[00:00:00] Gerry Scullion: Welcome to this eight cd, the podcast dedicating to exploring the world of human-centered design. And making our world a more inclusive and accessible and impactful place. I'm Jerry Scion, and in each episode we bring conversations with thought leaders and change makers who are shaping the future of design, business and social innovation.

[00:00:19] Gerry Scullion: In today's episode, I'm joined by the incredible and they're brilliant. Jamie Shields, co-founder of Disabled by Society, a hundred percent disabled, owned and led business committed to shifting how we think, learn and act on disability inclusion. Jamie is an accessibility consultant and speaker, an advocate who challenges ableism and helps organizations create meaningful change.

[00:00:41] Gerry Scullion: In this episode, we cover three things. Number one, unlearning ableism. How systemic barriers affect disabled people daily, and why organizations must move beyond compliance to real inclusion. And number two, designing for accessibility from the start. Now why retrofitting accessibility is costly and [00:01:00] ineffective, and how embedding it right from the beginning benefits everyone.

[00:01:03] Gerry Scullion: And number three, holding organizations accountable. How to assess whether a company is genuinely inclusive and not just ticking a box. Jamie shares their lived experience navigating an inaccessible world. I. The impact of internalized ableism and how businesses can take a practical step to becoming more inclusive.

[00:01:22] Gerry Scullion: If you enjoy this episode, please like, share, and subscribe. It helps us reach more people and spark more critical conversations. And if you're looking to take the first step in bringing human-centered service design approach to your organization. You guessed it. Sign up for my free five day email course with the link is in the description.

[00:01:40] Gerry Scullion: Let's get straight into it.

[00:01:51] Gerry Scullion: Jamie, come here. I'm delighted to have you in the show. Um, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and what you do.

[00:01:58] Jamie Shields: Yes. So I am [00:02:00] from Northern Ireland, hence the lovely strong Northern Irish accent, um, pacifically, cool island, as we've discussed as you know it, which when you tell people you're from Cool Island, they have no clue what you're talking about.

[00:02:10] Jamie Shields: So it's better say Northern Ireland. Yeah, I, um, a disabled speaker, trader, consultant and co-founder Disabled by Society,

[00:02:23] Jamie Shields: which essentially.

[00:02:27] Gerry Scullion: Right. Excellent.

[00:02:28] Jamie Shields: My fault.

[00:02:29] Gerry Scullion: No, no, absolutely. You've said that before and I'm delighted to, to have you 'cause I, I followed you on LinkedIn and I was like, God, it would be great to speak to Jamie. Uh, and I'd love to learn a little bit more around the origins of, of first of all, how you came to set up disabled by society.

[00:02:46] Gerry Scullion: So maybe we'll start off with that, you know, what was the precursor to it and what were you doing before?

[00:02:52] Jamie Shields: Yeah. Well to be honest, if you look at my cv, I have the most colorful cv. Like it looks like I had no motivation to be employ was [00:03:00] months

[00:03:04] Jamie Shields: my so people by my cv and I understand why, but it wasn't because didn't I, he wasn't motivated. I am registered blind autistic. I a adhd, attract disabilities at Pokemon cards. I struggled with employment my whole life, so I bounced job to job trying to get those adjustments that I needed to kind of just do what everybody else could do in the workplace, but most people didn't really understand.

[00:03:31] Jamie Shields: So I bounced around for ages, landed in recruitment, which is strange because I couldn't find a job, keep a job, and then suddenly I was helping people find jobs. Job. I was there for about five years, but it was the first time I would ever been promoted. It was the first time I'd ever been listened to as a disabled person.

[00:03:49] Jamie Shields: I got my adjustments. Now, don't get me wrong, company that didn't get it right every time, but when they got it wrong, they listened, whereas I'd never experienced that. So whilst in that employment, I became [00:04:00] their global disability lead of their dis.

[00:04:11] Jamie Shields: Kind was like, you know what? I love this. I'm starting speak with my disability. I got this confidence I'd never really had before talking about it. Yeah. Um, because I had a lot of shame, had a lot of regret. I grew up in the nineties, up the nineties, gay, gay people to take that. Um, so like that confidence had never been something I'd had before.

