There are lots of ways of understanding the word “Disabled”. At Disability ACED, we use all of them. This is because we don’t think any one definition fits comfortably for everyone – and we want everyone to feel welcome and included.
We started with the Equality Act definition:
“[You are disabled] if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.”
Equality Act, 2010 (UK Government)
That definition includes about 24% of the working-age population. If you’re not including disabled people, you’re missing a lot.
However many people don’t want to be defined by their impairment. For some of us, what’s more important is that the world is disabling us. We are unnecessarily prevented from doing things in the world because it’s not adapted to our bodies and minds. So, as well as the Equality Act definition, we also include:
- People who identify as disabled
- People who are identified or treated as disabled by others
- People who are disabled (but who don’t “identify” that way)
- People who face disableism (discrimination against disabled people)
Unless we focus on a specific group, our work is. When we’re working, we have the full diversity of the disabled community in mind, including (but not limited to):
- People with physical and mobility impairments
- Neurodivergent people
- People with mental health conditions
- Hard-of-hearing and Deaf people
- People with visual impairments and blind people
- People with fluctuating and chronic conditions
- People with both visible disabilities and invisible disabilities
We also recognise that people might fall into multiple of these categories at the same time.
Because we take such an broad-ranging and comprehensive view of what the word “disabled” means, our training is also both broad and comprehensive. If you’re interested in our training, why not find out more about us, who we work with, and what we offer.