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Hello and welcome to Little Learners. In today's video I wanted to give some
advice to fellow teachers who happen to have a disability or chronic illness.
However before we get started I want to let you know that this video is
sponsored by 'Kiwi Co'. Keep watching and I will let you know more about them later.
As a disabled teacher myself I have been through some difficult times. Now before
I move on I just want to say that when I say 'disabled' I mean anyone with a
physical or mental impairment anyone with a chronic illness that's long term
and affects their life, anyone with mental health issues that affect their
lives. Anyone with a long-standing health
condition basically that really does impact on your life.
So that's what I mean when I say 'disabled' or 'disability'. So just to give
you a little rundown before we get on to the advice, I myself have a few different
conditions. I have [ding sound effect] Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Hypermobility Type,
I have [ding sound effect] Bile Acid Malabsorption, [ding sound effect] Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - try saying that ten
times fast - and I've also been diagnosed with [ding sound effect] Fibromyalgia.
But I think I'll do a
separate video about my experience so look out for that I just wanted to kind
of give you an overview before we get onto the advice otherwise you'd be
thinking well, 'Why does this person think they can give me advice?' So let's get on
to the tips it turned out that I've written down ten tips so let's get on to
the ten top tips for teachers with disabilities.
So my first piece of advice would be that when you are interviewing for a job
to be as open and honest as possible. Now I think that a lot of people with
disabilities or health conditions do worry about this in any area of work
because you worry that if you are honest about your health problems at an
interview then the person interviewing you might not want to employ you because
they don't want to deal with the fact that you've got a disability. Now I
completely understand where you're coming from if that is your way of
thinking, however, I would stress that if you did interview for a job and they are
the type of people who would discriminate
against you because you're disabled, I wouldn't want to work for them anyway. So
I think being open and honest means that if someone does end up discriminating
against me because I'm disabled and doesn't employ me simply because I'm
disabled, I am glad that I won't be working for them anyway because could
you imagine how awful it would be to work for them? Now I just want to say
here that discriminating against someone because they're disabled and not giving
them a job purely because they have a disability or a health condition is
completely illegal and you are protected by the Equality Act of 2010. However, we
all know it happens and I would just say that being open and honest just means
that you know that if you do get a job somewhere they are understanding and
they took you on knowing that you have these disabilities and health conditions
and you might need some reasonable adjustments (which we'll get onto later),
and so they probably are the kind of
people that you want to work for.
My next piece of advice would be consider what
will work for your health, so, being a teacher in particular it's very
difficult to have a flexible working agreement. It's much easier to do so in
other jobs maybe office jobs or jobs where you can work from home and
teaching is very difficult because the children are only in between nine and
three so, it can be a little bit tricky to figure out how you're going to make
that work for you. So really have a think about if full-time work is going to work
for you and your health or if you need to look at more part-time or a job share
maybe, so that you can make sure you are giving your best when you are at work
but also you're giving your body time to recover if your disability needs that. My
disability definitely does need that, I can't do traditional work full-time
anymore which I will get on to in another video and it just meant that I
really had to reevaluate how I looked at work and how I was going to look after
my body so make sure that you give that some considerate thought.
Tip three is probably very obvious but it's to do with any medication that you need to
take while you're at school or at work. Make sure you keep it locked away so for
many of us with different health conditions we are
taking lots of different medication throughout the day whether it's
medication that you take regularly anyway or if it's pain medication that
you need to take quite often we are always taking it so when you're at
school especially with children around you just need to make sure that this is
locked away somewhere that they cannot get to even if they're older children
just make sure they cannot get to it. So I was fortunate in my first classroom
that I had a cupboard that I could lock so I locked the cupboard and also in the
cupboard my medication was in like a little box right on the top shelf that
children could never get to but they couldn't get into the cupboard anyway so
just make sure that it's in a safe place, but also somewhere close to you so if
you're thinking well I suppose I could lock it away in the medical room but the
medical room is going to take you a really long time to get to that's not
going to work for you so just make sure that there's somewhere close by that you
can keep it and if there isn't then speak to your school about how they can
help you facilitate that. Maybe there's something that they could put in maybe
they can put in like a lock box into your classroom just so that you can have
your medication close-by so, make sure you talk to them about that if you're not
sure where to put it.
Moving on from that my fourth tip is about reasonable
adjustments now this is a term that you may have heard of or you may not have
heard of. This is something that for anyone who has a disability or a chronic
health condition you can speak to your employer at any job not just in a school
about reasonable adjustments. So some of these might include if you are in a
wheelchair and there is no ramp to get into school you'll need to speak to the
school about that and that would be a reasonable adjustment that they would
need to put in so that you can get in and out of the building. That's quite
standard one. Other reasonable adjustments might be adjustments to your
time of day so if most teachers are due into school at 7:30 but you know that
mornings are really difficult for your condition
you might want to talk to the school about you being a little bit more
flexible so sometimes you might be able to get in at 7:30 but other times you
might not be able to get in until 8:15 and just so that they know that you kind
of need some flexibility around that. Another example of a reasonable
adjustment might be that if you have to leave the classroom
very suddenly because of pain or maybe fatigue, that your school is able to
support you with that so if you need to, I don't know, go into the staff room for
a bit to have a lie down or to deal with your pain that the school knows that
there is a system in place for that and that someone can go into your classroom
to kind of cover you. Obviously it really depends on the person and on the health
condition so just have a think about things that might help you to do your
job basically and speak to your school about that and about the adjustments
that they can put in place. Again if they are reasonable adjustments which most of
the things you would ask for are then the school or any employer has to do
them, they have to make them unless they can make a case for it not being
reasonable, for example it's too expensive for them to afford and if that
is the case then my next tip could definitely help you. However before we
move on to my next tip I just want to tell you about today's sponsor.
