Certifying employers as disability confident (or accessible, or whatever the current buzzwords are) has never been something I support. In my experience, it turns into a vanity metric where the employer is centred, not the disabled person.
What I’ve found is that when a person or business has done a disability awareness course, they often end up more ableist.
Why?
Broadly speaking, these certifications teach a narrow range of disability, and as soon as you fall outside of their brief education on disability, the people or business will tell you that your disability, your needs, your experience… is wrong.
Because the course said so!
Disability stuff at work does not have to be hard.
Just listen to the disabled staff member. It’s really that simple.
You just have to make sure ego and power structures can cope with the disabled person being the expert on their needs, not the HR person/supervisor/whoever else.
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