We are delighted to announce that the Association of Disabled Professionals were the winners of RADAR's People of the Year Human Rights Awards for "Doing Careers Differently".

The Doing Careers Differently Award 2009 recognises the ADP's commitment to supporting disabled people to achieve their full potential with regards to employment and self employment.

The glittering Awards Ceremony was held on 30th November 2009 at Battersea Evolution and was attended by Jane Hunt, the Chair of the organisation, Kath Sutherland, Development Officer and Kirsty Sutherland-Cash, the Personal Assistant to the Development Officer.

Jane Hunt who collected the Award from Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: "This is a tribute to the ADP Executive, staff and members who have served us so well. We also acknowledge the contributions made by Sir Peter Large and Sue Maynard-Campbell, who must be remembered as they were deeply involved."

Kath Sutherland, Development Officer, commented: "The Award is recognition of the many years of hard work and support provided by the ADP to ensure that disabled people are acknowledged for the many skills that they have. We hope that we are able to secure funding to continue our work in the future, as we receive thousands of enquiries every year but have very limited funding. The Award reflects our dedication to provide a practical, common sense approach to enable the very many disabled people who contact us to gain and retain employment commensurate to their abilities or to choose self employment as a viable option if they wish to do so."

Liz Sayce, Chief Executive of RADAR, said: “The Association of Disabled Professionals has for many years been at the forefront of efforts to ensure that disabled people progress and develop careers, rather than being marginalised by a laser-like focus on work, any work, at all costs. Such an approach wastes talent and is ultimately counterproductive; challenging it is crucial to ‘Future Proofing Equality’, and the Association of Disabled Professionals are truly deserving winners of this Award.”

More information about the Awards can be found at http://www.radar.org.uk/awards-2010/the-event.aspx

Calling Disabled Managers and Leaders

Diversity Works and SCOPE have commissioned Professor Alan Roulstone at De Montfort university to explore the lives, views and experiences of disabled managers and leaders in the UK workplace. If you are a manager or an organisational leader the we want to hear your experiences of holding these positions as a disabled person. Leadership is included in this study as it is a term that has more currency in the arts and parts of the third sector and acknowledges the diversity of leadership roles held by disabled people-for example the leader of a theatre or arts group. We welcome responses from any sector however.

The Disabled People – Organisational Leaders Research will explore disabled leaders experiences of the world of work. The research project will also aim to move the debate about disabled people in leadership forward from the heavy focus on job entry and reasonable adjustments. It will explore issues such as disabled people’s experiences of middle management and inaccessible workplace cultures.

By working with disabled managers/leaders across the private, public, third and arts sectors, the expected outcomes of this research project are to:
(i) Gain a better picture of the range of leadership and management roles occupied by disabled people.
(ii) To explore in depth the meaning of workplace leadership for disabled people.
(iii) Develop a robust new business case for employing disabled people in leadership positions across all sectors.
(iv) Understand the unique selling points and added value that disabled people bring to leadership positions and produce a number of case studies.
(v) Gather qualitative evidence from disabled people currently in management and leadership positions on their experiences of ‘coming out’ or reasons why they have kept their impairments hidden.

For further information, please contact Professor Alan Roulstone by email at aroulstone@dmu.ac.uk or Tom Moore (project support)by email at tmoore@dmu.ac.uk

Launch of "Setting Up In Business? A Resource Guide for Disabled People and their Advisors"

The Association of Disabled Professionals has written and produced a plain English Resource Guide, Directory of Support and Quick Reference Guide to support disabled people who want to set up in business. It is intended that the guide will also be used by business advisers within mainstream organisations.

As well as ensuring that key issues are covered, such as tax, funding, mentoring and different types of business opportunity, we have also included stories from disabled entrepreneurs and their experiences of starting up in business.

The Guide was launched by Margaret Hodge MP, Minister for Enterprise, Industry and the Regions, on 20^th March 2007 at the British Library in London.

 

The Directory of Support, which accompanies the Guide has recently been updated (January 2009) and there are plans to include a plain English business plan template in the near future.

The Resource Guide Pack is available in a number of formats including large print, braille, easy read and electronic format.

If you would like further information, or you are a disabled person who would like a copy of the Guide Pack, please email info@adp.org.uk for details.