A Potent Fuel?: Faith Identity And Development Impact In World Vision Community Programming

This paper explores the role of faith identity on impact in development by looking at the programming of a major international faith‐based development organisation (FBDO). It argues that faith identity rests not only in the internal projected identity of the FBDO but also on perceptions of that identity in the community, highlighting the role context plays in the formulation of faith identity and its impact. Secondly, the paper argues that FBDOs possess not only a faith identity but also a development one and that it is the interplay between both that allows for the creation of engagement and trust in interventions

Invisible Disabilities in Education and Employment

More than 1 in 5 UK adults are disabled. Disabilities that are not immediately obvious are known as ‘invisible disabilities’, such as mental health conditions, neurodivergences and energy-limiting conditions.1 Evidence on this topic is limited as most research focuses on disability in general, or on a few specific conditions. Those with invisible disabilities may face challenges due to a lack of awareness and difficulty accessing support and services. Strategies aimed at increasing access and inclusion for adults with invisible disabilities in employment, and in higher and further education, could include: increasing awareness and understanding via training and reciprocal mentoring schemes; introducing ‘passports’ for transfer of adjustments to avoid repeated disclosure; inclusive design that considers sensory and informational barriers to access; maintaining online access to events and services post-pandemic; updating policy and guidance with examples of less recognised invisible disabilities; and promoting flexible working and learning arrangements. The 2021 National Disability Strategy set out the actions the Government would take to improve the lives of disabled people, including making workplaces more inclusive and accessible. However, the High Court ruled in 2022 that the strategy was “unlawful due to inadequate consultation”, which the Government has sought permission to appeal. Fourteen policies in the strategy are currently paused

Pandemic Stories from the UK:Disabled people's Experience of Employment in Socially Distanced Times

This paper will explore the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on disabled people's employment experience and outcomes in the United Kingdom. It will draw upon secondary research conducted by trade unions and disabled people's organisations during 2020-2021 to highlight the significant and worrying trend in redundancies and job loss targeted at disabled workers. For anyone interested in equality, diversity and inclusion issues that relate to working lives, this presentation is a stark reminder that despite anti-discrimination legislation (The Equality Act, 2010, previously Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 in England), disabled people face negative perceptions of their ability to work and to be productive employees. The questions addressed in this presentation will make you stop and think about the moral and ethical judgements that are being made by society and employers. They will lead us to a deeper consideration of underlying cultural responses to the impaired body/mind and the all too often ableist nature of the organisation of work

Disabled People, Work, and Small-Medium-Size Enterprises (SMEs)

Finding solutions to address the UK Government aim of getting one million more disabled people into paid employment by 2027 requires a better understanding of the nuanced demand-side barriers currently affecting small and medium size businesses (SMEs). SMEs have been a more robust employer of the unemployed than larger firms meaning they have a unique role in providing employment for disabled people. It is therefore critical to understand how SME employers experience the process of recruiting and retaining disabled people and how disabled people experience working for SMEs. This thesis finds that jobs are still designed with the typical able-bodied worker in mind, and SME practices are often inflexible and therefore exclusionary for people who are deemed not to fit the abled-body worker identity. Yet, despite this, disabled people report feeling welcome in SME workplaces because of the informal nature of the employment relationship. The findings suggest a social relational approach to workplace flex-ability is needed to consider ability-diversity as typical to the human condition. As a value-based and inclusive approach, flex-ability differs to more traditional understandings of flexibility because it aims to operationalise more enabling employment practice by changing workplace culture and practice. In this atmosphere of trust and acceptance, disabled people feel comfortable talking about impairment effects thus reducing the disclosure dilemma. In turn, responding to the needs of disabled workers by changing the workplace instead of changing the individual is therefore the essence of a social relational approach to flex-ability in work

Landscapes of Exclusion: A Qualitative Study of Small and Medium Size Employers (SME’s) and Disabled People:Labour market relations, employment and occupation

