You Can’t Spell Inclusion Without a D

It’s called the Inclusive Design for Employment Access (IDEA) initiative. This new, six-year research initiative — being done with $9 million in federal funding — is taking a new, different approach to disability and employment research. One that has the potential to change the conversation about disability inclusion in business and employment.

We talk with the two experts leading IDEA who are reimagining how Canadian workplaces can be more inclusive for people who have a disability. Their main message — employers aren’t the disability inclusion problem; they’re the solution.

Listen to this compelling conversation with Dr. Emile Tompa and Dr. Rebecca Gewurtz. This is part one in a two-part series about new disability research initiatives in Canada.  

Business leaders can no longer make excuses for not fostering disability inclusion, the leaders of The Valuable 500 declare, in this episode.

Caroline Casey, founder and creator of The Valuable 500, affirms that they must “be curious and intentional about making change,” and urges leaders to “Go into your people, ask your people in business who are connected to disability, how you can do it better. Ask, admit you don’t know.” 

“But don’t think you can walk away from this issue anymore, because it’s your issue. It’s the most important thing a business leader can do.” 

Casey, and Paul Polman, Chair of The Valuable 500, provide unique, candid insights on progress that’s been made, and on what still needs to be done when in 2022, people with disabilities are changing the future of work and business more than ever before. 

Listen to the full, compelling conversation with Caroline Casey and Paul Polman, now. 

Have you heard the term, Hidden Mobility Disabilities, or HMD, before?

There are actually over 500,000 Canadians who live with HMD. It’s an aspect of disability that’s not obvious, and often overlooked. And it’s one that creates some significant obstacles to inclusion and accessibility. 

In this episode of You Can't Spell Inclusion Without a D, co-hosts Jeannette Campbell and Dean Askin explore HMD and The HMD Project in an insightful conversation with Dr. Dorothy Riddle and Dr. Haley Giennow-McConnell.

Dorothy is the chief facilitator of The HMD Project, and Haley is one of ODEN's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Specialists. She's the ODEN lead on The HMD Project.

Listen to find out about HMD.

And, if you're listening from Canada, in this conversation, you'll learn how you can — and why you should — participate in The HMD Project.

Learn more on The HMD Project website, and take the survey: http://hmdproject.org/

In this episode, we’re bringing some young voices into the show — Voices of Tomorrow. That’s both the name of a new report that’s the subject of this episode, and it describes our two guests. Sarah Julius is a first-year university student at The University of Windsor, Ontario. Natalia Ayala Giraldo is a Grade 12 student in Windsor. Both of them are on the 2021-2022 Youth Advisory Committee of Re:Action4Inclusion. It’s an Ontario-wide movement, around since 2008, that “seeks to empower youth to take action individually and collectively to make our schools and communities more inclusive spaces.” Voices of Tomorrow is a project by Re:Action4Inclusion, and it’s the title of the Youth Advisory Committee’s survey report that looked into the state of school, education, employment and community youth inclusion — for youth of all abilities — in Windsor-Essex County, Ontario. This is a landmark report about inclusive youth employment, by young adults. Listen to the great, deeply insightful conversation with Sarah Julius and Natalia Ayala Giraldo, and be sure to read the Voices of Tomorrow report. You can find it here: FINAL-VOICES-OF-TOMORROW-0629.pdf (reaction4inclusion.com)

If you’re at any point on a disability-inclusion journey in your business, be sure to catch the new episode that’s out today. 

What a great conversation with John Robinson, the founder of Our Ability and Jobs Ability U.S. 

Thanks to John for sharing so many business and personal insights about his journey creating Our Ability and the Jobs Ability AI-based job search platform that makes it easy for companies in hiring mode to connect with job seekers, with disabilities.

Grab a big mug of coffee hand have a listen.

Virtual reality (VR) is mostly known as the realm of gamers. But now — in Ontario, at least — it’s about to burst on the scene in the disability employment sector.

Initially, starting at the end of September (through to the middle of March 2022), VR technology called VjobReady is going to be used to help 160 Ontario job seekers who have a disability get a feel for what it’s like to work in the food and hospitality sector.

And it’s kind of neat that the employment service provider behind the development of this VR training application, is one of ODEN’s members.

Career Services of Brockville in Brockville, ON, spent the last three years building this first iteration of VjobReady. They knew they had something important, innovative and significant, right from the start.

On July 6, their efforts literally paid off big. The Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development awarded Career Services of Brockville a $380,000 grant.

In this episode, we talk with Career Services of Brockville Executive Director Cynthia Sparring, and Corporate Engagement Specialist Chad Noonan, about what this all means for job seekers, businesses, job training, and VjobReady future research and development.

In this episode, we explore why people who have a disability are the “secret weapon,” or, “secret sauce,” for businesses — and just what that means.

Our guests are two C-Suite business leaders — Paul M. Clark and Derek Burleton of TD.

Paul is President of TD Direct Investing and Executive Vice-President of TD Bank Group. He’s also chair of TD’s People With Disabilities Committee, and is on TD’s Diversity Leadership Council.

Derek is TD Vice-President and Deputy Chief Economist. He’s also the co-author of an October 2019 TD Economics report titled, Canadians With Disabilities: Seizing the Opportunity.

Both Paul and Derek have been with TD for decades. In this episode, they also discuss the diversity and inclusion (D&I) evolution within the bank that they are still witnessing; where TD is right now on D&I; and the future direction of D&I at TD.  

You Can't Spell Inclusion Without a D is a new monthly podcast produced in Toronto, Canada by the Ontario Disability Employment Network. The podcast explores The Power of Inclusion, and why disability is an important part of the workplace diversity and inclusion conversation. Join us for a new episode every month as we look at The Power of Inclusion, disability employment and the business benefits of D&I, from all the angles.

In episode one, a conversation about The Power of Inclusion with Canada's Federal Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, Carla Qualtrough; and Zahra Jadavji, Accenture Managing Director and Accenture's Inclusion and Diversity Lead for Canada.