ODI - Responses to Fulfilling Potential

Fulfilling Potential Responses


Church House, 22 March 2012

Introduction

We published a discussion document, Fulfilling Potential, on 1
December 2011 and the discussion period recently closed.

We have had 542 responses:

 297 from individuals (253 of these are from disabled people).
 182 from organisations.
 60 combined responses following events or meetings.

As most of the responses came to us in the final few days we have
not had time to read and analyse them all. But we wanted to give
you an early idea of what we have heard so far.

This paper is in three parts, matching the three areas in Fulfilling
Potential: raising aspirations, individual control and changing
attitudes and behaviours.

The first section under each part sets out the comments and
issues people have told us are important to address in the
strategy. The second section includes some of the ideas people
have told us they would like to see in the strategy.

We hope this is useful as we want to focus on practical actions we
can include in the strategy, and look forward to hearing your
thoughts on these and any other suggestions you have.

We have seen some comments on the overall
approach to the strategy, for example:

 The Government needs to be open and transparent about
this discussion, and explain clearly how the experiences and

1


ideas of disabled people will be used to shape the final
strategy.
 Emphasise that this new strategy builds on previous work,
including the Life Chances report, the Roadmap, the
Independent Living Strategy and the UK report to the United
Nations on the Rights of Disabled People.
 The new strategy should be based on the social model of
disability. It should build on existing protected rights and
entitlements, and promote the principles of independent
living.
 It should promote disabled people’s right to live in
communities, and have services such as transport, and
buildings and communications that are accessible and
inclusive so that they can participate and contribute.
 It should include risks that could affect progress.
 It should have clear actions and timelines.
 The strategy should have aims that are long term.
 There should be commitment from the very top of
government.
 Disabled people should monitor progress and make sure that
the strategy makes a real difference to disabled people’s
lives.
 Do not forget seldom heard voices and people who have
multiple barriers to inclusion.

2


Part 1: Realising Aspirations

The Government is committed to encouraging appropriate support
and interventions for disabled people at key life transitions, to
realise disabled people’s potential and aspirations for education,
work and independent living.

The problem

Disabled children and young people have the same aspirations as
their non disabled peers for education, work and independent
living – but have a lower employment rate and lower educational
attainment.

Some themes from stakeholder discussions so far

 Education is fundamental – not just in school, but in higher
and further education, and lifelong learning. There needs to
be genuine choice in education so that disabled children can
achieve what they want to in life.
 Education and training must be accessible.
 There should be a clear route from education into
employment, linked to career hopes.
 Employment rates for disabled people must be better,
particularly for some groups, and there needs to be more
support for disabled people to be self-employed or set up
cooperatives.
 What older people want to achieve and do must be included.
 There needs to be better support at times of change, for
example when someone acquires an impairment.
 There needs to be better support for parents, as they have a
big influence on what their children want in life and their
choices.

3


Some themes from written responses so far

Education opportunities
• Easier access, help with fees.
• Flexible learning - distance learning.
• Opportunities for retraining.
• Inflexible funding - not available for training wanted.
• Funding for disability courses (e.g. lip reading training).

Employment opportunities
 Lack of part time / flexible working – like home working,
workplace support.
 Employers need to be disability aware.
 Need for more voluntary work / work experience
opportunities.

Government departments
 Is money being spent on young people at expense of others?
 Need for stable financial support.
 E-accessibility - cannot afford computers / internet access.
 Ring fenced funding - councils claim they have no funding for
support.
 Impact assessments needed when things change, like DWP
local offices closing.

Some themes from organisations so far

 Government needs to say what the long term vision is for
disabled children.
 Barriers often begin in childhood and while evidence for
inclusive education is strong, the home life situation of
children is important too. So sometimes even when there is
progress in one part of life, poverty and / or being badly
treated can go against this.
 Fulfilling potential should not just be about educational
attainment.