[00:04:34] Jamie Shields: Sure. So I started job. Juggling, um, employer really supportive initially training. Like, you know, what if do, no, I go at and six months Disabled society year with c

[00:04:58] Gerry Scullion: It's, it's, it's, it's [00:05:00] a, it's been a busy couple of years for you as well. Um, so how long has the business been going?

[00:05:06] Jamie Shields: So officially launched as Disabled by Society in October last year. Yeah. However, unofficially we were operating as unlearning ableism. There's two friends who were disabled working together, which was a nightmare for clients with the invoicing because we were sending an invoice for two people.

[00:05:22] Jamie Shields: Yeah. Um, every time. So we were like, to know what, we love doing this here. Talk about some of them, but we have many projects, the background, um, and because we're so connected, why do we not just business live in October? Um, but officially everyone's us.

[00:05:42] Gerry Scullion: Okay, very good. So. One of the, one of the bits that I wanna talk to you about is, you know, compliance.

[00:05:49] Gerry Scullion: Okay. And when you look at, um, I'm a service designer, so I helped organizations design their services mainly in the government space. And this is absolutely no [00:06:00] connection to any of the work that I've done before. This is, you know, Intel that I've worked with from around the world. So this is not reflective of my, my current clients or.

[00:06:12] Gerry Scullion: When accessibility and, um, you know, compliance starts spoken about in the same sentence. I'm keen to really understand how we can actually move beyond that so it becomes closer to their DNA of actually how they operate. When you speak to people like myself who have, I guess, opportunities to, to bring those perspectives into projects.

[00:06:38] Gerry Scullion: What advice do you give them to help nudge closer towards the desired way of working as opposed to like just being a tick box? Exercise.

[00:06:50] Jamie Shields: Hundred percent. I think everybody has this thought that accessibility is an afterthought or it's a trend which is jump in because X, Y, Z companies doing it and we should be [00:07:00] doing it.

[00:07:01] Jamie Shields: I think that's such a kind of outdated mentality. Like, no, we should be doing it right from the start. Like accessibility when you come in at a later date to do is expensive. Yeah. And it means come back and doing work. So my first piece advice is it should always be ingrained in your process, right? From that initial design stage, whatever it is you're doing, you.

[00:07:30] Jamie Shields: Aren't educated about it. Like if you've went marketing for, you've not been taught about accessibility. Most people who learn coding don't learn about accessibility unless they go and seek that out themselves. Yeah. So it's bit like we don't have this knowledge. What do we do? And I would say there is work with disabled consultants.

[00:07:46] Jamie Shields: You know, there's disabled consultants out there who will come in and help you write that accessibility process.

[00:07:55] Jamie Shields: It's not just one person or one team. Everybody kind of needs to have [00:08:00] an inkling of what their role is in this year. Um, so I think with that there is, is working with people to help you write that accessibility process. Um, and then also look at the kind legal implications I think in the UK where I'm based.

[00:08:15] Jamie Shields: Obviously the duty of adjustments and accommodations employer, but there's nothing really concrete accessibility that says your website needs access unless you're public organization. But if a private organization, there's no kind of restrictions there. If you, in the, they have the D, they have so many I can't remember.

[00:08:34] Jamie Shields: Um, but in the, they have more laws around making sure websites are accessible, not accessible. They potentially be taken to, and then Europe we're seeing

[00:08:48] Jamie Shields: which means

[00:08:53] Jamie Shields: so.

[00:08:58] Jamie Shields: No idea, as good as other countries. And [00:09:00] I think we need that uniform aligned approach because if you're a global business, like most companies are now just not operating in one market, we're operating in global markets. Yeah, if you're operating in global markets, you need to be doing this. These companies to avoid fines, avoid to court, somebody can access.

[00:09:15] Jamie Shields: So I think making sure that everybody has that knowledge, embed it, but also a serious way to protect yourself. Sure. Also to attract more people, but also to think about the future of your workplace because we're an population, your workforce has an population you might not experience. Dis yourself. You experience that, and if not, you directly, somebody you're in contact with, your family member, your friend, your colleague.

[00:09:43] Gerry Scullion: Absolutely websites, and I think accessibility tends to, you know, enter those conversations when people are more familiar about. The, the kind of the, the area or the channel that they have control over services encapsulate the [00:10:00] entire ecosystem. So the, the omni-channel experience, can you gimme examples of ways that, um, the kind of ableism has manifested itself in society from your own perspective?

