in states where education is compulsory it should be provided to all boys and girls with disabilities and with learning difficulties despite the degree or nature of their disability, disease or learning difficulties. Education should be provided for those with the most severe disabilities, as well. Special attention should be paid to education according to the needs of the different age groups: preschool teaching of children under the school-going age, school- aged children and youth and adults, especially women with disabilities. Finland has in force a general obligation of compulsory school attendance for all children, regardless of their gender or disability. The right to learning is a fundamental right of every child. Also the recently-reformed Constitution Act of Finland (Section 13) emphasizes that each person shall have equal opportunities to receive teaching according to his or her ability and special needs and to develop oneself. The provision covers all teaching from preschool teaching to adult education. For the individual this entails a recognition of lifelong education. Finland should take practical action to ensure equal opportunities for all children, youth and adults with disabilities, with long- term illnesses or with learning difficulties to receive preschool, primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as continued and further education in an integrated setting. This would require that Finland recognize the principle of normalization. Integration should be absorbed in all sectors of education of every age period. Finland should also ensure that education of persons with dis- abilities is included as an integral part in national education planning, curriculum development and the overall education system. In order to integrate the education of persons with disabilities into the normal education system, the education authorities should Adaptation of the school environment Considering Section 80 of the Construction Decree, all new school buildings and those existing ones shall be made adaptable to the needs of persons who have a reduced ability to move or otherwise to function. For school children and students with disabilities to be able to integrate into the ordinary school environment, the schools should be equipped or renovated as accessible. The schools should also get equipment enabling good communication. Further, more support services, e.g., assistant and interpreter services, must be introduced to make studying possible or easier. These support services should be designed to meet the needs of different groups of persons with disabilities. Also, additional teaching should be organized, when necessary. The starting point of all activity related to teaching and learning should be the adaptation of the school environment to meet the needs of the student. For example, in case of children with dysphasia this means reducing the group size. In situations where the general school system with the support services does not yet adequately meet the needs of all students, special education may be considered. Even when this solution is arrived at should the teaching be integrated into a part of the general education and environment. In a decision about the placement of a child within special education services, the parents or guardians must always be consulted. For example, deaf and deaf-blind persons have the right to education with sign-language. In cases of this kind of teaching, it is appropriate to organize it in special classes or units of mainstream schools. At the initial stage, in particular, special attention needs to be focused on culturally sensitive instruction. This will result in effective communication skills and a possibility to lead an independent life for persons who are deaf or deaf-blind. Sign language should be awarded the status of a mother tongue in the instruction of those who are deaf or deaf- blind. Furthermore, the reading difficulties of persons with severe multiple disabilities in all age groups and the individual_s life situation should be taken into account in the design of the education. Apart from the capabilities provided by the school, the resource centres of disability organizations can provide training to encourage all studying children and young adults to a better control of their own life. The activity of the resource centres should be supported financially, too. Furthermore, the expertise of different kinds of institutes must be taken to better use in the design and realization of different education projects. In the design and realization of the instruction, we should move away from teacher-centered work methods towards more student-oriented ones. Even in cases when special education is designed and organized, the aim should be to prepare students with special needs for education in the general school system by using sufficient support services. For this transition to be possible, the special education should be closely linked to the general education. To ensure sufficient amount and quality of the instruction, sufficient funds should be allocated to the education of persons with disabilities. The responsibility over the education of all persons with disabilities should belong to the education authorities. Therefore, the education of people with the most severe forms of intellectual disabilities should be transferred away from the purview of the social services into the responsibilities of the education authorities. In teaching persons with disabilities, the aim should be to move away from all actions that are differentiating or segregating, following the principle of integration. The kind of development outlined above is based upon close cooperation between different parties. It requires the training and guidance of general teaching personnel, information activities about the goals, contents and methods of teaching and education, as well as the