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Garden Square is Disability Confident

19th September 2018

Recently, the Government has been encouraging organisations to sign up to the Disability Confident scheme.

The scheme aims to provide employment opportunities for people with health conditions and disabilities by supporting local employers and increasing their confidence to employ disabled people.

Disability Confident Scheme

The awareness, skills and knowledge gained from engaging with the campaign, link closely to the level of service Garden Square strives to provide to customers and the local community in Letchworth.

St Johns Shopping Centre in Liverpool recently became the very first Disability Confident shopping centre in the UK.

The Disability Confident Scheme helps employers to:

  • draw from the widest possible pool of talent
  • secure high-quality staff who are skilled, loyal and hard working
  • improve employee morale and commitment by demonstrating fair treatment of all employees
  • identify other businesses who are committed to equality in the workplace

Through Disability Confident, thousands of employers are challenging attitudes towards disability, increasing the understanding of disability, removing barriers to disabled people and those with long-term health conditions and ensuring that disabled people have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations.

The Three Tiers of Disability Confident

There are 3 tiers of Disability Confident:

  • Committed Level 1
  • Employer Level 2
  • Leader Level 3

Garden Square has signed up to become Disability Confident Committed and has agreed to the Disability Confident commitments. These are:

  • inclusive and accessible recruitment
  • communicating vacancies
  • offering an interview to disabled people
  • providing reasonable adjustments
  • supporting existing employees

The activities included in this are:

  • work experience
  • work trials
  • paid employment
  • apprenticeships
  • job shadowing
  • traineeships
  • internships
  • student placements
  • sector-based work academy placements

At least one activity from the above needs to be actioned to help make a difference to disabled people as part of the scheme and Garden Square has initially looked at providing job shadowing opportunities.

However, Garden Square is actively looking at progressing to level 2 and is working with its DWP Community Partners and local Job Centre Plus Employer Advisors, who are supporting the shopping centre throughout this process.

This is all part of Garden Square’s pledge to be a Disability Confident employer.

To find out more about Disability Confident, watch this video.

Jack Philbin, Garden Square’s Centre Manager says: “Garden Square is focused on promoting equality for all our staff and customers. Disabled people have a tremendous amount to offer a business like Garden Square and we want to encourage everyone to feel included and valued. By getting involved with Disability Confident, we have pledged to offer job shadowing opportunities and will be giving ongoing support to current employees who acquire any long-term health conditions or disabilities, allowing them to continue working. We will shortly be writing to all our tenants encouraging them to also sign up to the scheme as well as exploring disability training opportunities for our team and tenants through our Community Partners.”

For more information about Disability Confident.