July marks Disability Pride Month, which is a time to honour the diversity, history and contributions of disabled people everywhere. For employers, it’s not just a chance to show support but a great way to create a more inclusive workplace.
Disability Pride Month celebrations don’t have to be complicated, as there are lots of different things you can do. Here are five top tips to help you get started.
1 – Highlight disabled voices
Centring disabled voices during Disability Pride Month is a wonderful way to show inclusion, and also for others to learn from lived experience.
How to do it – Why not invite disabled guest speakers to address your team? Hosting talks, workshops or presentations from guest speakers is a great way to gain new insight, but please be aware that you will need to pay guest speakers rather than expecting them to do this for free.
Could you share stories, artwork, and illustrations from disabled people or team members in places like newsletters, social media or in the office?
Run an access audit
It’s wonderful to be able to mark Disability Pride Month by making sure that your building, organisation and systems are as accessible as possible. Even if you have done an audit in the past, check when you last had one done.
How to do it – Run an audit by hiring outside accessibility audit officers. Sometimes, it can be really hard to see the barriers faced by disabled people in your own business. Disabled people themselves can also point out where they find difficulties, so it’s worth thinking about how you can facilitate feedback. Could you send out anonymous feedback forms or hold focus groups?
Don’t just encourage feedback, but implement as much as you can. Also, make sure that you centre disabled or neurodivergent people within the process – after all, nothing about us without us!
Interested in an accessibility audit? Want to learn more? Visit our access audit page to learn how to book a physical or online visit to your business, organisation, service, or website.
3 – Host inclusive events or activities
Social events can help to foster good working relationships among your team members. However, it can feel very demoralising for disabled people to realise that their access requirements are an afterthought or not part of the planning process. It can make people feel unwelcome. This isn’t just good practice for Disability Pride Month, but all year round.
How to do it: Be mindful when organising events about the physical buildings that you choose, such as access for wheelchair users or disabled toilets. If the event you are going to is loud, could you choose something quieter for any neurodivergent members of staff? Why not organise educational events around disability, such as a lunchtime screening of disability-focused content or films? Could it be that you organise BSL sessions for any staff who would like to learn?
Feedback is also a vital part of organising events like this. Ask people ahead of time what they would like to do or see introduced. Afterwards, make sure to check what you can improve on for next time or what people enjoyed the most.
4 – Bite-sized education
Not everyone knows that July is Disability Pride Month, but everyone can learn.
How to do it: Can you update your socials with information or content around disability? Could you also add information on disability or neurodiversity to your internal communications, Slack or newsletters so that staff can read through a few bullet points? Social media is also a great, quick way to show that you are celebrating and marking the month.
5 – Celebrate disability and joy
All too often, sharing disabled stories focuses on the negative, sad or emotional experiences that people have been through. While this is important too, it shouldn’t be the only focus of disability-focused events for Pride month. There has to be a space for joy, too.
How to do it: Could you start a disability network so that people have a community group to spend time with? Starting small campaigns, such as what Disability Pride Month means to you, for social media or newsletters. Let your celebration be authentic rather than performative. Could you partner with other organisations to host coffee mornings and networking?