production of materials for teaching and guidance. The municipal education authorities bear the responsibility over the organization of teaching and education of all children under compulsory education. In their planning and design activities, the authorities should take into particular consideration the needs of those children and youth who are in need of special support, and to maintain a continual follow-up and evaluation over how these needs have been met. 2 EmploymentBasic requirements for employment The laws and regulations in the employment field must not discriminate against persons with disabilities and must not raise obstacles to their employment. Finland should recognize the principle, according to which persons with disabilities must be empowered to exercise their human rights, particularly in the field of employment. They must have equal opportunities for productive and gainful employment in the labour markets in both rural and urban areas. To reach this aim, different action programmes promoting the employment of persons with disabilities must be initiated. The need for initiating such action programmes is also noted in the Finnish national action programme concerning the rehabilitation of disabled persons. The programme has been adopted in the Kuntoutusasiain neuvottelukunta (Committee on Rehabilitation Matters) on 2.7.1995. The contents of the action programmes The largest barriers to the employment of persons with disabilities are attitudinal ones. Further, environmental factors, difficulties in obtaining assistive devices or assistants make it difficult for or prevent many persons from gaining employment. In order to remove these barriers, the following actions should be started: It is important that the quality of this kind of programmes is evaluated against the way they are suitable and sufficient to provide employment opportunities and income for persons with disabilities. Therefore, their contents should be redesigned when the need arises. The guiding principle should always be the right of persons with disabilities to obtain employment providing sufficient income. Only as secondary solutions should this be followed by other actions and programmes creating systems of support and of compensation. Vocational training Persons with disabilities should be ensured equal opportunities with others to seek vocational training. Vocational training should be offered both at secondary and tertiary level. In addition, various other forms of training which are profession- oriented, such as apprenticeship training and distance learning, should be offered. Special attention must be paid to the training being up-to-date. The choice of professions suitable for persons with disabilities is constantly growing. Notwithstanding, persons with disabilities unnecessarily often end in "professions for persons with disabilities", which are traditional and partly obsolete. To change this state of affairs, we should encourage the psychologists in career counselling to seek new sectors of professions suitable for persons with disabilities. The work of these psychologists should be supported from the organizations of persons with disabilities. Also, the awareness among persons with disabilities themselves should be raised regarding the possibilities of vocational training open to them. By ensuring the availability of various support services for students with disabilities, they can be promoted in finding a career and a mode of studying suitable to them. One essential form of support is the organization of rehabilitation services adapted to the needs of each individual. Then, the studies themselves are not rehabilitation. Rehabilitation consists of those support services that a person needs, because of his or her disability, to advance in the studies. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has in 1983 passed a Convention concerning the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons), Convention No. 159. This Convention states that the purpose of vocational rehabilitation is to enable a disabled person to secure and retain employment and also to advance in the career. The authorities should take action to organize vocational guidance, vocational training, services of job placement and employment and other related services. These services should be organized in a way which ensures that this purpose of vocational rehabilitation is met. The essential importance of recognizing in time the need of vocational rehabilitation is also included in the section 1/6 of the ILO Recommendation No 168. It states that vocational rehabilitation should be started as early as possible. When a person with disabilities discovers that his or her chosen path of education or profession is unsuitable, he or she should have equal opportunities with others to make a change. Those who are financing vocational education should not stereotypically restrict the vocational training or rehabilitation of persons with disabilities. Apart from the opportunity to change their choice of profession, persons with disabilities should also be ensured an opportunity to continued training during the whole of their career. Only in this way, can the risk be reduced that the group would be excluded from the working life. Persons with disabilities should also be trained more to self- employment. By launching education and experimentation projects, can their becoming entrepreneurs be promoted and their stages in self-employment be monitored. Measures supporting employment into the open labour market The best way to achieve an adequate level of income is by employing the persons with disabilities in the open labour market. In relation to this, the UN Standard Rules state that laws and regulations in the employment field must not discriminate against persons with disabilities and must not raise obstacles to their employment. The present legislation on