Board meeting - April 2017

Kia ora, I am the NZSL Board Chair, Victoria Manning.

I am giving a summary of the 27 and 28 April 2017 NZSL Board meeting.

The recent meeting agenda included three key items. Firstly, we had an independent person come to give us our final governance training session. This was the same trainer who gave the NZSL Board governance training previously. We focused on the Treaty of Waitangi so that all the NZSL Board members have a clearer understanding of the Treaty. NZSL Board members to understand the Treaty in relation to NZSL Board’s governance role and how the NZSL Board works in relation to Treaty.

The second and main thing covered was the review of the NZSL Board’s Action Plan. It was agreed at the March 2017 meeting to review the NZSL Board’s planning to make sure that it is strong and clearly connected to achieving the NZSL Board’s vision. At this April meeting, the NZSL Board reviewed all parts of the Action Plan and some new items. This included:

• the principles (these describe how the NZSL Board works),
• the outcomes indicators (these describe what is being monitoring so the NZSL Board can decide if it is making a difference),
• the language planning priorities (what actions the NZSL Board is going to do)

The NZSL Board members discussed and identified many planning ideas. The next step is for all the planning ideas to be written into an updated plan. The NZSL Board agreed to review the updated plan at the 19/20 June 2017 meeting to decide, (a) to approve the updated plan or (b) do further work on the plan.

The third thing on the meeting agenda was the regular update from the Office for Disability Issues. This update reports on work progress under the NZSL Board’s Action Plan and happens at every meeting. This included:

1. Ministry of Education has been funded by the NZSL Board to train 10 NZSL Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) assessors who will be able to assess adults (Deaf and hearing) NZSL proficiency levels. It was reported that one SLPI training course has been held and final course is being held October 2017 for the 10 people that have been selected to be trained. The other work that is occurring is determining how much it would cost to run a national NZSL SLPI system and the funding source for this service.
2. The Ministry of Education also wanted feedback from the NZSL Board on the new information they are developing for parent of D/deaf children.
3. The Ministry of Health also reported on a project from the NZSL Board’s Action Plan about parents with deaf pre-school children having access to the range of information from Health providers including NZSL. The final report from the Ministry of Health will be given to the NZSL Board at their June 2017 meeting. 
4. The NZSL Board also reviewed the 2016/17 budget. 

Those are the three key things covered at the April 2017 NZSL Board meeting.