25th Anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, but what still needs to be improved? - Page 2 — Scope | Disability forum
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25th Anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, but what still needs to be improved?

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  • Tori_Scope
    Tori_Scope Scope Posts: 12,488 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi @kelly45 :) I've made your comment here into a post on the Employment board to get it some more views. 

    I'm sorry that you had to leave your job. Have you heard anything about Scope's Support to Work service? It could be worth checking to see if you're eligible to get some help from them. They're a lovely team :) 
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  • Blake95
    Blake95 Community member Posts: 3 Listener
    I am part of a FB channel called the disabled people's channel and myself and some of the editors are very excited about it. 

    I lost my last job due to Covid but I am hoping to get back into work in 2021, I'm not rushing into work this year because I want to be sure I feel well and truly comfortable, especially with my seizures and my anxiety. In the past I have walked out of work places/interviews because they have been just so uncaring or biased that I have had to ask do you know of the Disability Discrimination Act. Speaking with some of the other editors on the Disabled Peoples Channel and what work life was before the act has been amazing
  • Tori_Scope
    Tori_Scope Scope Posts: 12,488 Disability Gamechanger
    edited November 2020
    Welcome to the community @Blake95 :) Thank you for sharing this. I can imagine it'd be really interesting to speak to someone about what work was like before the DDA! Please feel free to make your own posts on the community, or comment on any that catch your eye. 

    I'm sorry that you lost your job due to coronavirus, but it seems like you have a really good outlook. Very best of luck with it all. 
    National Campaigns Officer, she/her

    Join our call for an equal future.
  • Parrot123
    Parrot123 Community member Posts: 137 Pioneering
  • Parrot123
    Parrot123 Community member Posts: 137 Pioneering
    Hello All, How are you all doing tonight? I hope you are all well ?. I am looking for some advice if possible. Can anyone help me to get my child at risk folder. My GP does not have it. I have rang the social work. I live in Scotland. Any advice would be very much appreciated Will x
  • Ross_Alumni
    Ross_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,652 Disability Gamechanger
    Hello @Parrot123

    I see you've created a discussion for this topic elsewhere, that's great. I just wanted to say that I'm very well thank you, and I hope you are too :) 
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  • Parrot123
    Parrot123 Community member Posts: 137 Pioneering
  • Blake95
    Blake95 Community member Posts: 3 Listener
    @Tori_Scope thankyou for such a lovely comment and anything I find out I will keep everyone posted. Speak soon
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 144 Pioneering
    Yes, we still need to fight for housing, should been included in the first place!
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 1,651 Connected
    Parrot123 said:
    Garza said:
    I think things are improving for Disabled people, I do think both pieces of legislation are pretty toothless and can be widely ignored or bypassed by those who choose to, enforcement seems to be pretty thin on the ground 

    I would agree with parrot123 in that housing provision for disabled people especially in the social sector needs to be vastly improved
    Hi everyone - I'm Graham, I work for Scope, and I'm old enough to remember campaigning for a civil rights act back in the Nineties! Housing was a major gap when the DDA came into force, and campaigners and activists at the time were extremely unhappy that this essential element of independent living was missed out. Housing is still "exempt" from the Equality Act duties - bits of it like landlords not refusing adaptations are covered, but the fundamental right to accessible homes is still not in place. Do you think Scope should be campaigning about this issue?
    @gr@grahamfindlay Yes we need to stand up and fight. I want a home of my own. ty Will
    Is the Pope a Catholic? I have a neighbour who's Wheelchair bound and lives in a 1 bed Flat from the local Housing Association, but more still needs to be done IMO.

    For instance, due to both lockdowns I've been living with my Parents till further notice, and not at the Flat, I did go back briefly in late September but I was only there for a month before we went back into lockdown!

    Hopefully it won't happen, but I am concerned that if there's a further extension to lockdown after the 2nd of December, I could lose the Flat as the Social will say I'm not spending enough time there to warrant them paying the rent via HB, not my fault, blame moronic Clowns who have caused the second lockdown by not social distancing etc.


  • csno01
    csno01 Community member Posts: 387 Pioneering
    I have found that things have become made more accessible these days, thanks to Technology.  Most recently, I would say making websites and documents  more accessible is a massive step forward.  This is just a couple of the many examples of what has changed over the years. 
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 1,651 Connected
    SallyH said:
    Because my disabilities are invisible I've had to deal with people telling me to 'prove' I'm disabled. It would be understandable if I was applying for grants/benefits/money etc, but usually it's just people at work or people who see me use a disabled seat on a train (Only once was it another disabled person who needed the seat, and with them I gave up the seat). Like, what do they want? My referral letter from my psychiatrist? The prescription I need to live a somewhat normal life? The damage my conditions cause to my skin and bank account? 