working time and on unemployment benefits both favour full-time employment. Many long-term illnesses and handicaps restrict the managing through a working day of normal length. Yet many persons belonging to these groups can work fully for a part of the normal working time. This is why a possibility should be ensured for them to work on the open labour market, as well. Apart from working time arrangements, some persons with disabilities need a considerable degree of other special arrangements regarding other working conditions. Apart from those already mentioned, these include, e.g., work experiments, wages support systems and other forms of economic and mental support etc. By using these separately and in combinations, it is possible to secure the right to earn an income to as many persons with disabilities as possible. In today's labour markets, there are various possibilities to increase its diversity and the freedom of choice. Therefore, they should be used in the employment of persons with disabilities, too, both as for existing solutions and the development of new ones. The disability may cause difficulties in some areas of work duties. Yet, it may be fully possible that a person can manage quite well in another area of the same work. Then he or she should have the opportunity to gain competence in that area. The opportunities should be improved for persons with disabilities to engage in distance working, freelance or contract work, also. Either home work or any other work outside the working community should in no circumstances become a factor isolating persons with disabilities from the society. Persons with disabilities should not be pressured against their will to working at home. They must be ensured the right to join a work community, if they want to. According to the goal of employment into the open labour market, for persons with disabilities should be created more work opportunities, in which the same conditions of recruitment and pay are followed as with employees generally. When the disability causes a considerable reduction in income formation, this reduction should be compensated by the state. Thus, it would be possible to ensure for persons with disabilities a fair and equal treatment regarding pay policies. Both the workers' organizations and employers should cooperate to realize these goals aiming at the employment of persons with disabilities. In their activities, they should pay attention to equitable recruitment, promotion policies and rates of pay. The workers' organizations and employers should also ensure equitable working conditions, measures to improve the work environment to prevent injuries and impairments. In addition, employers must initiate measures for the rehabilitation of employees who have sustained employment-related injuries. The labour unions in particular have till now carried a rather small share of the burden of responsibility over those excluded from the working life. Because of this, their interest should be engaged in the improvement of the employment situation of persons with disabilities. The responsibility for the increasing of awareness falls onto the organizations of persons with disabilities. They should, when possible, start negotiations and consequent cooperation with the labour unions. The goal should then be that the rights and obligations of persons with disabilities are adapted into the system of collective bargaining agreements. According to the conditions set by this system, the parties are obligated to treat persons with disabilities equally with all others in all their polices regarding the rates of pay. The basis of remuneration should be the persons' professional skills, not their disability. In addition, organizations of persons with disabilities should among themselves take more vigorous action to insure the equal treatment of those persons with disabilities seeking employment. The recruitment and personnel policies of organizations of persons with disabilities are in need of reform, if only because of the credibility of the disability issue and of the organizational activity itself. It is in the interest of the organizations of persons with disabilities to recruit persons with disabilities who have the required qualifications whenever there are such persons coming forward as applicants. Working in the field of organizations, disability is a strength complementing the professional skills. Other measures ensuring the employment of persons with disabilities In cases, where it is, for one reason or another, not possible for a person with disabilities to be employed directly in the open labour market, it is necessary to consider either supported employment or sheltered employment as alternatives. Supported employment or sheltered employment should not, however, become the only or the automatic solution. On the other hand, they should not be alternatives of the last resort, either. In as many cases as possible, the goal should be to provide vocational skills so that the person may move directly from supported employment or from sheltered employment via supported employment to the open labour market. There will always be, however, a group of persons with disabilities for whose employment it is necessary that there exist permanent places of sheltered employment. Sheltered employment provides a possibility of employment for those persons in particular whose needs cannot be sufficiently met in the open labour market. Then, the only realistic alternative to employ these persons may be small units of sheltered or supported employment. The contents of sheltered employment and supported employment should be developed so that they would offer persons with disabilities a possibility to use their skills and training in more varied ways. The separation of the present system of sheltered employment from the open labour market is both contrary to the principle of