I know you’ve been missing these, as have I! My weekly series of ’10 things to know about’ and this week I’m focusing on disability inclusion. While disability inclusion is an important topic for the workplace because it is sorely lacking in DEI plans, disability inclusion is not just about the workplace. Here are the 10 things I want you to know. and some tips on what to do to further disability inclusion.
- Enabling customers with disabilities to have the same experience as everyone else.
2. Ensuring people with disabilities in your community can participate in and enjoy your community equally.
3. Ensuring discussions about disability aren’t just about awareness. We are 1 in 5 people, we are here, let’s get past awareness and focus on inclusion.
4. Be an ally. Ensure discussions about disability include us and aren’t just about us. Disability inclusion can’t happen without us. Remember saying ‘Nothing for us without us’.
5. Follow disabled people on social media, blogs, Instagram, Twitter, Ted X etc. There are so many fascinating people out there who make it their business to give you an authentic insight into the life af a person with a disability, which does a great service in helping to breakdown stereotypes and avoid issues of inspiration porn.
6. Stop buying into inspiration porn, especially on LinkedIn. I see so many posts every day of videos of people with disabilities doing normal stuff, or people just being decent people which is then labelled inspirational. It’s not. When you label that inspirational, you’re insulting people with disabilities.
7. Educate yourself on ableist language and microaggressions. Things which people with disabilities hear way too often and are frankly sick of.
8. Having a person with a disability on a committee or a board in whatever setting just to fill a quota or to show inclusion, is NOT inclusion, it’s tokenistic.
9. Looking at what you were once not able to do at the start of the pandemic but are able to do now because of changes to make things easier and advocating for the changes to stay because they will help people with disabilities even if you don’t need them anymore.
10. Disability inclusion is no longer thinking about disability as an afterthought and making it a part of your planning in anything you do.
0 Comments