Trust celebrates Disability History Month

Celebrated each year, CLCH is proud to mark UK Disability History Month (UKDHM), the annual event that is designed to focus on the history of disabled people’s fight for equality and human rights. The campaign also aims to celebrate the lives of people with a disability, challenge disablism and achieve equality for people with a disability. The theme for this year focuses on ‘Disability, Health and Wellbeing’. As we mark the campaign, we will be sharing helpful information and resources for staff and patients, while celebrating disability inclusion in the workplace. 

There are 14 million disabled people in the UK. Disability can occur at any point in our lives including birth. For many people with long-term conditions or an impairment, there can be additional barriers that make life unequal and much harder.

As a Disability Confident Committed Employer and Stonewall Diversity Champion, the Trust strives to create an inclusive environment that promotes equality and is free of discrimination and harassment. We are committed to breaking barriers by ensuring that our services are inclusive and accessible to all, regardless of race, disability, gender, or culture, and by providing community health services in which equality, diversity, and inclusion are fundamental and embraced by all.

Here at CLCH, 4.2% of staff have disclosed a disability. This decreased from 5.1% in 2021. We encourage staff to declare their disability or long-term health condition whether it is hidden or permanent as this helps us to understand and accommodate their needs better.

The Trust’s 2021/2022 Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) report and action plans were released last month. Today, we would like to present a couple of key findings that showed progress of staff experiences with a disability:

• A 5.2% decrease of disabled staff experienced bullying and harassment from patients, relatives and the public in 2021
• 3% decrease in the number of disabled staff said that they have felt pressure from their manager to come to work, despite not feeling well enough to perform their duties, in 2021.

This month we will explore what health and wellbeing means in the context of disability and reflect on some of our staff experiences of those living with a disability or long-term illness.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead, Koya Greenaway-Harvey said: “Disability History Month is a chance to recognise and embrace the diversity that is present in our minds, bodies and ways we navigate the world. Having a disability or long-term health condition whether it’s visible or hidden, permanent or fluctuating deserves recognition and more importantly acceptance.”

We asked members from the Disability and Wellness Staff Network (DAWN) staff network what it means to be disabled and how they should be perceived. They said: “Someone who has greater skills can deliver their role in spite of their challenges”.

We have shared a few online resources below that will help you to support people with a disability. 

• The NHS have created an infographic to help people learn more about what a disability is and how organisations can support people with disabilities in the workplace.
• Disability Rights have produced a range of factsheets to provide basic information about benefits, tax credits, social care and other disability related issues for claimants and advisers.
• Homeless Link, a charity that supports homeless people, has developed a new toolkit to enable homelessness services to better recognise and support people with learning disabilities.

To find out more about Disability History Month and how to get involved, visit: https://ukdhm.org/