integration and labelling, too. Therefore, sheltered employment should be physically and functionally integrated into the normal working life. Further, its pay practices should be developed towards convergence with the normal ones. The present way of adjusting together the pensions and the income from sheltered employment is not one that encourages to work. Though the primary objective of employment for persons with disabilities is to obtain a sufficient income, the employment means more than just income: it means social relationships, communication, doing work together and being together. From this perspective, for those persons with very severe disabilities who are excluded from the labour market, some kind of meaningful activity should be offered outside the home. 3. Income maintenance and social securityThe UN recalls that the states should ensure the provision of adequate income support for persons with disabilities who, owing to disability or disability-related factors, have temporarily lost their income. The same applies to persons who have received a reduction in their income or who, owing to disability, have been denied employment opportunities. The states should ensure that the provision of support also takes into account the costs frequently incurred by persons with disabilities and their families because of disability. The costs of assistive devices and services necessary because of disability should not become a barrier to preclude some possibilities of action of persons with disabilities and their families. The Finnish social security system is based mainly on the principles of universal service and benefits. The starting point of the constitutional reform was a system of universal (for every citizen) benefits and services. According to Section 15 a subsection two of the Constitution Act of Finland, it shall be ensured by an act that every citizen have the right to a secure income in time of unemployment, illness, incapacity, old age and the birth of a child or loss of guardian. Equally, in disability policy the basic principle must be that of universality. The principle of universality also covers services (Constitution Act, section 15 a, subsection 3). The state shall ensure, as further enacted by an act, sufficient social and health care services to every citizen and shall promote the health of the population. In Finland, basic income for those persons with disabilities excluded from the labour market is ensured by the pensions system. The incapacity pension, payable from the age of sixteen, cannot be considered an appropriate way in all cases. As it is now, the incapacity pension may turn into a mechanism whereby the young persons with severe disabilities as well as adults of employment age are excluded from working life and are thus deprived of an opportunity to make choices and influence their own future. The Finnish system of income maintenance requires elements that would activate persons to seek employment or other activity. It is also necessary to redraw the line between social security and paid employment: there should be less friction in the transfer from social security into paid employment. This reform would also promote the change in thinking. Persons with disabilities experience the general conception of their employment capacity as a black and white picture: they are regarded as either fully capable for employment or fully incapacitated. In reality, people have very different capabilities that they can use in the labour market for the benefit of themselves and others. 4. Family life, the right to privacy and personal integrityPersons with disabilities have the right to activities compatible with their age and the right to choose their own lifestyle. They have the right to become independent and to disengage themselves from their childhood home and to raise their own family. According to Finnish legislation, disabled persons have the right to conclude a marriage and raise a family freely and without restrictions. Only the general impediments to marriage which are applicable to all Finnish citizens do apply equally to disabled citizens, as well (Marriage Act 411/1987). The European Convention of Human Rights requires that legislation shall not discriminate against persons with disabilities in questions of sexual relationships, marriage and parenthood or adoption. In addition, the states shall remove all unnecessary legislative or other obstacles to persons who want to foster or adopt a child or adult with disabilities. Apart from the legislative solutions, Finland should promote measures to change negative attitudes still prevalent in our society towards marriage, sexuality or parenthood of persons with disabilities. This is especially necessary regarding girls and women with disabilities. The media should be encouraged to play a more active role in removing such negative attitudes. In consequence of the negative attitudes of society and many other factors, persons with disabilities may experience getting married and setting up a family as unreasonably difficult. To support them, it should be ensured that appropriate counselling is available. Family counselling should also include a module regarding disability and its effects on parenthood and family life. Like others, persons with disabilities also need information on the sexual functioning of their bodies and equal access to family planning methods. All scientific methods for conception must also be equally available for the benefit of persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities and their families need to be fully informed about how to take precautions against sexual, financial and other forms of abuse. Persons with disabilities are especially vulnerable to abuse in the family, community or institutions. Thus, it is important to think about and provide information on how to avoid these occurrences. We must also