Cite
Kemp, John D. Disability Friendly: How to Move From Clueless to Inclusive. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2023.
Jeremy
A helpful insight into the disability community and the workplace. Particularly in the area of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). More helpful for someone who is hiring and/or running a business and why it’s important. Some lessons to be learned for the church and how it leads pastors, but not always a 1to1 comparison. Also, the book repeated itself multiple times, as if he wrote each chapter separate, or each chapter mean to be read alone (my guess is the former). Primarily focused on physical disabilities.
Synth
Contribution::
Related::
Md
FirstAuthor:: Kemp, John D.
~> FirstContributor:: John Wiley & Sons
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Title:: Disability Friendly: How to Move From Clueless to Inclusive
Year:: 2023
Citekey:: kempDisabilityFriendlyHow2023
itemType:: book
Publisher:: Wiley
Location:: Hoboken, New Jersey
ISBN:: 978-1-119-83009-2
LINK
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Abstract
“Although progress has been made around equality for marginalized groups defined by race, gender, sexual orientation and others - most organizations’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts do not include people with disabilities. Although 90% of organizations claim to prioritize diversity, only 4% consider disability in DE&I initiatives. Yet people with disabilities make up 15% of the population - about 1 billion people worldwide. They are all too often overlooked. DISABILITY FRIENDLY starts with the roadblocks able people have to understanding and engaging people with disabilities, and how to get over the initial discomfort many able people have. It goes on to explain how businesses, schools, government, churches, and other organizations can open up to the contributions and talents of people with disabilities and create a culture of inclusion and reasonable accommodation. It explains the leader’s role and how to communicate a vision for change that inspires others. Finally, it explains how to engage, recruit, and hire people with disabilities. This groundbreaking book will open the world’s eyes to the overlooked potential of people with disabilities”— .
Notes
# Jeremy’s Review of Disability Friendly
A helpful insight into the disability community and the workplace. Particularly in the area of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). More helpful for someone who is hiring and/or running a business and why it’s important. Some lessons to be learned for the church and how it leads pastors, but not always a 1to1 comparison. Also, the book repeated itself multiple times, as if he wrote each chapter separate, or each chapter mean to be read alone (my guess is the former). Primarily focused on physical disabilities.
# Reading and Highlight: Disability Friendly
Disability Friendly: How to Move from Clueless to Inclusive
By: John D. Kemp
Forward by Caroline Casey
xiv
We need to eradicate the psychology of the notion that “if I give to you, I take away from myself.” It has been proven time and time again that diversity significant organizational benefits.
xv
Organizations that include pisability Inclusion in their D&I agenda are better prepared to support employees through life’s events. That’s because they have initiatives and tools in place to help employees adjust to new ways of working and living.
Introduction
I: What the World is Missing When it Overlooks People with Disabilities
1: Disability Inclusion Benefits Everyone
3
Many of the things we use to simplify or quicken daily tasks were initially designed for disability access.
- Think of things like Siri or Alexa, or even recall the wacky infomercials where able bodied people were seemingly acting like a fool
4
For one, if we plan to build structures with the most human factors in mind, it is likely they will be usable by most people in most scenarios. In other words, accessibility design and Disability Inclusion can benefit everyone because it reminds us to consider circumstances outside the median range of practical use and a broader view of human function. Logically, universal design, inclusive design, and accessibility principles make spaces, products, and services more functional and enjoyfor a significant percentage of people and less likely to be exclusionary.
5
As its name implies, universal design is for everyone. It was a good friend of mine, Ron Mace, now deceased, who founded the National Center of Barrier-Free Design at North Carolina State University, and created the concept of universal design. Founded on seven basic principles. These are:
-
Equitable Use
-
Flexibility in Use
-
Simple and Intuitive Use
-
Perceptible Information
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Tolerance for Error
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Low Physical Effort
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Size and Space for Approach and Use
6
Invigorating a workspace with disability diversity enriches corporate culture.
- refer to the other study from last semester about ethics of inclusion
8
When workspaces, public spaces, and governments commit to accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities, it sends the message that multiple voices and differences are accepted and valued. Not everyone will be open about disability discloure, and some people may benefit from accessible practices but not identify as having a disability.
10
Disability Inclusion helps with marketing and media representation and overall publicity. And that publicity can, in turn, improve outcomes for people with disabilities if the messaging is respectful by helping to redefine the public’s attitudes regarding disability.