4


 Education to be mainstreamed, inclusive, accessible
(buildings / lessons etc), and there should be proper support
based on each person’s needs.
 Education professionals need to have higher expectations.
 Supported internships are important.
 There is a need for a government led campaign to challenge
prejudice of employers and to enforce the law. Including
information about Access to Work can help to stop smaller
employers worrying about the costs of employing disabled
people.
 Access to work is good at assessing some groups of
disabled people, but it needs to be more flexible, like
individual budgets, at the moment it can have a rigid
approach - so need to expand and redesign it to make it
easier to use and make sure it’s used more effectively.
 It is important that people who work in education, including
special education, want to raise children’s aims and
aspirations. Too often, they don’t expect much of disabled
people.
 Parents of disabled children need to be able to make
informed choices and medical decisions for their child on
health and education.
 Disabled children’s voices must be heard.
 Transition support from age 14 has helped young people.
This should be until age 25, which would then see young
people through education (and higher education) and training
into employment, where some support may still be needed.
 The needs and expectations of older disabled people must
be included and there should be local plans to support older
disabled people.
 Better working together, information for making assessments
easier and involvement of families in decision making -
things like a key worker system, joint assessment processes
between children / adult services, sharing data.
 Greater flexibility in working practices.

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New ideas for realising aspirations

Employment
 Employment support (including Access to Work) to extend to
internships, work experience, volunteering, and job search
activities.
 Enable disabled people to ‘trial’ jobs for e.g. 2 weeks before
applying.
 Ask major employers to contribute to a fund for disabled
people’s work experience (like mobile operator’s charity
worker fund).
 Encourage a group of major businesses to create a fund to
help new entrepreneurs with £10K start up capital and
proven entrepreneur mentors (someone has offered to help
as a self-made entrepreneur with £2m business, for example
by pitching to business to take part).
 Promote list of top 100 disability employers, including a small
business category (similar to Stonewall’s list).
 Publish positive experiences of disabled people in work.
 Careers advisers to encourage employment aspirations.
 Better promote the Two Ticks scheme.
 Publication of a 3 year cross government employment
strategy.
 Set up a mentor scheme.
 Positive action employment schemes like Pathways to Work
for Women.

Government to lead by example
 Every government department to sign up to Employers
Forum on Disability.
 Government departments to sign up to an accessible
technology charter - to commit to only using accessible
software, etc.
 Promote employment diversity data.
 More internships within government.
 ODI to have their own red tape challenge – asking disabled
people to identify wasteful and bureaucratic barriers.
 Sponsor awareness raising / capacity building programme
(like Scottish Government’s series of ‘webinars’).

6


Education
 Remove UK reservation on UN Convention on education.
 Work with Local Education Authorities to increase choice in
mainstream education.
 Rebalance SEN budget to ensure an increased percentage
of the current budget is used to support mainstreaming
education.
 Promote case studies of students supported to move into
higher education.
 SEN coordinators to commit to championing aspirations of
disabled children and young people.
 Look at flexible ways of getting qualifications and how they
are viewed.

Partnership working
 Encourage partnership working, e.g. between schools, local
disabled people’s organisations, local employers, and local
authorities, or have a key worker.
 Similar to work clubs, encourage networks of disabled
people to discuss realising aspirations in the community.

Parliamentarians
 Parliamentarians to mentor / champion disability in their
constituencies / sectors.

7


Part 2: Individual control

We are committed to enabling disabled people to make their own
choices and have the right opportunities to live independently. We
want to ensure that disabled people have personal control over the
services they receive and that support is delivered in the way they
want it, across every area of their day to day lives, for example
accommodation, travel or employment.

The problem

Disabled people tell us that that decisions about their lives are still
too often made for them - not by them, and they also report
barriers to accessing many services and activities including
education, transport, health, social care and sport, social and
recreational activities.


 Disabled people’s ability to make their own choices should
be strengthened, especially in health care and support from
local authorities.
 Choice and control isn’t only about personal budgets. There
also needs to be a focus on things that often stop choice and
control - like in particular buildings, transport, and information
that disabled people cannot access.
 All disabled people must be involved in decision making, for
example those in residential care settings.
 Better joined up services are needed. It also needs to be
clear who is responsible for providing services, and how they
can be held to account for what they do. With more about Big
Society and local decision making it needs to be clear how
disabled people will be included in service delivery and able
to play a full and active role in designing services.
 Advocacy programmes need to be improved, and disabled
people’s user-led organisations need to be strengthened.