find ways to recognize the occurrences of abuse and to report on such acts. Abuse and violence within families are problems, whose prevention, detection and care under Finnish legislation is the responsibility of the municipal social authorities. The social authority is also responsible for the organization of relevant guidance, counselling, support services and directing persons towards these services. Services and information should be made available in forms accessible to different groups of persons with disabilities (such as sign language, braille etc.). The organizations of persons with disabilities play an important role in detecting cases of violence or abuse and in supporting family members with disabilities. The rights of persons with disabilities to personal integrity should also be promoted in many other ways. In the reform of the Constitution Act, an amendment was made which expressly stipulates over the right to personal liberty and forbids any treatment inimical to human dignity (Section 6). Under the law, personal integrity and liberty shall be protected against both mental and physical violence. We should pay particular attention to the situation of those persons with disabilities who live in institutions regarding their right to privacy or to both mental and physical integrity. In Finland, the County Administrative Boards and the Parliamentary Ombudsman have the right, when necessary, to receive submissions from the authorities under their control. The Parliamentary Ombudsman can also make inspection visits to institutions under his or her control. According to Chapter 6 of Social Welfare Act (710/1982), the County Administrative Boards and the municipal social welfare boards have the task to control private social welfare, as well. If any deficiencies or faults are found in the organization of services, the County Administrative Board shall issue directions and an order to correct the situation, and determine the period during which the necessary measures must be completed. In Finland, there is an ongoing debate over the boundaries, possibilities, benefits and drawbacks of institutional and community care. To equalize the position of persons living in institutions in comparison with other citizens, institutional care should be regarded as one form of housing among others. Then it will be possible to attach similar kinds of services to institutional care than it is to other forms of housing. In 1992, the working group, which was to monitor the realization of the Services and Assistance for the Disabled Act, considered it important that no border be created between institutional care and other housing, no two worlds, one of general services and the other where persons' right to move, to communicate, to participate and to contact relatives and friends is dependent on institution funds and any developed practices that are unsupervised. In this sector, too, we would need to find solutions to combine institutional care and accommodation with community services. They need not be mutually exclusive alternatives. Following individual solutions, they could form a mutually complementing package of services. As a general comment, we may state that through community services the right to self-determination, to personal integrity and to a freedom of choice are best guaranteed for persons with disabilities. For persons with disabilities, being within institutional services may mean that decisively important factors to the realization of a meaningful life and personal integrity fall out of their reach. This is why it is important that the services of persons with disabilities, too, must be organized as community services as far as it is ever possible. To ensure the functioning of community care services all assistive devices and support services available must be taken into use and the use of assistant systems must be enhanced. Special attention must be paid to the availability and sufficiency of assistant services. Also, systems of respite-care and attendant-care should be made available for the families of persons with disabilities. Now, the levels of assistance available are not sufficient in quality or quantity to ensure neither freedom of choice for persons with disabilities and their families nor the independence or personal integrity of persons with disabilities. 5. Religion, culture and recreationReligion Man is a whole constructed out of physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions. The spiritual dimension includes both the religious and the ideological world view. These together build up the world view. In this action plan on disability policies, it is necessary to pay attention to the persons' religious and spiritual needs. In delineating the actions, we must not forget either the persons belong to religious communities or those who abstain from these communities. Today. there are more persons than ever, including persons with disabilities, who have come into Finland from other countries and whose religious or ideological world view is different from the traditionally Finnish one. To meet their religious needs and problems, the state should cooperate with different churches, religious and ideological communities. States should encourage, in consultation with religious authorities, measures to eliminate discrimination and to make religious activities accessible to persons with disabilities. The equal opportunities to participation should be ensured through a cooperation between the state, the churches, religious and ideological communities and organizations of persons with disabilities in a way that considers the needs of persons with disabilities within the normal activities of the community. Persons with disabilities should also have the right to abstain from religious activities, if they so wish. The state should ensure the accessibility of religious and ideological literature to