12-13
It is essential to recognize that while disability identity is for access to accommodations, labels do not have to be limiting. The purpose of disclosure in a workplace or social setting should be to access services and accommodations that empower and liberate all of us, including people with disabilities.
2: The power of Disability Entrepreneurship
15
Entrepreneurship becomes for many, the only viable alternative to living a life with some dignity intact. What other group of citizens faces such choices?
29
Entrepreneurship is oftentimes the consequence of work place discrimination with extremely limited choices for people with disabilities. Rather than choosing to sit at home and live on subsistence-level incomes with food stamps and other benefits, entrepreneurship is often a last resort. If we take away the last resort of entrepreneurship, we are left as a society with the high cost of disability exclusion, which benefits no one.
30
Persons with disabilities are the only group that represents the full breadth of intersectional identities of human beings. Although persons with disabilities are commonly thought of as a homogenous, monolithic group, across our group, across our community we see the intersection of age, cultural background, disability economic situation, educational attainment level, gender, geographic influence, race, religion, and sexual orientation.
37
Disability is a part of the human experience that is likely to touch everyone’s life in some way. If we don’t become fully inclusive, we fail to recognize their humanity and exclude people with disabilities from fully contributing to society, to the detriment of everyone.
38
By directly including the disability community in design of education, employment, social welfare, and techology policies, governments worldwide could avoid the costly duplication of efforts related to amendments or stand-alone gislation that attempt to correct unintended exclusion. This requires a recognition of persons with disabilities as students, taxpayers, and vital contributors to the workforce instead of their usual depiction as just beneficiaries of social programs.
3: Disability ls Essential to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Movement
46
Choice and control over one’s life are mainstay theories and tenets of Disability Culture. Respecting a disabled student’s wishes as to where and with whom they are educated acknowledgment of the thriving concept of Disability Culture.
47-48
From the older medical model of disability in the early to middle 1900s, the prevailing thought then was disabled people must be “fixed” and “cured.” With the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s to serve poor people, and included people with disabilities, up through today, public policies to look at today’s understanding of the social model disability which shifted, most appropriately, the notion that “disability that needed to be fixed or cured” to identifying the barriers to our full societal participation, such as the built environment, the virtual environment, and nondisabled people’s biases against people with disabilities.
50
A disability experience can be episodic. Some days may be better than others. Sometimes elements of our workspace that once worked us no longer do because of a change or fluctuation in our bodily or mental states. Organizations need to be flexible and willing to discuss access needs for disability equity to exist.
52-53
Disability rights began in the 1960s and 1970; spring boarding off the momentum of the US Civil Rights Movement and key US Supreme Court cases in Pennsylvania, PARC V. Pennsylvania and Mills v. DC Board of Education, upholding the rights of children with disabilities to a “free appropriate public education.”
54
The Disability Rights Movement is closely tied with other activist circles: feminism, queer studies, and the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements. Progression is necessary for society to flourish. Disability is unique in that it combines physical, intellectual, and emotional inclusion. It requires places to respect both the body and mind and its variations.
4: Inclusive Design: Enabling Work by All
57
…it may come naturally to use terms like inclusion and access interchangeably. While they stem from similar logic, they are not interchangeable. Inclusive design incorporates accessibility practices for use by everybody, recognizing that every subgroup matters. Access design caters specifically to people with disabilities.
58
Good universal design should cover enough ground to create equality. Still, it relies on the assumption that “one size fits all,” therefore, logically it could miss things that require ingenuity.
58
Inclusive design recognizes human diversity as the standard and tries to solve problems so that each individual’s experiences are equitably enjoyable.
60
Failing to make inclusive workspace means you fail to provide the best ser or product-quality comes from the top down. People will notice. The gaps will be present in your final product, marketing, public image.
61
…by always including disability in all matters DEI, we’re assured that inclusive solutions will be made.. and they will realistically benefit larger numbers of people, not just those with disabilities.
II: What People with Disabilities Want Everyone Else to Know
63
As individuals, we need to see how our common traits of kindness, understanding, resilience, adaptability, and selfrespect will allow us to overcome ableism by recognizing our common humanity. In doing so, this will guide each of us in how to adapt to new ideas, hold important conversations, and broaden our perspectives.
5: Getting to Equal by Erasing Fear
65
it or not, we do not typically stereotype because of hate. If you lieve in adaptive categorization, a theory within social psychology, we stereotype to save time. Adaptive categorization is a method for people to analyze survival scenarios and undertand those of other groups.