8


Some themes from the written responses so far

Information
 Sharing of information provided by peers.
 Receiving the right training to help overcome barriers.
 More awareness and publicity for local disability groups.
 Access to basic communication / internet training.
 Clear signposting for support.

Services
 It must be clear what services are provided.
 Ability to self refer for National Health services.
 More activities for disabled children – such as sessions at
swimming pools.
 Disability awareness training for professionals.
 Accessible activities to encourage disabled people to
participate.
 Personalised social care assessments and not just offering
services that are already there, tailored to existing services,
for example a single assessment to include carers and
families.
 Accessible buildings and transport and communications.

Access to funding
 Funding when it is needed for example specialist footwear /
home adaptations.
 Ability to self-refer and pay for services directly.
 Independent agencies funded for long term projects.
 Software updates / internet at reduced cost.
 Concern and fears about work capability assessments, both
the assessment itself and loss of benefits.

Social / support services
 Support services need to be local, and not limited by council
/ county boundaries.
 There can be territorialism and arguments between services
/ support.

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 Some services are only for those in critical need because of
less money.
 Need for individual services built around individual needs.
 Any changes need time to get used to.

Improved transport
 More help with taxi and other fares.
 Lack of suitable public transport (especially in rural areas).
 More help to adapt cars and other vehicles.

Problems with the NHS
 Need faster access to medical services.
 Need more support from GPs.
 NHS seem more interested in making savings than helping
disabled people.


 Disabled people should be involved in government decision
making so decisions are clear and transparent.
 Disabled people who employ their own assistants need good
training and support to reduce the risk of being taken
advantage of.
 The ambition for every disabled person to be in control of
their support should be a priority across the country and it
should be monitored nationally, rather than left to local
decisions.
 Care plans must be person centred and outcome focused
rather than need focused.
 Security of support is important (especially when moving
from one place to another).
 There is a need for the impact or effect of welfare reform to
be better understood - e.g. effect of passporting, and the
taper on universal credit.
 Too often individual budgets are a tick box exercise only and
do not offer choice and control.
 Portability of support packages, integrated assessments
(personal health budgets integrated with Right to Control),
importance of disabled people’s organisations in this.

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 Making it easier for services to be bought with individual
budgets for example, pooling a group’s individual budgets to
buy services.
 Access to services not only depends on physical access but
also availability of things like transport.
 Many disabled people will themselves become carers, they
need support. This means providing support to the family as
a whole not just as individuals.
 Advocacy is very important to make sure that choice and
control really happen.

New ideas for individual control

Personalisation / personal budgets
 Culture change in Residential Care Homes to bring about
personalisation / choice and control - by growing market for
providers to provide outreach individualised support in older
people's homes.
 Cost / benefit analysis of decreased dependency on the
state, e.g. individual budgets, Project Search.
 Integrate health, social and employment support into single,
holistic personal budget – not just single assessments.
 Support individuals to pool their budgets to pay for group
activities.
 Set up systems (maybe using social networking) where
activities and support volunteers can be ‘matched’.
 Assessments
 Enable individuals to ‘own’ their information used for
assessments - have a personal information record.

Commissioning / government contracts/ funding decisions
 Longer-term contracts.
 Enable smaller organisations, particularly disabled people’s
organisations to compete.
 Include specifications on co-production, accessibility and
disability awareness in contracts.
 Longer-term contracts.
 Enable smaller organisations, particularly disabled people’s
organisations to compete.

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 Co production of commissioning strategies locally, and / or
outsourcing it to disabled people’s organisations.

Advocacy
 Increase numbers and ensure they are well skilled for their
roles.
 Change the law to enable disabled people’s organisations to
advocate on behalf of groups of disabled people.
 Right to advocacy in 1986 Act to be modified and
implemented.

Independent living
 Review of independent living legislation in 2013 (this was a
commitment in the Independent Living Strategy) - assessing
new legislative framework, for example on social care.
 System analysis of barriers to local implementation locally.

Social care
 Include early intervention strategy in Social Care White
Paper.
 Ensure social care is assessed on outcomes not care needs.

