Disabled at interview : a community psychologist in and amid action

Abstract

I used a Community Psychology approach, involving Participatory Action Research with Qualitative methods, to both explore the employment interview experiences of disabled people and to effect positive change for disabled participants discriminated against in the labour market. In the opening chapters I set the action research enterprise within the socio-economic and political climate of the time. I follow this by describing the ethical, ideological, epistemological and methodological concerns that have driven my particular process of inquiry. 1 pay particular attention to the research process and reflect upon personal, social, organisational and political implications of the project. I review literature on disability, disability legislation and employment interviews and place my own work in the context of this. As well as reporting my findings on the difficulties disabled people face when seeking to enter the labour market, I describe the multiple research interventions I engaged with. These ranged from giving research participants welfare benefit advice through to consulting on the Government's Disability Discrimination Act. The main focus for the project became one of developing and marketing a Code of Practice on the recruitment and retention of disabled employees. I worked collaboratively with disabled research participants in developing and marketing this Code with four major employer organisations in order to affect change in employer staffing policies. Abstract