[00:10:13] Jamie Shields: Hundred percent. So I'm not sure. Ableism is the discrimination of disabled people. Yeah. Which we all contribute to. It's essentially systemic oppression, but most people aren't aware of it. Like if I say homophobia, we know what that is. Yeah. If I say racism, we know what that is. It's not that it doesn't exist, but we're more aware.

[00:10:29] Jamie Shields: So we're not really taught about ableism because wanna talk about disability?

[00:10:43] Jamie Shields: If you're design something for people who are non-disabled and not even considering disabled people, which is like 1.7 billion people on the planet, on a market worth trillion globally. So why wouldn't think of market? Um, but when you think about the number of disabled people and when you're, [00:11:00] if you're not design, include them treatment.

[00:11:03] Jamie Shields: So you're effectively discriminating against them. Yeah. So ableism side of. We think of disabled people, people, and we think of these charity cases who they're sitting at home, oh, love that disabled person. Or if a disabled person does something extraordinary, like goes to the shop or gets a job, it's, we get taught inspirational and it's like, I'm inspirational for need to pay my bill each month.

[00:11:28] Jamie Shields: Yeah. So I think we have these assumptions and these narrative.

[00:11:47] Jamie Shields: Like when we're in education in the nineties, when I was going through school, I already learned segregation. I was segregated from my classmates and excluded my normalcy of classmates. Saying that, and obviously picked up on that. And that's why we use adults. We, we don't [00:12:00] have classes or we don't disability.

[00:12:02] Jamie Shields: And if we do, from a very legal standpoint, if you don't have, if you don't.

[00:12:20] Jamie Shields: Whole kind, making your processes of ableism and those processes and workplace you, we, we need to be understanding that disabled people are members of society. Yeah. You know, you don't need to, and yes, it's hard when you don't have all the knowledge, but sometimes it's okay to stop and say, I don't know.

[00:12:38] Jamie Shields: What can I do to support you? Or if. Speak to disabled end users. Ask them what they need from it, test it with them as well, and be open to feedback, but also recognize with accessibility. Accessibility sounds like an amazing end destination and we're all fully accessible one day, but it's not a realistic [00:13:00] destination because what's accessible for one person won't be to.

[00:13:09] Jamie Shields: That doesn't actually mean it's gonna be fully accessible to somebody who maybe has a specific disability that I, with another, and maybe a screen reader that would work for somebody else isn't working for them. So it's been open to people navigating things and things in different ways. Yeah.

[00:13:26] Gerry Scullion: I'm gonna, um, tell you in a secret here in the next story, imagine if this is a magic wand, okay?

[00:13:33] Gerry Scullion: Right. I wand, I. Some sort of, uh, power that you're, you are able to have influence over the whole world for one year. Okay. Like, w what would be that radical, um, sort of thing that you would do to, to make sure that Im, uh, the implementation of, of kind of disability is considered within the design process?[00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Gerry Scullion: What, what are those things, uh, that the listeners can do to, to take away an action, um, from your magic wand? This is my, um, makeshift magic wand. It's, uh, it's a sharpie boom, gone.

[00:14:12] Jamie Shields: Um, well do not know disabled people ready, super half superpowers. Everyone tells us we have superpowers anyway. Uh, which is horrible 'cause it's.

[00:14:26] Jamie Shields: So the design processes, think about things, you know, we don't engage things, we engage things in a very binary way. We think that's the way to do it. Mm-hmm. But when you doing, when you're really working with accessibility, it's not about designing one that things by designing things to have alternative of engaging.

[00:14:45] Jamie Shields: Right. So think of an image. Upload an upload. That is one way of engaging with it's visual. See it? Yeah. Think not every can see that. So why don't we add text, which is a short description of image gets embedded into image, which means if somebody comes [00:15:00] along with a screen reader, they can hear that image is and create that picture.

[00:15:04] Jamie Shields: But now everybody can use that screen reader. So you've created two.

[00:15:11] Jamie Shields: Have might not use an image description. An image description is visible, unlike old image, image description, below image, and it's just for anybody who cannot use that screen reader. Now there's three ways that you've provided now.

