DAWN Co-chairs share their stories to raise awareness during Disability Awareness Month
This year our DAWN (Disability and Wellness Network) is again raising awareness of Disability by lighting up all of our Trust buildings purple. We are also encouraging staff and patients to wear something purple
Our Trust is honoured and committed to championing and celebrating our disabled employees across our Trust all year round. In conjunction with our DAWN Network, we are shining a light on our Disabled community in the coming weeks with Disability History Month to continue to enable an inclusive and supportive working community.
During this time is International day of the person with disabilities on Tuesday 3 December, also known as “Purple Day” and we are encouraging all staff and patients to wear purple to commemorate this.
Juliette O’Donnell is open about her Disabilities and neurodivergence and encourages everyone else to do the same. DAWN network Co-Chair said: “I think it's really important to show not only our colleagues that being disabled is okay, but it's also to show the children. We've got plenty of children here that come under the disability umbrella. I've got children myself that come under the disability umbrella. And they need to know that it's okay to be different.
“We're okay to be the zebras running amongst the horses in life. Let’s show our difference, and be proud of it.”
Wednesday 14 November till Friday 20 December is UK Disability History Awareness Month. This year’s theme is livelihood and employment. We offer various support networks and have recently introduced a reasonable adjustments toolkit to better support our colleagues, who are disabled or have long-term health conditions to feel part of our team as they like all of our other colleagues have so much to offer to other colleagues, the trust, our patients and families.
Gemma Stewart, the Co-Chair of our Disability Support Network (DAWN) caught up with us to talk about her own disability, employment whilst being disabled and misconceptions. She also spoke about why it is so important to have reasonable adjustments in light of the recent launch of the Reasonable Adjustments tool kit at the DAWN conference.
Gemma herself has reasonable adjustments in the workplace as a recently diagnosed deaf person, who wears hearing aids. Gemma has a soundless keyboard so that she is not overstimulated by the sound when she is working due to her hearing aids.
She is open about her reasonable adjustments to create a safe space for other disabled colleagues to feel comfortable in opening up about their condition and what additional support they mean need within the workplace.
Gemma said:“ I think people sometimes get lost and see the disability first and they forget that the individual is still a person, they're still able to do a job, they're still able to be part of the community we have here at BWC, that people have value.
“We may have to have adjustments and have specialist equipment or maybe the process has to be a little bit different, but actually we are fully functioning members of society that can give some insight and come at it from a different point of view that actually might be beneficial to everyone.”
Juillet said: “We get lots of information, lots of queries through to DAWN going I've got this member of staff who is disabled but I don't know what I need to do and it's about making those adjustments that make their life easier, helps them at work, helps them be the best employee that they can be."
“It can be simple things like coming in late to work because they're perhaps a bit groggy from medication, having special screens, having extra time to do something, different styles of communication, there are bits of equipment, there's software that they can have."
“We have designed this toolkit to help guide the managers through the process. Hopefully, this will support managers and support the staff in making sure that we can get reasonable adjustments made in a timely manner."
“We want people to realise, that we're an inclusive organisation and we support everybody that works here."
Gemma said: “We should be aware of Disability every single day of the year, but I think it is important to highlight it on 3 December. We need to make sure that if you're not directly affected by disability we still are aware of it."
“We are highlighting that we have disabled people who work for the trust, who make a valid contribution, but also there are other ways that we can be more accessible and inclusive and little changes in our practice can help."
"So, for instance, when we have patients come to a department, it's about being fully accessible, and when I say accessible, people automatically think, oh, it's wheelchair, it's a mobility thing, but actually it could be something as simple as having information on different coloured paper because people may have a visual impairment, having information in different fonts, different languages, providing, a quieter environment for people who get overstimulated because they might be neurodivergent."
"It's about having those things available that we can access and just being aware that, yes, you may see a colleague doing their job and they're wearing headphones, but that's their reasonable adjustment and that's how they can perform."
“Most definitely I think there needs to be more awareness because people make assumptions and have a lot of misconceptions about what people can do rather than asking the individual.”
Make sure you wear Purple on Tuesday 3 December to raise awareness of Disability to create a more inclusive environment.