BTCV Handbooks Online

Book:	Environments for All
Chapter:	2.4 Everyone means everyone!
Section:	Working with disabled people
Metadata:	Details	Buy this book

Many local environmental projects already successfully involve people with disabilities. There are obvious projects such as raised flowerbeds that can be worked by people in wheelchairs, or scented gardens for visually-impaired people, but there are many other approaches and organisations such as RADAR and Thrive that can provide more advice.

It's also important to try to make as much of your work as accessible as possible. If you're working on a site or in an office try and ensure full access for those in wheelchairs and ask them the type of work that they would like to do. If you're starting any new project make sure that the venue for planning meetings with local people is accessible. If it is not, then it will be best to have the meeting somewhere else. Having a disabled person unable to access your venue is annoying (for them), embarrassing (for you), and against the law.

If you're working on a long-term project, there's more to work on disability issues than just 'can people get to the site'. Just as with the development of diversity strategies for work with ethnic minorities, so there has been a steady change in work with disabled people. The old 'individual approach' which saw disability as the result of an impairment or medical condition that affected a person, and which tended to see them portrayed as 'brave' people who had suffered a personal disaster, is now seen as unhelpful. The 'equality approach' sees disability differently and has been developed by disabled people themselves. It shows that what really disables people are barriers which arise when the majority of society fail to take account of the needs and aspirations of the significant minority who have impairments or medical conditions.

The approach suggests that we need to tackle the four 'P's:

People and their attitudes to disabled individuals;
Policies that make life difficult for those individuals;
Practices (such as information provision) that may affect disabled people adversely; and
Physical features of the places and buildings in which we live and work.

All these can create barriers which can exclude disabled people. All these are things that we can tackle, both in specific projects and in everyday working life.

Some key facts

4-5% of disabled people use a wheelchair (more would if their housing and environment were more accessible);
One person in four will have at least one disabled person in their family or household;
Two million people use a hearing aid; 420,000 are unable to use a voice telephone;
6.8 million people are involved as informal carers for disabled people; and
There are 360,000 disabled children in the UK.

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) was passed in 1995 to end the discrimination that many disabled people face. It protects disabled people in:

Employment;
Access to goods, facilities and services;
The management, buying or renting of land or property; and
Education.

For service providers (eg businesses and organisations):

Since December 1996 it has been unlawful to treat disabled people less favourably than other people for a reason related to their disability;
Since October 1999 they have had to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way they provide their services;
From this year (2004) they have had to make reasonable adjustments to the physical features of their premises to overcome physical barriers to access.

For education providers, new duties came into effect in September 2002. These require schools, colleges, universities, and providers of adult education and youth services to ensure that they do not discriminate against disabled people. The duty to provide auxiliary aids, through reasonable adjustment, came into force in September 2003. The Government and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) has produced a number of Codes of Practice, explaining legal rights and requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. These Codes are practical guidance - particularly for disabled people, employers, service providers and education institutions - rather than definitive statements of the law.

More information can be found at the DRC website (www.drc-gb.org/index.asp). The DRC works towards 'A society where all disabled people can participate fully as equal citizens'.