[00:15:35] Jamie Shields: Make that image tactile. So somebody who's blind or somebody who has issues with site can come along and actually feel the image. Um, so it's tactile, it's raised up so they can feel it. So you alternative ways of that image. Obviously online ones actually in person, so it's really thinking about those alternative ways.

[00:15:53] Jamie Shields: Engage with things. Videos is such a. Such a big part of society, like everything you do at work, like there's [00:16:00] a video, oh, we're launching a product. Here's, we're constantly videos. Um, because, um, but accessible, and I know companies are getting better, using captions, captions your video. They are.

[00:16:16] Jamie Shields: We're captions.

[00:16:29] Jamie Shields: Access the point of them to help people engage with the video and catch up that word. So add them at the bottom. Use like black and white. Or if you're using your and colors, check the color contrast of those colors. There's tools online that you can do that with. Um, and then again, take off video and turn it.

[00:16:48] Jamie Shields: One is the visual captions.[00:17:00]

[00:17:09] Jamie Shields: You're bound to have disabled colleagues there. Set up a disabled employee network so people can kind of come along and help support with these here, test it out for you, but obviously reward them incentivizing for doing it. Nobody should be doing free extra work.

[00:17:21] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I studied industrial design and I, I qualified in two a very long time ago, and we've been, I feel I've been having this conversation.

[00:17:37] Gerry Scullion: For over 20 years. And it's still kind of radical for some people. They're, they're like, how, how do you un unlearn? Or how do you, well, what am I trying to say here? Like, how do you unlearn ableism? Like, 'cause it seems like that is almost the default for the majority from what I'm hearing, is that, [00:18:00] is that a fair assumption?

[00:18:14] Jamie Shields: We have it so inherently ingrained in us, like ableism, systemic, it means it's ingrained in everything. Your language, your way you think. It's not even that you're trying to wake up in the say, I'm gonna pay off as many disabled people as I can. You know, nobody wakes up lot. And if you do, you very small minority.

[00:18:33] Jamie Shields: Imagine. Yeah. But nobody gets that attention, and I think nobody wants to get it wrong. And I think because we don't have understanding dis disability, we, it stops us trying sometimes. And that is the biggest failure because we should be trying, we should be to get it wrong because if you get it wrong, somebody's gonna come along and help you learn.

[00:18:51] Jamie Shields: Somebody will say, that's not right, and then you take that on board, you take that accountability and then you go ahead and do the work to make it right. That fear [00:19:00] stops us. So I think that's the first thing we need to remove is that fear and then unlearning. It's, it's not like a, again, it's not like an end goal.

[00:19:07] Jamie Shields: It's something that you're constantly doing. Yeah, because there's no one way to be disabled. There's no one disabled expert. And if somebody themselves to be an expert, I tell them that every time. Because I'd been disabled for 34 years of my life. I'm an expert of my disability, my experience. I.

[00:19:32] Jamie Shields: You know, I'm, I'm also gay, my uncles straight, like different, different perspectives of our identity. So I think when it comes to unlearning, recognizing that you're never gonna, it's constantly yourself up to learning from different sources, following black, white, every diversity, this, uh, disabled person out there.

[00:19:51] Jamie Shields: And it's also really just being open

[00:19:58] Gerry Scullion: your own experience. Yeah. [00:20:00] You mentioned there that you're, you're certified blind, correct? Yeah. Registered blind. Yeah. Re registered blind, not certified. You're like, you passed the exam to be, to be, I take that.

[00:20:10] Jamie Shields: It wasn't like an exam.

[00:20:12] Gerry Scullion: Um, so what does that look like for you when you're kind of navigating the world?

[00:20:17] Gerry Scullion: What would, um, you know, it looked like if you wanted to go and access a service that you, you do regularly enough, like maybe go into the city. Talk to me about one the steps that you take that might be, you know, kind of a little bit more different to say how I do it.

[00:20:34] Jamie Shields: Well, like where my works is The best way to kind of describe to people what I say is what somebody sees in 20 meters.

[00:20:40] Jamie Shields: I need to be five meters or four, four to five meters close to see exactly you see in detail. So I can see. I can see in front of me and then there's like a big wall of fogginess and more. I move around. It's kind, you're being stuck in fog and someone's got a glass and you're just moving around in this fog.

