It was a month of beginnings and one ending, with opportunities to present to new audiences and to celebrate the achievements of clients as one project concluded.
Liverpool
We increasingly feel that Liverpool is our second home (after Salford), so regular is our work there now and the past month was no exception.
On 29 June we attended Liverpool John Moore's Professional Services conference 'Pioneering solutions to the challenges of the 21st Century' where Jane was a keynote speaker. This was a vibrant event with topics ranging from effective tackling of homelessness – the wonderful David Carter, CEO of the Whitechapel Centre, to creating new internal networks, to support staff and making full use of body language to enhance presentations.
Jane's talk used her own story to encourage the audience to see every aspect of their experience – the good, the bad and the ugly – as part of a valuable whole. They were asked to show by the height of their hand, how confident they felt about this. There was a marked increase when they voted at the end. We were proud that the University featured Result CIC's autumn development programme for disabled staff and the brand new pilot for managers of staff with disabilities or long-term health conditions – a real innovation which we are excited about.
London
Two weeks later saw Result CIC giving another presentation. This time it was the fourth conference of the National Association of Disabled Staff Networks in Higher Education (NADSN). This was a disabled-led event held at University College London (UCL) which addressed major topics such as whether a new charter mark would help improve access for disabled staff in H.E, how 'ableism' (assuming everyone is non-disabled) can restrict academic staff and from Professor Anna Lawson, the UK's first blind Law Professor (Leeds University) what the potential impact is of Brexit on disabled people's legal rights.
Hormoz and Jane's talk addressed the issue of disabled people being fully themselves – at work and generally. We used the metaphor of the characters in the film, The Wizard of Oz, to encourage the audience to consider which barriers may be holding them back. A final activity encouraged participants to reflect on one action they wanted to take, in the light of the talk, which could allow them to be more fully themselves at work. They then shared in pairs. This resulted in a real buzz of conversation which overflowed into the break periods!
... and back to Manchester!
Our successful community programme for people living with Sickle Cell ended this month. We advocate marking and celebrating success so we held a special event presenting each participant with a certificate and providing a graduation cake.
Our guest speaker, Ruth Ibegbuna, wowed the group with her personal story of the impact of her long-term health condition (MS) and how embracing this, rather than letting it determine who she was, let her be even more successful. Ruth made an open offer to use her (fantastic) network to help any of the participants. We hope they take her up on this! Several participants were filmed talking about their experiences on the programme which consisted of a set of 1:1 coaching sessions and 3 group workshops. We are looking forward to seeing the short film which will be produced and hope that this will help increase awareness of Sickle Cell and how individuals have positively managed life with Sickle Cell.
So now it's the holiday season. That means for us taking time to review and plan for the exciting times ahead!