An Enabling Act

These figures from Enabled Employment are quite surprising, even for someone like me who grew up with kids with disabilities and later in life I had friends with mental health illnesses. I didn't realise how high these percentages where. 

Although in reference to the lack of employment opportunities and support, I wasn't too surprised at those figures. As I think back to the previous businesses and organisations who I have worked for in the past, I can honestly say that I can not recall any of them having a policy or active systems in place to support the employment of people who may have a disability or a mental health condition. This excludes buildings with wheelchair access and relevant toilet facilities, that's a must not just for potential staff members, but for their visitors to the building. 

I am talking about inclusive measures put into place to support the staff member and to educate fellow staff members on what they can do to make sure that it is a level playing field. Often it can be as simple as making sure that the A4 paper is within reach of those who can walk and those who may be in a wheelchair.  However it can also be more than that such as identifying triggers of when a staff member is having an anxiety attack and they need you to step in for 2 minutes so that they can take a deep breath and drink a glass of water. For some people, knowing that help is at hand often tends to keep attacks at bay and systems learnt are the same as a fire drill, it may or may not happen, but it's good to be prepared.

So they require special attention?..not really, they have looked after themselves for most of their lives so they know what they need and they can look after themselves at work. 

I annoy people sometimes, I annoy myself at other times. People with a disability or a mental health condition can be annoying too, tell them in a polite manner just the way you would like to be spoken to yourself. 

In one way or another, we all want to achieve something in our lives. We all want to be understood. We all want to be respected. We would like to be included.

KMR

#Inclusion

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