Information provision
 Local news sheets, or pages in local council / disabled
people’s organisations publications, targeted at different age
groups (and using appropriate language) highlighting all the
services and social activities available for that group in the
local area.
 Use libraries, GP surgeries, council offices, local
newspapers, churches, food banks, etc as information
points.
 Have a One Stop Shop for disabled people to find out about
health, employment, education and leisure services.
 Produce something similar to the ‘directme.org’ leaflet.
 Disabled people’s organisations to support people to make
informed decisions about support plans.
 Promote positive technology advances, e.g. latest
accessibility features.

12


 Local Enterprise Partnerships to be focal point for advice
linked to employment and careers.
 Have a ‘innovation and learning’ hub - good practice in
relation to disability equality etc.

Infrastructure
 Universal design and accessibility project - for example with
British Standards Institute project (e.g. guidance and
standards on the design of the built environment in relation to
people with neurologically related impairments).
 Accessibility of hospitals - include coloured lines on the floor
for people with visual impairments.

13


Part 3: Changing attitudes and behaviours

We want to promote positive attitudes and behaviours towards
disabled people, to enable participation in work, community life
and wider society, tackling discrimination and harassment
wherever they occur.

The problem

Nearly 8 in 10 people feel there is still prejudice against disabled
people and many disabled people have told us they continue to
experience discrimination on a daily basis. If unchecked,
preconceptions and unfounded prejudices against disabled people
can lead to antisocial behaviour, harassment, hate crime and, in
extreme cases, murder, as well as being a barrier to participation
in communities and wider society.


 Positive images of disabled people and social model
language need to be used, particularly by government and in
the media.
 There should be a greater focus on implementing and
enforcing the Equality Act - and greater leadership from
government in saying that discrimination and harassment are
wrong and challenging where things go wrong.
 Awareness of disabled people’s rights and their needs
should be raised among non-disabled people, professionals
and service providers, especially among health care
professionals.
 There needs to be more disabled people working in the
professions, for example as teachers, healthcare
professionals, councillors.
 Improvements are needed so disabled people are treated
properly, particularly in prison, health care and residential
care situations.
 Disabled people need better access to justice, particularly in
light of legal aid reforms.

14


Some themes from the written responses so far

Current media portrayal of disabled people
 Too often branded as benefit scroungers and cheats.
 Government press releases on fraud seen as unhelpful.
 Disabled people see link between this and increased hate
crime.

Greater education and awareness about disability
 Include disability education in schools.
 Awareness: anybody can become disabled.

Greater representation by disabled people
 More disabled people representing themselves / their work
organisations in public.
 Encourage disabled people to become teachers and role
models for the young.

Need for strong positive media stories
 Publicise good and positive case studies.
 Focus on what disabled people can do.
 Have positive role models in children’s TV and books.

Positive statistical releases
 Publicise the numbers of working disabled people.
 Publicise the number of disabled people who volunteer / help
others.
 Publicise disabled people’s contribution to the economy.

Attitudes need to shift
 Move away from idea that some impairments are more
deserving than others.


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 2012 Games opportunities - e.g. ‘Welcome Host’ training
programme.
 Arguments about benefit fraud and at the same time trying to
get the public to respect disabled people as equal citizens
look odd and incompatible.
 Employers, health professionals, people in the street all look
at disabled people in different ways. The strategy needs to
think about the ways these groups are getting their views -
particularly ‘institutional disablism’ in health and social care.
 Case studies should come in pairs, where one is an
unacceptable situation and the other is how the situation can
be better.
 Emphasis on awareness raising and social model.
 Good opportunities (e.g. Healthwatch) but fear of
inconsistencies across areas.
 Strong disabled people’s organisations are needed –
development of their capacity to deliver services, drive
change locally and so help change attitudes.

New ideas for changing attitudes and behaviours

Media portrayal
 Get broadcasters to sign up to a disability code of conduct
about portrayal
 Include a responsibility for positive portrayal in BBC contract
- to stop programmes like ‘Saints and Scroungers’ being
made.
 Challenge poor messaging by government departments and
the media (e.g. on ODI’s website) and correct wrong
interpretation of government messaging on disability.
 Disabled people’s organisations to be given tools to
challenge directly.

Public attitudes
 Learning from Time to Change programme and See Me in
Scotland (http://www.seemescotland.org/).
 Include questions in You Gov opinion tracking surveys.

