Disability Awareness Training for your workplace

Annie Mannion | 27 Mar 2024

Group of three women sitting in front of patterned wall in workplace setting

  • "The panellists speaking about their lives experience was incredibly helpful and informative."
  • "Being able to listen to lived experiences of people was the most valuable for me, as it is only so much you can learn from theory and books."

Attendees of our in-house disability awareness training consistently note that learning about the lived experiences of the speakers makes such a difference to the impact and understanding of the course:

Increase your confidence in meeting the accessibility needs of your diverse workforce (and customers!) by attending our Disability Awareness Training for the workplace courses, which can be delivered live to your organisation online or in person.

Choose to educate your team in a combination course sharing tips from the below sessions, or book topic-specific courses as below:

Book from our range of insightful sessions for your team in-house to train your group together - just get in touch with us to discuss your needs.

Contact us about Disability training

Improve your disability awareness

On the courses, your team will learn how to describe the types of impairments people experience, and also understand through real-life stories the unintentional barriers we can create in the workplace, in education and in daily life.

Gain valuable advice on how to remove barriers for various disabilities in your setting, whether it be language, or considering what in your physical surroundings will be useful to disabled people. The idea is to not only remove barriers but avoid creating them in the first place.

The courses also cover the types of assistive technologies that can remove barriers and create benefits or efficiencies.

Watch a taster of what you'll learn on the courses:

What attendees have said about disability awareness training:

"I found the demo of the screen reader really useful - amazing to actually see/hear from someone who uses one rather than just reading about the theory of the tools which don't get the messages across for me as well as today's session did." - attendee of the Removing visual barriers course 
 
"I found Rina's authentic and open conversation about her experience really insightful and helped my confidence in how to work better with people with neurodiversity conditions, and for my own disability. Thank you!” - attendee from Beyond Green of the Removing neurodiversity barriers course

"Going through mental health difficulties and feeling like you have to hide them at work can be incredibly isolating, especially in our current times... it has given us a jumping off point to have some interesting conversations as a team." - attendee of the Removing mental health barriers course

"You will pick up valuable tips, for example in online presentations and meetings that use slides, not using phrases like 'as you can see here' or 'I won’t bother reading out the slide.'" - attendee of the Removing visual barriers course 

"Really agree with others - best online training session I have attended."

Disability awareness training for HR and line managers

As well as training your staff in general disability awareness training, you might also wish to train your team in-house so they can share their new-found knowledge with your wider overall employee base.

Roles including diversity and inclusion leaders, HR Directors, Hiring managers, Line managers, IT managers will also learn vital skills from our experts, picking up best practices in working with disabled employees.

Learn about other courses for HR-specific roles including Accessible Recruitment and Onboarding, and our eLearning training options.

Neurodiversity, physical disability and mental health training

For more than 20 years AbilityNet has helped individuals and supported organisations with our expert advice. As well as covering visual, hearing and physical disabilities, our courses look at neurodivergence and mental health issues.

Alex Barker, Disability Consultant at AbilityNet, has Moebius Syndrome, which is a very rare condition that causes paralysis in facial muscles, club foot, missing limbs and sometimes cognitive issues too. 

He shares his advice within our Removing physical barriers course,  in which you will find out about the types of physical impairments and their associated digital, environmental, and cultural barriers. His insights will give you important knowledge on how to not unintentionally exclude people living with physical impairments or differences from participating fully.

Autism and dyslexia are also covered in detail on the combination or individual courses, along with outlines of the types of cognitive difference and neurodivergent conditions, and the assistive technologies and tools that can help. 

So, put accessibility and inclusion at the heart of your organisation:

Contact us for help

Further resources 

AbilityNet provides a range of free services to help disabled people and older people. If you can afford it, please donate to help us support older and disabled people through technology