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Portal aims to boost confidence in people working with disabled kids
A new online resource which aims to boost confidence and change attitudes among people working with disabled children has just been launched in the UK and is also available to Australian early childhood education and care providers.
The launch of the portal coincides with a survey which reveals that only 5 per cent of Brits chose 'confident' as a top three term to describe how they feel when they meet a disabled person and one in five people reporting they feel awkward when they met a disabled person.
Commissioned by the Disability Matters Consortium - a group of national organisations specialising in disability who are working with disabled young people and parent carers - the survey of 2,046 adults found that 82 per cent of people feel there should be more training in the workplace to ensure employees feel confident about working with disabled people.
The poll also found that younger people are much less confident than the older generation about communicating with disabled people, with 28 per cent of 18-24 year olds saying they would not be confident communicating with a disabled child in comparison to just 19 per cent of over 65s.
Overall, this age group (18-24) is much less confident towards issues surrounding disability as:
- While 14 per cent of 18-24 year olds don't know whether disabled children should be given the same opportunities to take part in sports and leisure activities as those who are not disabled, only 4 per cent of those aged 65+ say that they don't know.
- Nearly one in five don't feel confident working alongside a disabled colleague (vs 1 in 20 65+).
- 16 per cent don't know whether they would feel confident communicating with a disabled child (vs 5 per cent in 65+).
- 27 per cent wouldn't feel confident speaking to the parents of a child who they think might be disabled (vs 18 per cent in 65+).
Dr Karen Horridge, Clinical Lead for the Disability Matters Programme and fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said more must be done to improve people's attitudes and confidence around working with disabled people.
"Disabled people have equal rights to make their own choices, to take part in everyday activities, go to school, work, travel about and access services, the same as anyone else.
"However, at the moment there are lots of challenges and barriers in our society that result in them being excluded. Worse than that, significant numbers are abused, tormented and ridiculed and many die prematurely because services do not value them enough and lack the competence and confidence to treat them equally," she said.
To bridge the confidence gap, a consortium of experts, led by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and including British Academy of Childhood Disability, Contact a Family and Council for Disabled Children, have launched 'Disability Matters' a free portal, which includes a range of e-learning resources that enable employees to reflect, challenge and positively change their fears, attitudes and beliefs about disability.
According to Dr Horridge the new website will improve understanding around the challenges and barriers faced by disabled people and their families.
"There is so much that must and can be done. Positive, 'can do' attitudes can make the world of difference and cost nothing so we now strongly encourage organisations, services and businesses to use these sessions to design additional training for their workforces and volunteers – by doing so, we can begin to bring attitudes towards disability out of the dark ages and give all disabled people the same opportunities as everybody else," says Dr Horridge.
Visit www.disabilitymatters.org.uk to view the site and for more information on the survey read the Disability Matters launch report. |
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