[00:20:56] Jamie Shields: Okay. So that's the best way to describe it. Um, [00:21:00] if I'm walking along, somebody walks past me, like side road, I'm not gonna that, like somebody could be waving at me or I could turn around and see some a.

[00:21:16] Jamie Shields: Animals and people actually too, there times I've walked down the street and been like, oh my God, look at that dog, small dog partner. And it's actually a person telling this really upset, physically angry. Um, but like me leaving, I don't really. Like I do travel and stuff for work, but like I don't really kick myself into town.

[00:21:38] Jamie Shields: And I think when I was younger I was definitely a lot more confident with my disabilities. Obviously as we age, my not what it was like. I feel anxiety getting worse as age and I'm 34 now. I know 21, but my eyesight feel I.

[00:21:58] Jamie Shields: In the shop you'll.[00:22:00]

[00:22:15] Jamie Shields: Sure. So I've asked for help in the past and I've been told, well, you don't look disabled, or, well, why would I help you? You don't have a guide dog. You don't have a key in. Like I, I don't need those tools. I have enough sight in front of me to see, like I know, but I shouldn't have to have a guide dog or a sign above me flashing.

[00:22:32] Jamie Shields: I'm disabled to get help. So in the past, 'cause of those projections stopped.

[00:22:45] Jamie Shields: Silent about it. I had so much internalized ableism and a lot of mental health challenges because of being disabled. Yeah. So like that was my internalized ableism where you, the ableism and the exclusion experience. So like I had a very colorful history. My disability and [00:23:00] self acceptance only came employer who supported me.

[00:23:04] Jamie Shields: Right. And really. Stop blaming yourself for everything that was wrong. When you not, you're not the problem. Yeah. Um, because like trigger warning, I was binge drinking, I substance abuse and I was self-harming and I attempted suicide many times. It was a very dark period of my life, but it was because I didn't have people haul, I didn't have a job.

[00:23:27] Jamie Shields: I didn't.

[00:23:31] Jamie Shields: Bouncing a yoyo trying to find all. So now like I'm a lot more articulate, but like because my disabilities are not getting better, we'll say, it just kind of does not. Bit of confidence, but I'm still confident. But I can talk about disability a lot more now, but I think my mobility is not what it used to be.

[00:23:52] Gerry Scullion: So sorry to. E everyone has has a story. Like, you know, what you see is what you, you know, [00:24:00] not always what you get. Like, you know, that's, it's, it's hard to think that the society is, you know. Not done you any favors to allow you to get, to get these, get you get the best outta life, like, you know. Um, I, I wanna go back to the bit that you were talking about.

[00:24:17] Gerry Scullion: If you go out shopping with your partner and stuff, who, by the way, you recently got engaged. I wanna say big congratulations to you that, um, you mentioned there about the prices and not seeing the prices and stuff. I'm keen to know there's probably technology people out there listening to the podcasts who are like, oh, you can do these certain things.

[00:24:35] Gerry Scullion: How has technology worked, um, to improve your life over the last maybe say decade as you've, uh, you know, kind of hopefully. You mentioned there about the struggles and stuff, like how have you managed to rebuild your life and has technology played a role in that? Like what does that look like?

[00:24:52] Jamie Shields: Oh, yeah, like technology's, like technology's brilliant.

[00:24:56] Jamie Shields: Like it's, yeah, both a blessing and sometimes a hindrance for accessibility. Sure. [00:25:00] But like, if I'm out in public now, shop, like I'm happy to walk off the shop that they like. Not even 10, five minutes. I was gonna say 10 minutes. That's lie. It's probably three minutes. Um, because I, I walk probably, um, but like that shop, I go, I'll take my phone, my phone in my hand.

[00:25:17] Jamie Shields: I use it to zoom in and things and take photos. Um, like I do have most stores. Okay. Yeah. But you know, people have called me, taking me and I'm like, no, because when I use my phone. It's touching my, like I've learned to use my nose as a close. I get to my phone, right. Um, and I don't really like to use my screen I'm at, so I just zoom in photos.

[00:25:37] Jamie Shields: Um, but as well as that there is there for people who like myself impaired. Yeah. And like that, that like be my eyes where you can actually.[00:26:00]

[00:26:01] Jamie Shields: Movie Minority Report. We go to cruise. It's kind of like that when things come up with little boxes coming off them and it'll talk you through what you're seeing. So technology has really helped aspect, but I think those kind of things, those glasses, they're great. They're really expensive. I was gonna say they cost fortune absolute for last year, like.

