Table: Inclusive Foundations
| 1. Inclusive Foundations | Is this in place yet? | What more do we need to do? | |
| Knowledge and data | • Have clear information available for staff around reasonable adjustments and the Access to Work programme, including at recruitment, induction and appraisal stages. | ||
| • For larger organisations, collect data about rates of disability disclosure, retention and job satisfaction, to understand the size of the internal disabled workforce, and to flag any early issues. | |||
| Approach and ethos | • Adopt the social model of disability/ human rights model of disability into organisational practice and make this clear in relevant internal and external communications. | ||
| • Create an organisational disability inclusion and accessibility manifesto or statement of commitments and promote to all staff. | |||
| Access | • When running events for civil society provide all attendees with access information about the event and an opportunity to share their access needs. | ||
| • Where access adjustments have been invested in and can be shared without detriment to the requesting person, for example the provision of quiet rooms at events, share with all event attendees or service users, rather than just the requester, so that disclosure of access needs is not always necessary in order to benefit from the adjustment. | |||
| Policy and procedure | • Conduct a policy review to ensure that all policies and procedures in the organisation are anti-oppressive, non-exploitative and supportive of disabled people. For example, if you have a social media policy make it mandatory to make social media content accessible. In addition, have a clear and transparent: a. Reasonable adjustment policy b. Disability leave policy c. An induction policy and process that provides explicit space for employees and board members to share access needs and reasonable adjustment requests. | ||
| • Target and design recruitment materials to disabled candidates, with explicit mention of reasonable adjustments, flexible working and wanting a representative workforce. | |||
| • Consider the adoption of workplace wellness action plans (1). | |||
| Training, learning and development | • Provide disability equality training for all staff and board members and ensure that it is part of any new staff member’s induction. | ||
| Representation | • Ensure that all materials, including the website, reflect the diversity of the organisation’s membership or service users, including disability. | ||
| • Ensure materials produced have basic accessibility features such alt text, plaintext, transcription and closed captioning. | |||
| • Produce materials and stories which show civil society as a viable place to succeed as a disabled person. | |||
| Working at the intersections | • Ensure that an intersectional approach is taken to support offers, and avoid conflicts that require individuals to prioritise an identity – for example, not holding a black caucus at the same time as a disabled caucus. |
