Unleashing the power of peer support

Liz Sayce

We are disabled people leading change• Formed 2012 through 3-way merger• Getting a life, getting career opportunities• Reach. Year 1: 674,000 web visitors. 93% said

factsheets were useful to their purposes• Influence: on portability, PIP, Access to Work

• Projects with DPOs to test new approaches to personal budgets, apprenticeships, leadership

Low expectations• In our health and social services, schools, colleges and

employment support providers • ‘At school I was told to focus on science not arts as the

arts would be too hard for a deaf person to succeed in! That was a teacher trying to be helpful’

•  ‘I feel myself caught between two stools. If I declare myself disabled and having mental health issues, people forget I have a Cambridge degree and have run big departments (and am still capable of that) but if I just concentrate on my cv without mentioning my disability, I feel I am unable to get the support I need with certain issues. It is a nightmare’.

• ‘In spinal injury units you hear from people who’ve done everything from sky diving to walking to the north pole. Employment is a faint whisper. All the volunteers are out of work’ (senior journalist, quadriplegic)

New generation of community leaders• Coaching, peer leadership development• Role models with diverse experiences• From chairing meetings to becoming local

Mayor• 94% rated programme as excellent• ‘It made an incredible contribution to my development as

a Deaf BME role model….the confidence to lead within my community to a better and more fairly treated society. I look forward to what my future holds.’

Aspirations for senior jobs?• Virtually no existing evidence • First national survey, supported by Lloyds

Banking Group• 1461 responses, disabled and non-disabled• Identified a pool: 110 earned >80K. 102 Board

level Directors• Significant impairments from quadriplegia to bi-

polar disorder• ‘I have brittle bone disease which has resulted

in 40 fractures of my arms and legs’• ‘I have suffered from MS for 19 years’

Duration of disability

Enabling factors• 2 significant factors: mentoring and career-long

senior support• ‘Good managers and good people who have

given me confidence to achieve’• Looking beyond labels• ‘I filed the letter away fairly carefully and

continued in that job, quite happily, for several years’

Different experiences

• Non-disabled people twice as likely to be Board level Directors, 3 times as likely to be other Directors/ Heads of Department

• Disabled people less likely to get mentoring and senior support than non-disabled people

• High fliers largely male, more likely to work in private sector, professional/scientific/technical and finance/banking/insurance

Employee and learner power

New thinking

• Most disabled people have extra coping skills. Sell those. It sets you apart from the herd

• The challenges posed by my disability mean my colleagues see me as adaptable and resourceful

• My employers have used me as a mentor...My disability helps me relate to my colleagues

• New narrative: disabled people bring resilience, flexibility, empathy, problem solving

• Sharing tips on whether, when, to whom and how to be open

Peer support• Proven effectiveness in independent living,

recovery in mental health• ‘We don’t always need a support worker’• Significant in employment• Zero Project: Disabled People Leading Career

Development one of 40 international good practices; ‘exemplary in the areas of innovation, impact, chances of long-term growth’

• Peer support through job clubs, peer mentoring, on-line peer support, coaching

• New approaches needed given record of Work Programme, Work Choice

• www.disabilityrightsuk.org

• Radiate network

• Publications

• All party parliamentary group on disability