July 2006
B&D - moving forward
Welcome to the 4th issue of
B&D - moving forward
Business & Disability's quarterly newsletter
Europe has come to a point where the business community can no longer continue ignoring people with disabilities. In fact, at Business & Disability we believe that including people with disabilities into business is a source of sustained profitability for everybody. Our role as Business & Disability is to act as a proactive catalyst to promote this belief.
Business & Disability is the first European network to promote the business opportunities for the inclusion of people with disabilities and it is the only European network combining business and disability that works to stimulate and facilitate dialog among the various stakeholders and offers unique added value and expertise to our member companies.
- A network of expertise related to different aspects of business and disability
- Case studies, white papers, …
- Networking opportunities with peers, disability groups and policy makers.
- Visibility as practice faculties
Business & Disability addresses its members' priorities and is uniquely qualified to deliver them across Europe.
B&D events: what's been happening?
Business & Disability's awareness rising program co-sponsored by the European Commission is well underway, with the first five events of a two-year series of roadshows across the European Union.Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Prague have hosted the first five events of Business & Disability's two-year roadshow across Europe to promote the business case for the inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of our society; a clear focus is on accessibility to the built environment, e-accessibility and employment.
With the format customised to suit each host country's cultural diversity, each roadshow event has provided a magnificent opportunity to introduce the European perspective of Business & Disability, share good practices and collect valuable insights into the particular situation in each country.
A summary of the 2005 events in Paris and Madrid and the Stockholm and Amsterdam events in 2006 can be found in Issue 3 of B&D - Moving Forward.
Prague
In Prague, a roadshow event took place on 10th May, bringing together participants from companies, disability organisations and local and European level policy makers to discuss the challenges of disability inclusion in the Czech Republic.
Pavel Ptacnik, secretary of the Governmental Committee for Disabled Citizens, said that in spite of legal measures and government support, employing disabled people is not improving in the Czech Republic and the actual number of disabled people
without jobs is increasing steadily.
Vaclav Krasa, chairman of the National Council of Disabled People, described how employers' prejudice and skepticism often disadvantages the employment of disabled people. "Europe is aware of the fact that integrating disabled people into work life is an essential part of country's economical survival," Krasa said. He added that the public sector should set the example.
Clearly, much still needs to be done to further the inclusion of disabled people in the Czech Republic today. The Business & Disability roadshow, the first event of its kind in the Czech Republic, is an important first step towards increasing awareness of the issues and identifying concrete actions to move Czech society along the path towards inclusion.
For more information about the Prague roadshow, please contact us.
60 Seconds with... Pascale Levet
Managing Director from Lab'Ho, Adecco Group
Q: What are your thoughts on Disability and Ageing?
Disability and the Ageing Process : The road to hell is paved with good intentions... and the companies I will mention here are « stylised examples » for the purpose of demonstration...
Q: Please tell us!
Companies who develop programs to encourage the integration of disabled people have a tendency to focus on recruiting young people. They are less likely to think about existing employees who have become disabled due to illness or an accident (at work or otherwise), or about the challenge of keeping them in work. Concentrating mainly on young people, and particularly those with a university degree, these companies reveal that they have difficulties in 'sourcing' the right candidate. However, they also admit a lack of organisational skills in this area of recruitment, where it is difficult to make comparisons between candidates due to their varying disabilities. They also underline the need to think long in advance about career development, even more so if the disability has a degenerative nature.
It is true that some companies do confront the problem of an ageing workforce, and reflect on the structures put in place to support their senior employees. Nevertheless, they also think about the measures they could take to facilitate early retirement for these same employees. Ageing is still largely perceived to be synonymous with decline (people often talk of « the age handicap »...), even though experts continue to stress that, first and foremost, to get older is to change. Here again, the lack of provision for long-term careers (e.g. little job mobility or training after the age of 45) hinders any attempt to improve employment prospects for older employees. It also contributes to a gradual career disintegration - a sort of de-institutionalization of those in the 53-65 age bracket, judged too old to be worth further investment on the company's part, but too young to be pensioned off. At this point, if it seems feasible, both employers and employees can be tempted to have the employee registered disabled by e.g. the French 'Cotorep' . A Cotorep registration is useful because it provides an institutional framework for all decisions regarding « protected » tenure or early retirement for the employee. This phenomenon can be found in all socio-professional categories, and over recent years has becoming increasingly common at managerial level.