65
Adaptive categorization is, to some degree, a form of lazy evolution-intended only for quick threat evaluation (Heinzen Goodfriend 2019, PP. 270-272).
66-71
What Disabled People Want Nondisabiled People to Know
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“I am not your inspiration.”
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“Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses, but ours may be more noticeable.”
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The environment and people’s attitudes toward us are more disabling than our personal characteristics.
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“I just want to enjoy my coffee.
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Sometimes we don’t want your help Respect our space.
71- 73
What Nondisabled People Want Disabled People to Know
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“It’s a learning curve. Please be patient. I’m not trying to offend you.”
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“I don’t know what to do, so bear with me.”
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“How do you expect me to help you if you won’t talk about it?
6: Overcoming Ablesim by Recognizing Our Common Humanity
77
Society laces a heavy emphasis on physical, mental, and emotional prowess. Capitalist culture, to some extent, relies on ability as a form of commodity.
78
Limited social exposure to disability can evoke any number of emotions. Three common responses to disability are guilt (“If this wheelchair user can wake up every day and go to work with a smile, why do I struggle?”); inspiration (“Wow. Look at how well they do despite having that disability.”); or superiority/pity (“At least I don’t have [insert medical condition]. Their life must be so hard.”). Here’s the hard truth: people with disabilities are not here to make you feel better about yourself or inspire you to work harder.
79
Disability does not make us bad or exceptional. If anything, it makes us equally human. People with disabilities want you to know that we are not here to become your comparison point.
83
Being faced directly with another person’s disability can trigger feelings of discomfort. This could result from a lack of exposure where we don’t know how to react or how to address it—the proverbial “elephant in the room.” Limited exposure to disability may leave us lacking experience with how to handle broaching the subject. There may be a fear of asking about it or knowing how to ask about it.
7: You Don’t Look Disabled
86-87
While most federal contractors do afford their employees the opportunity periodically throughout the year to disclose their disabilities, there’s been minimal disclosures provided by employees with disabilities. Why?
People with disabilities don’t trust that their employers will use their disability-disclosed information fairly and equitably.
8: Personal Experiences That Shape My Concepts of Disability Culture
96
Typically, cultural identity phenomena are transmitted down through the families, as lore and legend, and many times, through places of worship. Our Disability Culture is transmitted from each one of us to another, peer to peer, for the few of us who inherit their disabilities. Yet, parents and families can and do nurture our culture.
99
…Disability Culture was defined so aptly by Dr. Carol Gill at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Steve Brown at the Institute on Disability Culture in Las Cruces, New Mexand Paul Longmore at the University of San Francisco (now deceased). While a good body of writings about Disability Culture has developed over the past 40 years, these authors are my three best choices from whom you could learn so much more.
99-101
what Are the Core Values of a Disability Culture?
-
A heightened acceptance of human differences, whether they be differences in race, gender, nationality, and/ or ability.
-
Disability humor, the ability to find humor in the strangest of places, the most awkward of moments, at almost any time.
-
Our ability to read other’s attitudes and conflicts in order to sort out, fill in the gaps, and grasp the latent meaning in contradictory social messages.
Howto Become Disability Friendly: The Pillars of Disability Inclusion
9 Corporate Culture and Disability Culture
108
Despite general advancements on the technological, environmental, and legal fronts, perceptions of disability are in a state of flux globally. Those of us who live without a disability for years, and then acquire a disability, generally don’t embrace the idea that they are joining this group of people who have disabilities and even embrace a culture of disability.
113
Even a person with a disability cannot possibly understand all the nuances of the many types of disabilities people live with every day. Every workforce needs recurrent disability education or disability awareness training, so we continually enlighten ourselves to the variations of the human condition who will be represented or are represented in Your workforce, your customer base, Your suppliers, and your strategic partners.
114
Everyone must take personal responsibility for providing equal opportunities.
116
I began assembling my views as to what nondisabled people thought about us and why.
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Theory of Spread Phenomenon
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Theory of Generalization
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Theory of Avoidance and Transference
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Theory of Territorial Behavior
116-117
Theory of Spread Phenomenon
Nondisabled people, when confronting people with disabilities, tend to assume that whatever disability or condition they can ascertain is far more limiting to us than it really is.
…
The more time all of us have in the presence and proximity of people with various disabilities, the better we will be at defeating the notion that one’s disability does not “spread” to the entire person, and it need not eliminate anyone who is otherwise qualified to work. A disability is just a disability.
