Confidence is Contagious

Sarah Newton

Minister for disabled people, health & work

• So many people would like to employ someone with health condition or disability but they are quiet nervous about it, fear of doing the wrong thing or not knowing what to do and accidently upsetting someone.
• The scheme was set up to give employers confidence to be able to have those conversations, because probably already in any workplace, there are people with disabilities that not always visible or have health conditions that people just don’t want to talk about…
• Disability Confident is the Main scheme for enabling employers to be more confident about employing people…
• Technology is changing all the time and Assistive Technology is making extraordinary difference to some people’s lives. It’s good to know that there are group of people to help both employer, employee and what support might be available….

Dr Nasser Siabi OBE

CEO of Microlink

• 20% of population require intervention and 5% will have more than 30 days absenteeism
• Removing barriers enables people to be their best at work/ give them the tools to do their job, remove the things that get in the way
• There are so many Assistive Technologies which are very simple, very low cost but the impact is profound
• By providing the right tools everyone is capable and by doing this we are just removing barriers, we are not giving them an advantage, we are merely providing them a level playing field to succeed
• Assessing the needs of disabled employees in the workplace and understanding the impact of the condition on the work is essential to finding a work adjustment solution. Assistive Technology can help most conditions at very low costs

Gareth Parry

CEO of Remploy

• We do a lot of work with individual themselves to help them build their own resilience, recognise their own trigger and see who works for them in responding to those triggers
• Access to Work mental health support is all about helping the individuals to build their own capabilities and their own resilience
• It is about giving people hints and tips