Q: Which solutions or clues can be found?
Despite evidence to show that the issues of disability management and an ageing workforce are generally well covered, it is still rare for a company to explicitly define the challenges it faces when dealing with disability or age in the workplace. This is unfortunate, since an integrated approach to these phenomena could, to some extent, reduce the need to exploit existing measures in favour of the employment of disabled people. It would also allow companies to better understand and manage the ageing process among disabled workers, in cases where the severity of the disability increases with time, and, therefore, with age.
Feature focus: Disability & Ageing
The graph below illustrates the expected increase in aging populations up to 2030
At European Union level, a conference organised by the Austrian Presidency and entitled "Disabled people are ageing - Ageing people are becoming disabled" was held in Austria on the 8th and 9th June 2006.
In the coming decade over 15 million ageing people will become disabled and another 10 million disabled people will become senior citizens.
Over 300 delegates representing all stakeholders from across Europe discussed and exchanged ideas on the relation between ageing and disability and explored new avenues for the challenges ahead.
The representative of the European Commission, Ms. Wallis Goelen, Head of the Disability Unit, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities and the Member of the European Parliament, Mr. Philip Bushill-Matthews, Rapporteur of the Green Paper on Demographic Change, highlighted the importance of active ageing which means not only the opportunity to work longer but also to play a full and inclusive role as citizens in the society in which they live. It is just as true for ageing and disabled persons as for every other citizen that employment is the key to social inclusion and full citizenship.
Networks representing people with disabilities and their families (EDF - Mr. Bas Treffers, Vice-President; Inclusion Europe - Ms. Françoise Jan, former President) and representing ageing citizens (EURAG - Mr. John Ball, Vice-President; AGE - Ms. Barbro Westerholm, Vice-President) stressed that all policies designed to respond to the challenges ahead should be based on a proactive and intensive dialogue with the people concerned. Mr. Bas Treffer mentioned in his introduction speech 'that disability and ageing are facts of life, and with ageing comes for the majority of people also disability. But society and the market develop policies, standards and products for 80 year old Tarzans...'
'The need for innovative training methods for staff to tackle the issue at hand was underlined' by Mr. Raymond Ceccotto, President of ARFIE (network developing training).
Mr. Brian O'Donnell, President of EASPD, representing social service providers for people with disabilities highlighted the importance of 'intensive stakeholder cooperation as well as well-designed action plans guaranteeing the availability, affordability, accessibility and adaptability of services'.
The outcomes of this very successful conference will be reflected in the 'Graz Declaration', which will offer guidance to policy makers and social service providers and inspiration to networks representing the citizens concerned.
B&D events: what's coming next?
Within the framework of a project funded by the European Commission, B&D members are organising a series of awareness raising and best practice sharing events throughout Europe that promote disability inclusion initiativesand encourage the exchange of ideas among business, political actors and people with disabilities.
In the next issue of B&D - Moving Forward, there will be a report on the Milan roadshow that took place recently, together with a preview of the remaining events for 2006. Roadshows will take place in Budapest, Berlin and Warsaw during October and in Helsinki during November. The final event of the two-year project will take place in London on the 14th November and will feature the launch of Business & Disability's Best Practices Compendium on the inclusion of people with disabilities.
