Disability Awareness: The DAWN Staff Network Conference
On Thursday 21 November our Disability and Wellness Network (DAWN) hosted their first annual conference, with an aim to create more open conversations surrounding Disability Awareness in the workplace during this year’s Disability History Month.
The theme for the month is ‘Livelihood and Employment’. The conference explored ways of ensuring that people with disabilities are protected as they join the world of work and look at the reasonable adjustments current employees may need for a more supportive work environment .
The conference took place at our Women’s Hospital and colleagues from across the Trust and neighbouring trusts attended virtually and in person.
The event had various different speakers including Darren Lamb, EDI Manager launched our very first Reasonable adjustments toolkit and many more. Martine Rai Reasonable Adjustment Co-ordinator from Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust gave an insight into her role and the benefits her role has brought to her organisation.
The reasonable adjustments tool kit is to help guide the managers and staff through the process of supporting adjustments for Disabled people and those with long-term health conditions
Juliette, a colleague with lived experience said: “Hopefully this will support managers and support the staff in making sure that we can get the 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.
Darren said: “Conversations around the toolkit came about, as people seemed unsure of how best to help disabled colleagues, so we knew there was a need here. Reasonable adjustments are a very individual thing so we wanted to raise awareness of the process and ways to support staff to perform at their best"
“We wanted to talk to people with lived experience to use this information to make changes with regards to reasonable adjustments. We went out to other NHS organisations to see what was best practice.
“We have a very strong culture of Quality improvement within our trust. Within EDI we are constantly looking at ways to improve. These small changes can make a huge difference to people. Not necessarily big things. Its just levelling the playing field for people and thinking about equity.
“We want our trust to be the best place to work and be treated.”
Natalie Powell, the EDI adviser to DAWN Network said: “We had to empower the organisation on how best to implement this tool kit to support our colleagues. We will be producing some training to accompany the toolkit and to update the health passport to reflect the introduction of the reasonable adjustments toolkit.
“We will be working very closely with members of the DAWN network to ensure we get this right.”
Balraj Singh Purewal, Project Officer discussed the “Empowering me, by Empowering you project to talk about his MS Diagnosis. Balraj has been on GMB and the BBC talking about MS and empowerment to remain positive, supporting each other and keeping positive.
He said: “I want to encourage people to ask questions about MS. This is how we empower patients with MS. When I got my MS diagnosis (Multiple Sclerosis) I didn’t know what to do It was a very big shock when I had my diagnosis.
“I had a bit of downward slope. Community is really important. I was so worried that I wouldn’t be employable. Having a disability does not mean you are unable to do anything.”
Co- Chairs of DAWN Juilette O’Donnell and Gemma Stewart, Specialist Cardiac Physiologist both hosted talks about Adjustments For Unseen Disabilities and Hearing Loss, Journey from a clinical perspective discussing the importance of representation and sharing their lived experience.
The event concluded with a speech from Daljit Athwal, our Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer and DAWN Sponsor. She said: “The energy that people have spoken with today really does go straight to my heart. It has been a joy to see the Network develop.
“I look forward to another year with DAWN. Let’s make this an even more exciting year. So far it has been an absolute privilege.
“I have learnt a lot. I would like to say a big thank you to all our speakers for being so honest and sharing your life with us and being brave and compassionate in doing that. We have really got to get the Network’s message out to more people.”