Invisible Disabilities Week 16-22 October 2022

National Inclusion Week took place a couple of weeks ago and next week is Invisible Disabilities Week, which seeks too bring awareness, education and support to families, friends, co-workers, community and around the world. When considering the term ‘diversity and inclusion’ I’m struck by what Hidden Disabilities highlights, that organisations tend to be too narrow in their thinking, associating it with ethnicity and gender, arguably failing to capture the numerous definitions of diversity that exist in society. Moreover, the disability community are the largest minority group globally, with around 1 in 7 people having some form of disability, and of this 1 in 7, in the UK, 80% of those disabilities are not visible. That equates to over 10 million people in the UK and around 1.3 billion globally. Two years ago I wrote a blog post called ‘Who cares in a crisis: Academic caregivers and inclusion in HE’, where I shared my personal struggles as an academic and carer of my daughter with the hidden disability of autism, and how helpful the research of Professor Marie-Pierre Moreau was to me, but also to the academic community in calling for cultural change for a more inclusive HE sector. There is still so much to be done, and so much more we need to do, but having global spotlighting, like Invisible Disabilities Week, gives me hope that we are taking positive steps in the right direction.

Retail Reset Webinar, The Future Collective

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If was a pleasure to be asked to participate in the Retail Reset webinar last month, organised and hosted by The Future Collective. We shared our thoughts and perspectives on the future of retail post pandemic, exploring trends of localism, retail portability, service, technology and innovation, experimentation and sustainability. Watch it here

Who cares in a crisis? Academic caregivers and inclusion in HE

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I’m a full-time academic and carer of two teenage daughters, one neurotypical, the other neurodiverse who was diagnosed with autism aged 3. Two years ago, we won our 24-month tribunal case to ensure our daughter received access to the educational support required to enable her to reach her full potential. Workwise, I’m a course leader and research fellow, and over the years, as student numbers and workloads have increased, often been asked, “how do you do everything?” Last year I also became co-carer of my disabled and elderly mother. By March 2020 I was burnt out with exhaustion. Whilst chastising myself for getting to this point, feeling like a failure and letting everyone down - my family, students, colleagues and workplace, at a time of the Covid crisis - I came across the research of Professor Marie-Pierre Moreau into generating cultural change for a more inclusive HE sector, specifically academic staff with caring responsibilities. Since 2010 she has been studying this group and argues that whilst the flexibility of academia can facilitate the combination of care and academic work, this flexibility can also render the needs of caregivers invisible. The issues faced are vast and varied with many staff carers struggling to balance their caring responsibilities with their employment and often negatively affecting their wellbeing, physical and mental health, career progression and retention (Moreau, 2019). In academia there is often a divide between public and private life yet “we need to break through the reluctance to discuss the realities of caring responsibilities and be prepared to challenge the idea of the ‘unencumbered academic’” (Burford and Henderson, 2018, Conference Inference blog) if we really want to witness a cultural change towards inclusion for carers within HE. Research on academics with caring responsibilities is scarce (Moreau, 2019). It has been personally empowering to discover the work of Prof Moreau, to accept that I’m not a super-human robotic like “care-free” academic, and to network with her and others as they seek to raise awareness of “care-full” academia and to change practices and policies in High Education to improve the lives of staff with caring responsibilities.

 

If you’re an academic carer and would like to network please contact me.

 

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