[00:26:24] Jamie Shields: We have cost of living. I was gonna say. Yeah. I, I don't, I don't drive. So I have taxi, right? Left taxi a lot. Um, and even like public transport, I get on the bus. Chances aren't get bus wrong time. Like I'm not getting public transport even when I do get help. But Andrew's a lot. One morning travel. If I'm so off, I have to print large.

[00:26:51] Jamie Shields: Of course, because of my dh, I have this impulse to spend and most people spend my be the back. I need bags, [00:27:00] buy bags, three wrangle things, and so. And then your people who maybe have conditions with having to pay forages or medical equipment or your people who have wheelchairs don't get the funding for that.

[00:27:15] Jamie Shields: So you pay constantly towards your own,

[00:27:17] Gerry Scullion: for sure.

[00:27:18] Jamie Shields: Mobility, which I understand, but there's an additional cost to be disabled, be like over per month additional each disabled person. So it's like.

[00:27:34] Jamie Shields: Or Yeah, it's, but never,

[00:27:37] Gerry Scullion: I know like, um, that, that, that's what's blowing my mind. Like I didn't even think about like the increased cost for printing and just so something like that. Like a lot of the people that I've coached over the last couple of years, designers, they're, they're, they're struggling to find organizations that really align to the principles of human-centered design.

[00:27:57] Gerry Scullion: And I'd love to get your take on this because [00:28:00] I wonder, do you know if there's a question out there? You can ask organizations when you're interviewing whatever it is to help. Where they're at in their able ballistic journey. If that's, if, if that's a, a phrase you can say to ensure that they're not walking into an organization where they just, it's superficial and it's like something that they talk about, but or don't actually do.

[00:28:23] Gerry Scullion: What advice do you give to service designers and human-centered designers out there? Who are, you know, on the hunt for jobs, they ensure that they're walking into an organization where they can learn and continue to, um, mindset.

[00:28:40] Jamie Shields: I love that word. I stick out to that off. I've just made it up. It's got t at the bottom of Jamie.

[00:28:46] Gerry Scullion: I'm coming after you.

[00:28:47] Jamie Shields: Um, I think it's, it's, it's a go do it much when first thing I do. I'll website. Is this company [00:29:00] website actually accessible to me? And even if you dunno what accessible website looks like to you, if you're not disabled yourself, there's plenty of tools out there that you know, wave does one where you can the company website in and it'll come up and tell you what the issues are on that website.

[00:29:12] Jamie Shields: Yeah, if you have an in of accessibility, you color contrast. You'll see if that website has.

[00:29:37] Jamie Shields: Um, and. You know, do the represent disability in any of these images? Because I think we think about representation of accessibility, disability, physical accessibility itself, being able to engage. We wanna see disability rep, and we don't mean just a white person using a wheelchair. We mean like people of different diversities using steming tools, using workplace [00:30:00] adjustments.

[00:30:04] Jamie Shields: Binary. Yeah.

[00:30:15] Jamie Shields: Is the language you use with disability. If you see companies using words like definitely able or unique individuals or some other fluffy eu, disabled, disabled, disabled and disability are not dirty words, like the words that should be used should, words that should be embraced and supported.

[00:30:43] Jamie Shields: Policy. Do you have disabled across the organization? Do disability network? Do

[00:30:53] Jamie Shields: social media tell easy for disabled jobs seekers? [00:31:00] What we're.

[00:31:07] Jamie Shields: So I think understanding.

[00:31:16] Jamie Shields: And if you're not sure, ask News Disabled. Do you think this organization makes inclusive?

[00:31:21] Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. That's it. It's, it's a really good point when, when you're designing those services within, I'm thinking about government organizations there, it tends to come from the top 10. So there might be a policy that has been created and as a result it's had a, a trigger effect across the organization where teams are kind of responding to that new policy update or whatever it is.

[00:31:44] Gerry Scullion: What advice do you give to designers or even just business people in the organization at the moment to ensure that the policies that are getting created are kind of co-created with, you know, members like yourself who, who've got a deep experience and expertise [00:32:00] and, and lived experience that can help shape and reshape those policies.

