By Carl Hodson, CEO, Fife Society for the Blind

THE world of sport has made great strides forward over the past few years to build both acceptance and respect for its disabled athletes as talented, determined and even heroic individuals, to be celebrated alongside their able-bodied colleagues. The same, however, cannot be said of business.

The gap between the employment rates for disabled and non-disabled people in Scotland stands at 35.8 per cent. Broadly speaking, only 45 per cent of those registered disabled are in work, compared to 81 per cent able-bodied.

For those with a visual impairment, the stats are even more startling. Nearly three out of four people of working age with sight loss are out of work. We need a sea change in attitude in the workplace in much the same way that disabled sport has become part of the mainstream.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on the issue, which will hopefully mean that the public sector will take a leadership position in the employment of disabled people and my particular plea is for those with sight impairment.

This “invisible” disability has other consequences and challenges – almost a third of the sight-impaired sometimes, frequently or always experience negative attitudes from the public in relation to their sight loss, while the same proportion are rarely or never optimistic about the future.

These findings show why sight-impaired people can be more vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness and why changing attitudes, reducing stigma and empowering them is so important.

From years of experience working closely with clients in the local community, Fife Society for the Blind is aware that there is a lack of information about visual impairment and available access technology that can reduce stigma and open up opportunities for people to participate in their community.

There is almost a systemic bias against inclusion of people with visual impairment to the job market, including not being included on “diversity forms” for job applications and no mention of whether jobs are suitable for people with visual impairments in job ads.

As a local champion of visual impairment services, we want to lead the drive to the take up of access technology and establish partnerships with businesses, institutions and organisations that research new opportunities for people with visual impairment to participate in communities – both physically and online.

With even just a little imagination every workplace can be adapted to make it work for the sight-impaired. Mainstream technology such as smart phones and apps can make life easier for someone to navigate their way around, while there is an array of specialised assistive technology solutions for visually impaired people such as stand-alone desktop and video magnifiers.

Braille note takers and stand-alone braille displays will also be available along with specialist devices for scanning and reading text, recognising colours and faces and products.

Research conducted by the Mental Health Foundation on the importance of work on people’s mental health and wellbeing found that a strong majority of people with mental health issues (86 per cent) said that their job and being at work was important to protecting and maintaining their mental health. Research participants also reported that work had a positive influence on their recovery, wellbeing, self-esteem, social connectedness and identity.

This is why educating employers in how they can better include people with visual impairment in their workforce is so important and why more must be done to make them aware of the access technology options and schemes available to them.