118-119
Theory of Generalization
Generalizing about disabled persons’ abilities is flawed with dangerous and erroneous potentials, and it usually turns out badly for people with disabilities. Don’t do this, and don’t do it to your nondisabled people in your workforce either.
119-120
Theory of Avoidance and Transference
Heres the outcome of this theory, in brief: Children confront us; adults avoid us.
122-123
Theory of Territorial Behavior
By the mere existence of architectural and communication barriers, we relegate people with disabilities, who are adversely impacted by inaccessible buildings and inaccessible technologies, to a secondary role in the dominance hierarchy.
127
Merely playing matador and waving a red cape in front of a group is paying lip service to a critical set of steps that corporations can take to advance Disability Inclusion. Employers must know what they’re trying to accomplish and why. Thus, they must act with intentionality.
128
For small businesses with fewer resources, one way you can commit to being more inclusive is to look for opportunities where you can work with diverse business partners, vendors, and communities.
129
As a leader, business owner, and member of the community, inclusivity starts with you.
132
Culture is what distinguishes corporations and organizations from their competitors and brings honor to their workforces, customers, suppliers, and communities.
10: Talent Acquisition Through Outreach and Recruitment
133
The new paradigm that must be considered is how can the workplace be structured so that qualified individuals fit in, rather than trying to recruit those who fit the mold? This should be a business imperative for every organization in a rapidly globalizing society where our collective values are that difference is good, and necessary.
138
If you are designing for the average, you are designing for no one.
139
The lesson here is that when technologies are designed to be inclusive from the beginning, they account for natural variations in people and accommodate differences. This is has given rise to an entire field called inclusive design, it applies to products, services, technologies-anything that needs to be designed to serve a a purpose for people.
11: Hiring and Retaining the Best Talent
146
Again, such costs are relative to the value of the job to the corporation, with most accommodations generally costing 5,000 accommodation, chances are very good the corporation will make it.
- Referencing accomodations made for employees, particularly in retaining an employee
149
An accommodation, which in law is defined as de minimis, is considered any modification or adjustment to a job or work environment that enables a qualified person with a disability to apply for or perform a job.
12:Employers’ Slow Progress to Disability-Friendly Inclusion
159
Job stressors are reduced dramatically by adobting a disability-inclusive model for all applicants and employees.
159
Disability-inclusive solutions are great employment soluions for almost everyone!
161
In the 2021 Annual Disability Equality Index (DEI) findings … 83% of companies completing the survey have external recruiting efforts geared specifically to people with disabilities, BUT only 10% of companies have a senior executive who identifies as a person with a disability.
166
COVID brought upon us an unplanned experiment in how work is performed. What it showed is that it was and is successful as it presented a disability-inclusive solution benefiting most employers and workers.
13: Communicating the Organization’s Policies and Practicies
169
To maximize an organization’s ability to attract talent with disabilities, it is important to communicate to the public the company’s commitment to employing individuals with disabilities and having an inclusive and diverse work environment, including subcontractors and vendors.
170
The disability community’s concern has always been that we make nice props and pull on heartstrings at times, but do these companies actually hire people with disabilities?
14: Accessible Information and Communicatinons Technology for All
175
The ubiquity of digital access productivity has been the revolution of the twenty-first century and the evolution of functionality and ease-of-use has only just begun.
176
What do you say to the user who is frustrated or prevented completely from accessing ICT [Information and Communication] and all it has to offer? “Sorry, I just didn’t think about YOU?” If you are a government, a university, an employer, or a content provider, or even a web developer, you know for what purposes your digital products services will be used and by whom. And cost should not be a defense or a primary defense for failing to achieve digital accessibility.
183
In our digital world, solutions should always be made available for human beings of all abilities and ages to benefit equally from information and communication technologies so they-we-can learn, work, communicate, acquire information, socialize, transact, be safe, be healthy, and fully participate as full citizens.
15: Blueprint for Disability-Friendly Workplaces of the Future
185
All people should feel enabled and encouraged to bring their “whole” selves to safe, captivating places where they can be most productive and authentic.
187
Three principles-inclusive, safe, and captivating-should be present in every workplace. These principles are interdependent and essential for organizations to achieve their full potential to maximize the creativity and productivity of a fully potential to maximize the creativity and productivity of a fully engaged workforce. The foundation of the workplace of the future is inclusion.
190
Progress toward a goal of inclusive, well-designed, and captivating workplaces for all can only be achieved through purposeful action and collaboration.