[00:32:03] Gerry Scullion: What advice do you give to those people who are in that situation where they may be working on that policy and it's, it's outta date.

[00:32:10] Jamie Shields: I would say exactly what you just said is start the conversation with the people with lived experience. You know, we've seen organizations who have policies around accessibility, where they've implemented a ramp at the entrance and said, this is, you know, this is amazing.

[00:32:21] Jamie Shields: It's all saying all dancing, but when you ask a disabled person who's using a wheelchair, well actually that ramps too steep and I can't get off it. So the intent was there.

[00:32:34] Jamie Shields: I'm very lucky in the sense that when we consult with businesses, my business partner Celia, she's a law and policy background, so she's just incredible when it comes to all the stuff and what is legally required and stuff. Yeah. But I think it's really just about being open, having those conversations.

[00:32:50] Jamie Shields: Don't jump in here first. I know it can seem that, oh, we're gonna just run this.[00:33:00]

[00:33:01] Jamie Shields: That is the foundations of protecting disabled people in your workplace. It's the foundations to really then start building other policies. That accessibility policy, a website, policy around accessibility and adjustments, foundations policy. It's almost like a knock on effect. But also don't just create them and them.

[00:33:17] Jamie Shields: Review them regularly. Make sure that wherever you're posting, it's an employee handbook, employee hump, or your tone snap. That's actually accessible. So well ableism policy, but if it's an inaccessible able process, block somebody from engaging makes no sense.

[00:33:30] Gerry Scullion: I know. No, absolutely. Um, well, when you're talking about ableism and you, you, you kind of hold the mirror back up to the organization.

[00:33:38] Gerry Scullion: In your experience, what's, what's the one thing that, um, that those people refuse to accept, even if you have evidence to, to transform it? Well, what's your take on that?

[00:33:50] Jamie Shields: Nobody likes being told what they've done wrong. Like I hate it myself. Like my partner says, oh, you didn't put the toilet sit down, or you didn't hear the floor.

[00:33:58] Jamie Shields: You missed a spot. When your mop, like [00:34:00] my guard goes up and I get it. Nobody likes to hear they've done something wrong. Yeah. But I think it's the way that we try to deliver things is we try to make. Way we do business is probably a little bit different to everybody else. We're not like black and white.

[00:34:13] Jamie Shields: We're very much like confused for our personality of the business. We create a partnership where, do you know what You can tell us You don't accept. We're not gonna take offense if you don't understand what we're saying. We'll communicate in a different way. It's almost like a friendship as well as a partnership.

[00:34:27] Jamie Shields: Um, and I think when you're delivering that news.

[00:34:34] Jamie Shields: This, it's like

[00:34:40] Jamie Shields: bad word.

[00:34:41] Gerry Scullion: What does it begin with?

[00:34:44] Jamie Shields: Okay. Shit. Sandwich, like I said, shit sandwich versus say you have, you give a little bit of bad and then you give a little bit of good, then you give a little bit bad, then go back to, so it's almost that because you wanna recognize where they're, because nobody's gonna have this.

[00:34:56] Jamie Shields: Right. And any organization do it. [00:35:00] Yeah. And we tell organizations that we'll say nobody's getting percent right.

[00:35:12] Jamie Shields: Everyone's in their own unique journey. So we work with them, show them the good, show them the for sure where they can improve, but we also try to help them roadmap that out because it can be really intense to see all these things that you're doing wrong and trying to work out where am I getting to do this?

[00:35:25] Jamie Shields: Where we getting the resources. So we work with them that whether's three months, six months, five years, 10 years. We help ensure that there is measurable. Yeah, because again, organizations. It.

[00:35:47] Jamie Shields: Many people are engaged in your services using alternative ways, those accessible ways. It's looking at, right, how many disabled people have we recruitment process now that we've removed these barriers? How [00:36:00] many disabled people are gonna offer? How many people scenarios, but you get what? So it's really about.

[00:36:10] Jamie Shields: Them all say You're terrible, but really help listen. This is where you're, well, this is, you're well here across those departments.

[00:36:17] Gerry Scullion: Yeah. I love that. O one of the things that, that I've used in my experience is playing back. Um, stuff that, stuff that can go wrong, like, you know, um, I mean, what happens if you do nothing in this scenario where people continue to have the same experience and you've had this opportunity to fix it?