    And don't get me started on companies like WeWork who don't declare who accessible their offices are for people with physical and mental disabilities. Also, if anyone wishes to know, there's only a few London based Wework offices that ALLOW GUIDE DOGS. Not just normal, untrained dogs. GUIDE DOGS. Y'know, the ones that people need. Nowhere on the site do they explain this discriminatory policy. Nowhere do they talk about accessibility. Nowhere can you find if there's a lift, or stairlift, or anything to help those that have difficulty moving around. Surely if all supermarkets allow guide dogs, a bloody 'Progressive' co-working space should without question. 
    Meh, there used to be a Remploy Factory in Sheffield, bottom of Brightside Lane, they tried to get me to work there but I refused seeing as I refuse on principle to be plonked into some disability specific non job that pays 2 quid a day because all the clients are on benefits and therefore can't earn much without the DWP jumps on them from a great height with benefit sanctions.

    Although in 2008 I did 3 days at Reclaim, a similar project for disabled adults, stood up all day in a noisy, messy recycling Factory... How in the God's name is THAT suitable for a disabled bloke who can't stand up all day due to back problems? And don't even get me started on the joke of a "pay packet", £3 a day for 8 hours a day = 25 p an hour for that?!

    On the last day, I went Home and prestented Mum with ehe pay packet containing £6 and she was o proud! I was like, what? And went on a long swear word filled rant about unequal pay just because all the clients were disabled and on benefits.

    Nowadays such things are illegal! Good!

  • speedshrew
    speedshrew Community member Posts: 7 Listener
    Whatever fancy name they call it, it is all useless without enforcement.
    Yes things are better then they were considerably, but there are several things that get on my nerves. My biggest one is taxi provision talk about patchy at best. The amount of times I nave gone to places, prebooked a cab and the firm will send a saloon car and claimed I never asked for a wheelchair cab and drive off. I have lost count of when I have been stranded at train stations, or in the middle of nowhere!
    I also want to find work, but my disability seems to stop me. Talk about irritating!
  • RayS
    RayS Community member Posts: 6 Listener
    The existing act needs amending to take out the many loopholes that allow organisations to avoid the requirements.

    Taking out the loopholes that include "reasonable" would be a good starting point. It's not reasonable to be left out in the cold and wet to wait for someone to allow access to a building, etc. . . . .
  • Susanfelix
    Susanfelix Community member Posts: 17 Courageous
    I applied for PIP and I told them about my disabilities. The wrote back to me and said "I've decided that you can stand up on your own and move 200 metres". In what universe? I haven't done that in more than 10 years!!!
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    Sir Trevor Phillips said Disablism is invisible, institutionalised, universally practiced, publicly accepted, and, in it's effect on people's lives, is "in many ways worse than Racism".  (He could have said the same about Ageism, too, which is almost official policy)     There is no Equality when one Equality is More Equal Than Others.  The answer is to make Disablism and Ageism Equally unthinkable as Racism, and Equally as unlawful,

    In any policy or practice, replace the word Old with the word Black, replace the word Disabled with the word Black, and if there is still nothing wrong, fine.

    The thread on the Housing Consultation includes a link to the background papers, including the astonishing statement that an 'equalities impact ' has been carried out.  The senior civil servants who parasite on our taxes as authorities on Equality have declared....(.Look it up but you won't believe it)......... Having absolutely NO disabled housing makes absolutely NO impact on the lives of elderly and disabled people  (!)  
  • Francis_theythem
    Francis_theythem Community member Posts: 120 Pioneering
    Low-functioning people should be allowed a place in the world. I say "allowed", no one should have to feel like they're not "allowed" to exist in the world, that they have nothing to contribute. Too often I feel that people like me have no place in society. This is not okay.
    Social stigma towards illness and disability literally needs to be eradicated
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    Wow, Francis-theythem
    That is a perfect post.  I want every senior civil servant and every M.P. to be obliged to personally embroider those words on a banner to be displayed at all times in  sight of where they do their work.

    It should be in every Scope window, too.
  • Lindsey54
    Lindsey54 Community member, Scope Member Posts: 11 Connected
    I would like to feel safer when I go for walks.  If you are slow, having to pause often and use a walking aid like me, certain groups of people make you feel threatened and worried for you safety.  I had to take early retirement due to my disability, have found this hard.
  • csno01
    csno01 Community member Posts: 387 Pioneering
    Lindsey54 said:
    I would like to feel safer when I go for walks.  If you are slow, having to pause often and use a walking aid like me, certain groups of people make you feel threatened and worried for you safety.  I had to take early retirement due to my disability, have found this hard.
    Hi Lindsey,
    i can relate to this, especially wanting to feel safer when going out by yourself.  Feeling safe is paramount I think. 

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