The Disability Agenda: upcoming events
| 2006 | 9th International Biennial of Disabled People’s Fine Arts | Cracow (Poland) | Visit the website |
| NEW 21/06/2006 |
Lunch meeting on Disability and Development Cooperation | Vienna (AU) | For further information contact: Sophie Beaumont - Sophie Beaumont - tel+32 2 275 0085 Elisabeth Campestrini - tel+43 1 810 13 00 40 |
| 19-21/6/2006 | 14th European Social Services Conference “Young and Old in a Changing Europe: the demographic challenge for social care and health” | Vienna (AU) | E-mail : sarah.wellburn@socialeurope.com
|
| 26-28/6/2006 | Shaping the future : Supportive Employment – Successful Businesses | University of Warwick (UK) |
Visit the website |
| 29-30/6/2006 | Historical and Heritage Buildings and Accessibility - Conference on Accessibility of the Built Environment |
Budapest (H) | European project with support of the EC DG Employment and Social Affairs
Deadline for registration : 31/3/2006 Conference secretariat : |
| 10-13/7/2006 | World Forum on Human Rights | Nantes (FR) | For more information contact Franck Barrau, General Coordinator at franck.barrau@nantesmetropole.fr Visit the website |
| 10-14/7/2006 | 10th International Conference | Linz (Austria) | Call for papers – Deadline : 25January 2006 Visit the website |
| 17-21/7/2006 | One week course “Design for All in ICT” | London (UK) | Middlesex University Summer Registration at: Visit the website |
| 24/8-15/9/2006 | Second edition of the EIUC Summer School on Cinema and Human Rights | Venice (IT) | Deadline for application 15 May Web : Visit the website E-mail : info@cinemahumanrights.org |
| NEW 13-15/09/06 |
International Design for All conference, organised by EDeAN | Royaniemi (FIN) | More information: dfasuomi.stakes.fi or secretariat@edean.org |
| 14/09/2006 | e-Access – Technology for All | London (UK) |
Visit the website |
| NEW 20-22/9/2006 |
European Society of Mental Health and Deafness’ Special Interest Group (SIG) for Deaf Children and Families | La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain) | SIG-DCF Secretary: esmhdsigdcf@hotmail.com |
| NEW 20-22/9/2006 |
European Society of Mental Health and Deafness’ Special Interest Group (SIG) for Medical Issues (Deaf Adults and Families) | La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain) | Ines Sleeboom-van Raaij: i.sleeboom@via-info.nl or Viveca Schoultz: viveca.schoultz@hus.fi |
| NEW 20-22/9/2006 |
European Society of Mental Health and Deafness’ Special Interest Group (SIG) for Public Health | La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain) | Contact Alexandra Mayer-Weinreich |
| 27-29/9/2006 | 5th International Respite Care Conference | Evry (France) | Under the high patronage of Jacques Chirac Organised by the reflexion group and respite care network for disabled people Deadline call for abstracts : 25 February 2006 For information/pre-registration: Tel : +33/5/57.97.19.19 Fax : +33/5/57.97.19.15 |
| 29-30/9/2006 | 1st Regional Workshop for the accessibility of the built environment - Accessibility and Tourism (SE Europe, Mediterranean) |
Chersonissos(Crete- CRETA MARIS) | Visit the website |
| 30/9-1/10/2006 | European Symposium – Improving the lives of young people with intellectual disabilities in the areas of health, social inclusion and sport | Rome (IT) | Symposium in conjunction with Special Olympics European Youth Games
E-mail : MDeurinck@specialolympics.org |
| 6-7/10/2006 | Final Conference “Mainstreaming Mental Disability Policies” | Brussels | Inclusion Europe Visit the website |
| 10-14 /10/2006 | Seminar on Children Disabilities – What about their rights ? | Sion (Switzerland) |
Visit the website or info@childsrights.org |
| 12-15 /10/2006 | FIMITIC Seminar on "Advancing Disability Rights in Europe - People with Physical Disability in the countries of South Eastern Europe" |
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) |
Registration and call for papers deadline: May 31, 2006 ! For more information contact: FIMITIC@t-online.de and Biljana Manevska |
| NEW 19-21/10/06 |
The social economy and employment of people with mental health problems | Sevilla (SPA) |
More information : Visit the website or Visit the website |
| 6-9/11/2006 | International online conferences – Supporting Deaf People 2006 | Visit the website | |
| 8-10/11/2006 | XIV World Congress : Building an inclusive future : a challenge for globalization | Acapulco (Mexico) | Inclusion International Visit the website |
| 21-22 /11/2006 | European Construction Technology Platform Conference | Versailles (France) | Visit the website |
| 31/05 – 2/06 2007 |
No Health without Mental Health : From Slogan to Reality | Vienna (Austria) |
Visit the website or contact office@promente-Wien.at info@mhe-sme.org |
Keep on visiting the B&D website (www.businessanddisability.org) to learn more...
Tell us what you think?
We appreciate your thoughts!
If you have any comments or thoughts about B&D - moving forward or have any information you would like to share with us, we would like to hear from you. Please email B&D at info@businessanddisability.org
For more information and updates on all B&D events, visit the Business & Disability website: www.businessanddisability.org
B&D members:
B&D contact details:
Address:
Business & Disability: a European Network
402 Avenue de Tervuren
B-1150 Brussels
Belgium
Tel: +32 2 777.05.17
Fax: + 32 2 777.05.30
Email: info@businessanddisability.org
Website: www.businessanddisability.org