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Last year our Disability and Wellbeing Network (DAWN) was successful in securing funding from WDES (Workforce Disability Equality Standard) to run a campaign in the Trust to encourage our staff to tick the disability box on ESR. Since the launch of the Tick the Box campaign, our Disability declaration rate has gone up from 4.4% to 5.5%. Two of our clinical services have rates over 12%, with 4 services still below 3%. So there’s some disparity as to whether or not people feel able to declare depending on where they work in the organisation.

 

We know from the Staff Survey that rates should be at 20%+ but we understand that sometimes staff do not wish to declare for a variety of reasons. We also know from the Staff Survey that colleagues with a disability/long term health condition feel less part of a team and less supported in career development than staff without a disability/long term health condition.

 

However, since running the Tick the Box campaign we’ve heard the following from colleagues:

 

"I don’t feel I stick out like a sore thumb with more people like me around now"

"It has emphasised the need for those of us with a disability to speak up and be recognised"

"It’s made me feel less alone. More supported in a way and I am so happy that more mental health conditions are being recognised as long term health conditions"

 

We will continue to promote disability and long term health condition declaration and hope that as a Trust we can get to a point where all service lines become places where people feel they can talk about their disability or long term health condition in an open and positive way and by doing this get the support that they need.

 

Read more about the Tick The Box campaign in our website.