City of Stoke On Trent Branch - Disabled Members Officer
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Martin Bayley-Spencer Workshops for The Blind 01782 233917 |
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My role is to: |
No safe ground for disability discrimination Over the next year the TUC is to train 35,000 trade union reps to ensure that employers do not use health and safety as an excuse to discriminate against disabled workers. In its major contribution to the European Year of Disability, the TUC wants to crack down on employers who give bogus safety reasons for not employing disabled workers or preventing them from doing certain types of work. Announcing the courses at a National Back Exchange Conference, Disability Commission and TUC policy officer Richard Exell said "There are enough unemployed disabled people who want to work to fill all the empty jobs in the UK. They are able to work but unscrupulous employers are preventing them from doing so on bogus safety grounds. From now on union reps will be prepared to challenge these discriminating employers and ensure that disabled employees can work and work safely. Extract from TUC Union News 25/09/03 produced by Andy Parkin. |
Disabled Parents Are Undermined
Social Services, the NHS and schools working with disabled parents and their children, need to radically rethink attitudes and procedures that are undermining family life, according to a task force established by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The report released today says that inadequate support, unequal access to services and the negative views of staff can be as much a barrier to good parenting as disability itself.
The task force made up of representatives from government, social services, voluntary groups and disabled parents’ organisations, spent two years taking evidence from parents, professionals and researchers.
Its final report identifies examples of good practice and also lists a catalogue of policy and practice failures that have placed disabled parents and their families under stress.
For example:
•disabled parents commonly face assumptions that their impairment or illness is placing their children at increased risk of deprivation, potential harm or abuse
•advice from the association of directors of social services that disabled parents are entitled to assistance with parenting tasks from the adults community services is being ignored
•parents with ‘mild to moderate’ learning difficulties who are ineligible for many adult support services face particular problems
•disabled parents face significant barriers in accessing health services, including ante-natal and maternity care
•schools and education authority policies focus on the needs of the children as "young carers" rather than building a relationship with their disabled parents.
UNISON national officer for disability policy, Gloria Foran, welcomes the report and believes that it will strike a chord with many members.
"Our own experience in representing disabled members shows evidence that the disability discrimination act has offered improvements to the lives of some disabled employees, however there is little evidence that the DDA has offered new rights to disabled people in the delivery of services relating to parenting," she said.
According to Foran the findings of this report reflect the experiences of some of UNISON’s disabled members.
"There are examples of members who have struggled to cope without support and at the same time preserve their right to parenting."
"This report gives some insight into the real life experiences of disabled people who in their role as parents find that they are under far greater scrutiny than non-disabled people," she added.