Essentials of representing disabled people effectively
Essential information to help you deliver positive portrayals of disabled people
How disabled people are represented in government communications - indeed whether they are present at all - is crucial to promoting effective dialogue with disabled people and their families.
There are many ways to think about and to show disability. A positive portrayal will consider how attitudes and the way the world has been built and organised means that people face unnecessary barriers, which stop them taking as full a part as they could in family and community life. Try to avoid portraying disabled people as victims of their impairments or health conditions, dependant upon others and receivers rather than givers to British society and the economy.
A positive image of disability is a fair, creative and stimulating portrayal of one or more disabled people. It could be anything from a photo, graphic or character in a storyline, to a visual or aural cue.
Images of disability should not only be the obvious portrayals of wheelchair users and people with white sticks. A creative approach can take you beyond this.
Raising everyone's expectations of what disabled people can achieve is crucial to improving their health, education and employment prospects and to meeting many government objectives.
The most important rule for good representation of disabled people is to consider the options at the start of any activity and use them as a stimulus for creativity.
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