persons with sensory disabilities, in consultation with the churches and religious communities. The state should also support the distribution of information on disability matters to religious and ideological institutions and organizations. The state should encourage the authorities in question to include information on disability policies in the training of religious and other professionals as well as in their education programmes. Arts and culture The UN Standard Rules stipulate that states will ensure that persons with disabilities have the opportunity to use their creative, artistic and intellectual potential. This should be not only for their own benefit but also for the enrichment of their community, be they in urban or rural areas. Examples of such activities are dance, music, literature, theatre, plastic arts, painting, sculpture and architecture. For this to be possible, should the access of persons with disabilities to arts education be made easier through adapting the entrance examinations and through improving the attitudinal climate. Today, it is next to impossible for persons with disabilities to gain access to art studies due to the nature of entrance examinations. Also, the position of disability arts should be recognized as an equal one with other art forms. It should receive similar kind of support as any other forms. The disability minorities should also be allowed to present their culture and arts to the public. The cooperation between the culture administration and organizations of persons with disabilities is necessary to integrate the minority culture of persons with disabilities into the mainstream of Finnish cultural life. To ensure full participation, we should promote accessibility to places for cultural performances and services. These include theatres, museums, cinemas and libraries. Finland should also initiate the development and use of special technical arrangements to make culture and different art forms available to persons with disabilities in an accessible form. Recreation and sports The UN Standard Rules require that states should take measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have equal opportunities for recreation and sports. To ensure opportunities for recreation, Finland should also improve the efforts to make places for recreation and sports, hotels, beaches, sport arenas, gym halls etc., accessible to persons with disabilities. Related to this is the obligation that tourist authorities, travel agencies, hotels, voluntary organizations and others involved in organizing recreational activities or travel opportunities take into account the special needs of persons with disabilities and develop their services to accommodate travellers with disabilities. General tourist guides should also mention the special services which support or make easier the tourism and recreation of persons with disabilities. Finland should support the participation of persons with disabilities in both national and international events of sports and recreation. Also, the organizations of persons with disabilities, sports organizations and municipalities should improve their cooperation and enhance their coordination to integrate persons with disabilities in the mainstream of sports activities. The organizations of persons with disabilities should encourage other organizers of sports and recreation activities to consultation, when the question is the development of sports services for persons with disabilities. In this way, it should be encouraged that persons with disabilities participating in sports activities have access to instruction and training of the same quality as other participants. In some cases, accessibility measures could be enough to open opportunities for participation to persons with disabilities. In other cases, special arrangements or special games would be needed. The appreciation of disability sports should be enhanced through the media, by influencing attitudes. The media should be informed of all sports events of persons with disabilities so that they would be increasingly willing to report on these events. To realize full accessibility, the staff of recreation and sports services should receive support and training in as many ways as possible. This could be the task of sports organizations, various institutions training sports personnel and of municipalities in consultation with the organizations of persons with disabilities. In addition, there should be various kinds of campaigns started on issues of participation, information and training; these should develop new methods to increase accessibility. The starting of these is the responsibility of the state. On a more practical level, we should have more diversity into the activities of recreation and sports. Variants accommodating persons with disabilities should be developed out of traditional forms of sports. Further, municipalities should ensure the continuation of expertise by employing professionals who have information on alternative forms of sports and recreation services. Persons with disabilities should also be offered an opportunity to experience the outdoors and nature by providing nature trails and recreational areas conforming to the principle of accessibility. In practice, this would mean, e.g., an opportunity to move safely around with a wheelchair, a white cane, elbow or forearm supported crutches or other aids of personal mobility. Also, a sufficient number of benches need to be available for resting. Like any other solutions supporting the opportunities to full participation for persons with disabilities, these, too, should be constructed within the normal system, not as separate ones. Persons with disabilities do not need recreation areas or sports arenas of their own. Instead, they do need opportunities to participate in the common activities and support and encouragement to join in them. |