This paper builds on the idea that we are living in a disablist society which values ”normal” bodies and minds and where paid-work is the primary marker of social inclusion and citizenship in neoliberal political economies. Gaining access to paid employment is challenging for most disabled people and many workplaces are ”landscapes of exclusion” caused by a multiplicity of social barriers that limit labour-market participation in paid-employment. Government initiatives such as Disability Confident and Access to Work have so far failed to adequately address demand-side factors and the structural organization of work which keep disabled people as unequal citizens and stigmatized. Existing research has tended to focus on disabled people with low-level qualifications and skills, with the assumption that those with higher-level education are not excluded or disadvantaged by the social and spatial organisation of work under capitalism. Specifically, no previous UK studies have sought to understand the perceptions and experience of small and medium size employers (SME’s) alongside the personal narratives of disabled people. The explanation of why highly-educated disabled people are disadvantaged in employment terms is complex, however evidence suggests it can be explained in part by employer discrimination located within the economic imperatives of capitalism. Demand-side issues such as, mainstream labour processes, physical barriers in work environments, organisational cultures that discriminate, stigmatise and stereotype disabled people have consistently been highlighted as problematic by disabled people, but ignored by policy. Despite anti-discrimination legislation, most workplaces are not fully accessible, employers are not being held to account for their lack of ”positive action” or discriminatory policies and practice, and state funded support is inadequate, hard to obtain and premised on a deficit model of disability. The paper engages primarily with Disability Studies whilst drawing upon theories developed in the ”geographies of disability” literature. The focus is on the experiences of degree educated disabled people working for small and medium size employers (SMEs). At the centre of this qualitative study were 17 disabled people and 10 SME’s who each took part in semi-structured interviews. The data shows how SME employers’ conceptualisation of disability is often framed on deficit, medical model understandings. This influences their perception of what responsibility they have in arranging ”reasonable adjustments” and could explain the wide-ranging unconsciousness of discriminatory workplace design and practices. The data also reveals the inadequacies of Access to Work as the primary support model and other government initiatives such as Disability Confident. Set against wider concerns of losing entitlement to extra funding through the Motability vehicle scheme following reassessment for Personal Independence Payments (PIP), the data builds on existing studies which highlight the detrimental effect such assessments are having on disabled people

Employment and Support Allowance: State Crafting the “Disability Category”

The aim of this study was to uncover and then interpret the ideologies which are implicit in two government Green Paper documents relating to the introduction and development of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) policy over a ten-year period. The paper is particularly concerned with the language of politics as a discourse, and the ways in which successive governments have used discourse and concepts to strategically manufacture doubt with respect to the causes of the “disability employment gap” and the implementation of social security reform. By analysing changing discourses of policy texts over time, we can identify ideological change in policy constructs to explain how ESA was and continues to be justified. By looking at the discourse more critically one begins to question whether a rhetorical shift away from a primary concern with the associated costs linked to benefit levels and the disability employment gap is a deliberate political strategy linked to a wider ideology of the “disability category”; which serves to obscure the contradictions of capitalism and thus sustain it (in the very specific Marxist sense of ideology). This paper broadens the analysis by examining the situational contextual factors shaping the introduction and development of ESA, providing a timely contribution to ongoing contemporary debates about the meaning and “problem” of social security dependency

Innovative Surveillance Strategies to Support the Elimination of Filariasis in Africa.

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) and onchocerciasis are two neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) of public health significance targeted for global elimination. The World Health Organization (WHO) African Region is a priority region, with the highest collective burden of LF and onchocerciasis globally. Coendemic loiasis further complicates elimination due to the risk of adverse events associated with ivermectin treatment. A public health framework focusing on health-related data, systematic collection of data, and analysis and interpretation of data is used to highlight the range of innovative surveillance strategies required for filariasis elimination. The most recent and significant developments include: rapid point-of-care test (POCT) diagnostics; clinical assessment tools; new WHO guidelines; open-access online data portals; mHealth platforms; large-scale prevalence maps; and the optimisation of mathematical models. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.