This Wednesday January 17 Muscular Dystrophy UK were invited to the All Party Parliamentary Group on disability to discuss the Improving Lives Green Paper. The Green Paper outlines the Government’s proposals on how they will get one million more disabled people into work in the next five years. The APPG was hosted by Disability Rights UK at Portcullis House and Chaired by Dr Lisa Cameron MP.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the Department of Work and Pensions who answered questions on plans to take forward the Disability Confident scheme and increase the role of employers in the disability employment gap. Ideas put forward included making it easier for young disabled people to get apprenticeships and requesting that private companies bidding for contracts employ a certain quota of disabled people.
Trailblazers were represented by Isabel Baylis and Emma Vogelmann from Moving Up who enjoyed hearing what steps will be taken to get more disabled people into work.
Employability Officer Emma Vogelmann said:
There was a lot of good discussion at the APPG on how to encourage employers to be more welcoming to disabled people. The feedback I’ve had from my young disabled people working group on employment is that employers often have no knowledge or experience of disability therefore they don’t know how to respond when a disabled person shows up for an interview.”
Trailblazers has now moved to pan-disability charity Whizz-Kidz (September 2020).