Disability Inclusion
Born with Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy, doctors predicted that Emma would never walk or talk - but by the age of 6 she took her first independent steps and hasn’t looked back since.
Growing up with a physical disability, Emma has faced barriers when it comes to accessibility
and inclusion. It is not unusual for Emma to be spoken to like a child or even completely ignored - simply because people assume that because she has a physical disability, her cognitive ability is affected too… how wrong could they be!!
In her disability inclusion work, whether she is instilling confidence into customer facing teams or educating the general public, Emma urges her audience to: Don't 'Dis' Ability!
Some of the key points that Emma puts across to her audiences are:
- Just because my legs don’t work, it doesn’t mean that my brain doesn’t work either
- Be brave, say ‘hello’
- The twin powers of time and patience
Accessibility Matters to You
Accessibility and inclusion within any business or customer service organisation is a two-way thing.
As a business, you want to attract a wide range of customers or clientele, but for a person who has a disability it is important to be able to access the services and products they want or need in the same way as anybody else.
During this talk Emma talks about the four key areas of accessibility:
- Physical accessibility of your business premises
- The accessibility of your website
- Your customer service support
- Accessibility of your services and products
Emma uses her own experiences of her own disability whilst also sharing her knowledge and experience of other disabilities to provide practical advice to businesses, making sure that they are truly open, accessible and inclusive to all.
Disability Friends
Having experienced discrimination from ‘well-known’ high street companies whilst trying to do business with them, Emma has developed a passion for educating and supporting businesses and customer service organisations to better understand disability and help them towards being able to deliver good customer service.
Emma particularly wants to help customer facing members of staff to become ‘disability confident’, meaning that they are able to deliver a high-level of customer service to a diverse range of customers and clients.
Areas in Emma’s Disability Friends talk include:
- Look at the person, NOT the disability
- Do NOT assume or judge
- Be brave, say hello
- Speak to me, NOT my carer
- Be open minded… think outside the box
- Exercising the twin powers of time and patience
Don't "Dis" Ability
Growing up with a physical disability life has thrown Emma numerous challenges.
One of the biggest challenges she has faced and still faces today is the challenge of inclusion and battling discrimination.
Sadly we live in a society where assumptions are made and it is too easy to judge.
Emma wants people to see her as a person, before they make a judgement based on the disability that they see.
During Emma’s disability inclusion talks she aims to educate her audiences on disability awareness and inclusion and also build confidence in communicating with people with a range of disabilities.
Emma is available to deliver disability inclusion and confidence talks and training to a range of audiences, including:
- Corporate conferences
- Business teams
- Educational establishments
- Recreational groups
Disability Inclusion Testimonials
Emma, Thank you very much for delivering your excellent... Read more