16


Hate crime
 Build on ‘safe places’ - via British Chamber of Commerce for
example (perhaps a national disabled people’s organisation
to spearhead this?).
 Have a Police Disabled Person Liaison Officer (akin to
neighbourhood watch for disabled people) in an area or
town. This person would be the first point of contact for all
disability related issues / problems and enquiries.
 National targets for all police forces to tackle disability hate
crime.
 Better understanding and action on domestic violence and
disabled people.
 Partnerships at local level like Safe in Doncaster (councils,
disabled people, businesses etc).

Attitudes of healthcare practitioners
 Promote existing good practice, e.g. positive attitude of
midwife towards disabled mother on ‘One Born Every
Minute’.
 Include mandatory disability training for Public Health
England.
 Obtain agreement from DH to include commitment in their
next NHS Outcomes Framework around ensuring that
disabled people have a positive experience from their
healthcare providers.

Schools awareness programme
 Get different groups together to share their experiences with
young children at school.
 Campaign in schools through head teachers, school
governors etc.
 Include disability as part of the school curriculum.
 Citizenship training in schools to include disability
awareness.
 An equivalent to Jamie Oliver’s Better School Meals to
educate children’s attitudes towards disabled people.
 Programme of work with e.g. Channel 4 or Changing Faces
to engage young people.
 All pupils to take part in disability sports.

17


 Make use of existing material to inform young people about
their rights.
 Disability History Month offers an opportunity to distribute
materials in classrooms.
 Invite parents to awareness sessions.
 Disability awareness training for school management to
ensure prospective students aren’t put off, e.g. by attitudes
or lack of accessible information.

Employer engagement
 Broad engagement needed, for example with Employers
Forum on Disability, Federation of Small Businesses, British
Chambers of Commerce, Confederation of British Industry,
etc.
 Some organisations are doing some work on employer
engagement - spread their best practice.
 Offer incentives to private businesses to provide training to
other businesses about working with disabled people.
 Check what Investors in People covers on disability.

Awareness training / capability building
 Introduce disability awareness (in a relevant way) to all
vocational university and college courses. Currently (even in
medical related courses) there’s nothing.
 Speak to whoever runs NVQs in customer service to make
sure disability is considered. Ditto for event management /
facilities.
 Make sure all public-facing staff in public sector jobs receive
training on working with disabled people.
 Include disability awareness training in professional
qualifications.
 Disability awareness training for Job Centre Plus frontline
staff.
 Raise awareness in other government departments – e.g. to
think about wider policies such as housing for injured
soldiers.
 Look at how other government departments collect data.
 Publish Jobcentre Plus case studies of positive attitudes and
the outcomes for disabled people on the DWP website.

18


London 2012
 Seek commitment from Paralympic sponsors following the
Games to ‘keep the flame alight’ on disability.
 Hold a conference / media round table on attitudes related to
London 2012.
 Government Olympic Communications group - hold training
session for them.

Implementing the Equality Act / promoting awareness of
rights
 ‘Sharing Knowledge’ courses for disabled people and carers
(similar to Partners in Policymaking). Aimed at giving
disabled people knowledge / information of what their rights
are so they are empowered to have a voice/challenge.
 Series of one pagers explaining rights in a particular area,
e.g. employment based harassment.
 Confidence and assertiveness courses for disabled
jobseekers, to empower them to challenge working practices.
 Round-up of Equality Act successes to show business./
public how small changes can lead to positive experiences
for disabled people.
 Recognition for accessible businesses, similar to the Two
Ticks scheme for employers.

Involvement
 Spread best practice on what makes a third sector
organisation sustainable and effective at both local and
national level.
 Encourage young disabled people’s groups to form a
consortium.
 Encourage Big Lottery to introduce a funding programme on
disability - particularly to support disabled people’s
organisations.
 Establish a cross-government ‘early ideas forum’ to consider
new policy / strategy ideas, and prioritise them within
Equality 2025’s workplan.
 Health Watch to involve disabled people in decisions about
disseminating funding.
 Disabled people managing./ delivering extra costs benefits at
a local level

19


Participation
 Big Society initiatives to include a mandatory requirement to
support participation of disabled people.
 Get commitment of political parties to promote disabled
candidates in the same way they promote women female
candidates.

20

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