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These boxes are made for a range of ages from toddlers to teenagers. Every box has
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click on the link in the description box below to find out more about KiwiCo
and you can use the code learners to get your first month free. Back to the video!
So my next tip is about the scheme 'Access to Work'. You can access this
scheme if you are in the UK and they support people with disabilities and
health conditions to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace. Again this
isn't just for schools this is in any workplace and in many cases they can
help to cover the cost of a reasonable adjustment that your employer can't
afford. They can also come into your workplace and kind of have a look around
and suggest adjustments that should be made for you because sometimes, depending
on your illness or disability you're not quite sure what adjustments
would make life easier and it's all to do with making sure that you have
exactly the same opportunities as non-disabled teachers so it's really
helpful for them to come in and take a look around and say to you well actually
I would suggest you doing this and you might think oh actually that would be
really helpful. So it's just nice to get their expertise and they can also help
with funding. I will put the link in the description box below so that you can
have a look at Access to Work if you think it would be helpful. My next tip is
if you are having difficulty with anything be it your condition or the way
that your condition is affecting your ability to work make sure you speak to
someone about it so you may want to speak to your line manager or your head
teacher or you may want to speak to your doctor about it if you are struggling
it's really important to speak to someone. It may be that there is
something that they can do to help you or it may be that because of your health
you need some time off. Just make sure that you speak up and get the help that
you need. Please do not just suffer in silence because there are lots of things
that everyone can do to help you. I know it can be really difficult to ask for
help or admit that you need help because a lot of us with disabilities can be
very stubborn, we don't want our disability to kind of 'win', so we want to
just carry on as normal so please make sure that you do ask for
help if you need it. Tip 8 is to look ahead to school events
so that you can plan for them accordingly. So for example if you've got
a trip coming up in a few months and you know that it's the kind of trip that you
might struggle with a bit because it involves a lot of walking over the
entire day and you struggle with that or for any other number of reasons,
then you need to kind of look ahead and speak to your colleagues and maybe your
line manager about how best to deal with that. So it may be that when you go on a
trip like that and maybe you suffer with really really bad fatigue and you know
that a trip like that is going to completely take it out of you and you
might need to take some time just to sit and rest, then something that you and
your colleagues can discuss between you is the group that you've got on that
trip, maybe you haven't got your whole class maybe
you've probably got just a smaller group that's usually what happens on trips
with younger children, if you do need to go and kind of take a rest for a little
while then someone else is kind of designated to take over your group just
to make sure that the trip can still run smoothly and you don't feel pressure to
carry on working when you know that you can't. Tip nine is to make sure that
support is in place so with all the things that I've kind of just said about
make sure it happens so sometimes unfortunately people speak to their
employers about reasonable adjustments that need to take place or difficulties
they're having and nothing gets done and so it's really important that if you
feel that nothing has happened yet or things are going a bit slowly that you
chase it up because a lot of the time it probably isn't
I would hope out of malice it's just that it's kind of gone on the back
burner and even though it's really important to you, the people who have to
deal with it have other things on their priority list so just make sure you kind
of chase those up, make sure it just doesn't get swept under the carpet. That
kind of leads on to my final tip. If you feel that you are being mistreated or
discriminated against because of your disability, speak up.
This is so important and I will talk about my experience with this in a
future video. I really hope that anyone watching this doesn't have to deal with
that but unfortunately it does happen. Discrimination against people with
disabilities does take place and a lot of the time the people being
discriminated against don't have the means to stand up for themselves
especially if they are suffering from a mental health condition. So if this is
happening to you I know it is a horrible experience
it is absolutely heartbreaking you can feel that you are really being bullied
or you are really being kind of broken down. Make sure you speak up if your
employer is not listening and not taking it seriously enough, first thing I would
say is to call your Union because they will be able to give you advice about
what to do. You can also contact ACAS I will put their number down in the
description box below they are kind of a mediator
for solving issues between employers and employees. They can be really helpful
they don't take sides they just give you really good advice about what to do next
and make sure you speak to your own support system so your family, your
friends about it so that you're not suffering in silence. I really hate to
end this video on such a negative note and I'm sure that many many many
teachers who have disabilities never have to deal with this kind of
discrimination but it does happen and I just want to make it very clear that you
have rights and don't feel like just because you have a disability that you
deserve to be treated this way because you do not and of course if you want to
ask any questions about anything I've spoken about in today's video please do
not hesitate to contact me, you can let me know in the comments below if you
have a question. You can contact me on my social media, Instagram or Facebook
@LittleLearnersVideos for both. So I hope you found this video helpful if you
did please give it a 'like' as that really helps out the channel thanks again to
our sponsors today Kiwi Co don't forget to check them out and if you haven't
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time I post a new video. I'm hoping to post a video soon about my experience
being a disabled teacher so look out for that thank you so much for watching and
I will see you next time.
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