[00:36:39] Gerry Scullion: That tends to create up this whole kind of dialogue of like, well actually, you know what, like there's, someone could trip and. Some, some would potentially could fall and really injure themselves. Then. Then what would, what would happen then? Like, and they're like, oh, there'd be a big insurance case. Would the newspapers maybe be, be involved as well?

[00:36:53] Gerry Scullion: Like, and you might, might even get on the, you'd have to go on, do press. Press. Okay. That's really true. [00:37:00] Just trying to not scare them, but also like. Play the realities that this, this stuff is not just superficial, this is meaningful. This is stuff that really matters. This is gonna make or break not just people's days, but it could potentially their weeks or months in those scenarios.

[00:37:15] Gerry Scullion: Um, Jamie, you mentioned there about the, the services that you provide and like this, this is a platform for you to. To talk about what services you offer to, to clients, what kind of clients do you tend to, you know, find are reaching out to disabled by society? And what kind of services are you, uh, providing to those clients?

[00:37:35] Gerry Scullion: I.

[00:37:36] Jamie Shields: Yeah, so, um, oh, we have such a diverse crew of clients already, so I'm not gonna name any of them because I don't wanna name one and then get in trouble for another because I That's alright. But like we've worked with governments, um, not, well, UK governments, not mainland actually. We do work with main governments, which is interesting because I'm sure you and probably have chin experiences.[00:38:00]

[00:38:02] Jamie Shields: Construction. We worked with marketing, we work with companies recruitment, but what we try to do is it's so hard to try to get all the answers. So like if you're trying to make your recruitment process accessible, that's completely different to making your market accessible. You're trying to make your website accessible.

[00:38:16] Jamie Shields: That's different. These other two as well. So what we. Either a one off solution, so it could be a training session, it could be a consultant for, on a project, or it could be creating policies, or we create tailored solutions, we solutions that either can last from one month to couple of years, but Right.

[00:38:39] Jamie Shields: You needed consultant. We're gonna.[00:39:00]

[00:39:03] Jamie Shields: Not even corporate, like just common work with professionals. Everybody. Professionals. Yeah, professionals. We're professionals. We also wanna support the community, so we create a lot of free resources. Nice. We created a policy paper last year. We're actually just launched the newest one today, which is all around internal ableism, but we then make that data available to other organizations and individuals because.

[00:39:29] Jamie Shields: Yeah.

[00:39:33] Jamie Shields: You name what we did. Yeah, that's, but we try to do it in a way that is affordable and sustainable and isn't gonna be like, here's a amount of work to do. It's actually Here, take my arm. We're gonna guide you to the top of this. Yeah,

[00:39:43] Gerry Scullion: I love it. Jamie. Um, for people who want to check out Disabled by Society, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes.

[00:39:50] Gerry Scullion: So if you're watching on YouTube, it's gonna be in the description below. You're on Spotify or Apple. Um, it's in the description below. So to check out Jamie's website and, [00:40:00] um, we'll put a link to your LinkedIn as well. 'cause I know you're, you're like me, you're a LinkedIn fiend, you're always on there. Um, that's how we, we've connected about this stuff.

[00:40:10] Gerry Scullion: If there's one thing that you wish the, the listeners of the podcast to take away about this. What, what's their advice to them? What, what's the the one thing for them to get started with apart from checking your website? Jamie, I'm gonna jump in there. What, what's the one you, the one thing you want them to take away and do?

[00:40:28] Jamie Shields: Um, one thing to take away is learn about equalism. Like you've heard about snapshot view of what Equalism is. It's such a hard thing to define because doesn't even get right ableism.

[00:40:53] Jamie Shields: It's learn about ableism and just continue to be open to learning.

[00:40:56] Gerry Scullion: Nice, nice. Jamie, just look, I wrap every podcast up, [00:41:00] um, by thanking people for their vulnerability and their time and their energy. And you're a little different. Like I know you've come on here today, you've just recovering from Covid as well.

[00:41:08] Gerry Scullion: Um, and you know, I really appreciate you coming on and, and sharing your experience and sharing your lived experience as well. So thank you so much for giving me that time. It's been absolutely fantastic for me as well.

[00:41:20] Jamie Shields: Thank you so much for helping me.

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