We need to move away from the medical model of disability and embrace the social model of disability. This will help us recognise how society disables us and not our disability. We can then bring down those barriers to make a more inclusive world for people with disabilities

Privilege can be an emotive word but in the context of disability, it simply means advantages granted to abled people because they don’t have to think about or address barriers that people with disabilities have to deal with on a daily basis. By understanding these barriers, you can better understand as abled people your privileges and help remove some of these barriers

For a person with a disability, allies are a lifeline. Someone who has your back and ensures you are included and supported. Someone who provides you with a psychological safety net by stepping in when things are difficult. Someone who enables you to perform to your very best. Someone who knows your need to practice self-care in order to protect your mental health. 

Words are one of the most powerful tools we have. They can inspire. They can destroy. Whether spoken or written, your words can have a huge impact and leave a lasting memory, good or bad. So the saying goes ‘choose your words wisely.’ It couldn’t be more true in the context of disability.

My earliest memory is when I was around the age of 2 years old and I was in hospital for glue ear, something that it was hoped was the cause of, and therefore the solution to, my deafness. It wasn’t. Parents were not allowed to stay over in hospital with their children in those days – I vividly remember Mum and Dad leaving me at the hospital and driving off to go home. So I was left alone, unable to communicate and feeling isolated. It was a feeling that would come to describe much of my childhood.