Towards Belonging Ltd

30/10/2024

A great opportunity to hear from the wonderful Trudy Norris-Grey, if you’re in London in December

An evening of inspiration and insight in London with Trudy Norris-Grey, a pioneering force in the tech industry and dedicated LGBTQ+ ally.

13/10/2024

Visiting professorship begins
My work over the past few weeks has been focused on groundwork. If you read my previous posts, it is my ambition to help the engineering industry understand how they can ensure their designs are inclusive for everyone.

This has been enabled, in part, by my Royal Academy of Engineering visiting professorship at the University of Huddersfield and Aston University. This means that the next three years I will be working across these two universities to ensure the students studying engineering, are able to disturb and implement their responsibilities for inclusion and accessibility. Thank you, Leigh Fleming for supporting me with this.

Over the past few weeks, I have been inducted at the University of Huddersfield and Aston University. It was great to meet Richard Atkinson CBE and Stuart Welch at the visiting professors dinner. I look forward to working with you both in the coming months and years.

At Aston, I am working hard with colleagues Kate Sugden and Dawn Bonfield MBE FREng to develop an inclusive engineering framework. This framework is aimed to be used by all engineers, when they are designing their systems, projects or contributing to a wider scheme of work. Essentially, at the moment, inclusion and accessibility is not something which is a requirement. Myself and my colleagues believe this needs addressing and so we are designing a framework to help engineers bring inclusion and accessibility into all engineers designs.

I will be able to update on this project over the coming months, as it will be completed by April 2025.

At the University of Huddersfield, I am supporting final year students with their inclusive engineering projects and helping to educate both the students and the staff into the world of inclusive engineering, ensuring that everyone understands that disabled people are still people and must be included within every engineering design.

I will continue my posts on here, to update you with the progress we are making. Through my project at Aston, I will be asking disabled individuals for the thoughts on the current public spaces we have and how accessible you think they are. I will share more about this work in a few weeks.

23/09/2024

Two weeks ago, I was asked by the Disabilities Minister Stephen Timms where in my field did I think we could readily make some progress. There were so many areas I wanted to include, so I asked theDisabled Community if they had any thoughts on improving the UK in terms of disabilities to help me focus my response.

Thank you so much for all of your comments and suggestions.

I responded on Saturday and here is a summary of my response:

* Train your department and your colleagues in government about the and the and influence the Cabinet to ensure that the UK finally the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

* Influence the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure the Building Regulations are updated with accessibility as a priority. The 1.5 million new Homes you are committing to build must have accessibility and inclusive engineering in their foundations. We are an aging population and Disability comes to all people at all ages. Having this will, in the long-term, save on mental health support costs, social services costs and reduce adjustment costs for existing buildings

* Influence the Department for Infrastructure, particularly those who create regulations for roads and pathways ensuring that regulations make the public space accessible for all. Then , due to the regulations, local authorities, developers and other appropriate organisations must ensure accessibility, whether that’s through installing appropriate tactile paving, dropped curves or even earning revenue by issuing fixed penalty notices for cars parked on pavements.

* Influence the Department for Transport, ensuring public transport is accessible and the need for assistance to use public transport is removed by:
* Enforcing platform height trains with no gap between the train and the platform (just like is done in many other countries)
* Enforcing the right for disabled people to use public transport before 9:30 am so we can travel to work
* Enforcing aircraft to enable disabled people to fly seated in their wheelchairs, as outlined in Sophie Morgan’s Rights on Flights campaign

* Ensure the built environment is accessible and employers are legally required to provide accessible access and facilities for everyone. This would mean both employees and customers are welcome and supported

* Improving the Access To Work process, so that:
* people living with a disability are supported by government to be able to access the working environment within 2 weeks of applying (not 32 weeks as is the current wait)
* Companies employing people with a disability are supported to provide the adjustments these people need to be able to perform well in their roles.

I know there are many other areas which need to be covered and I absolutely didn’t touch education or SEND support, but I hope this can be a start to making a positive impact

10/09/2024

Hi,

I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Katy Deacon and I’ve been a wheelchair user since 2012. I have multiple sclerosis, which has caused Spinal Injuries, meaning I have lesions at C2-C6, T8 and T9. I also have significant damage to my left optic nerve, so I have to wear a frosted lens on my glasses.

As well as all of that, I am an engineer. I started my career as an avionic apprentice at British Airways, fixing jumbo jets. Life was brilliant! After 9/11 the aviation world changed dramatically and I had to find another job. I took my skills into building services and became a chartered electrical engineer. I designed school rewires, fire alarms, security systems until I found my real love which was designing and installing renewable energy systems.

My first fire alarm was thrown out by my boss because I had made sure that every room had a red flashing light in it, to help all the deaf people understand there was a fire. He told me that I was costing my client too much money and if the school wanted to have red flashing lights, they could put them in afterwards.

Now, having lived in the world for 12 years in Wheelchair, the understanding of not yet disabled engineers to the needs of disabled people is supremely obvious. They just don’t get it and how could they?

So, I set up a company called Towards Belonging Limited, here is the link so you can have a look  https://towardsbelonging.co.uk/

The aim of my company is to bridge the gap between the disabled community and the engineering industry. We speak to engineers to help them understand how they can make the world more inclusive and accessible for everyone. We also try to help disabled people speak to engineers and designers, so that they can put their point across.

I will speak more about this in future blog posts, but today I just wanted to let you know that this week I am starting and new chapter in the world of Towards Belonging Limited. I have been selected by the Royal Academy of Engineering to be visiting Professor at the University of Huddersfield and Aston University, specialising in inclusive engineering design.

My aim over the next three years is to help the universities and students develop an inclusive engineering design framework that they can use every in design, so that all of the designs whether at university or out in the workplace have inclusive engineering at their foundations.

I will also be showing lived experience examples with the students across both universities. This will be done with videos from disabled people, and through videos I make from my Wheelchair to help the students and the universities understand that disabled people are real and the problems we face are made worse because engineers do not design with everyone in mind.

I’m really pleased to be able to share my journey with you. I’ll keep you updated with my progress and I look forward to reading your comments 💜

middle-aged woman with brown hair smiling at the camera. She has a white hard hat on and a fluorescent yellow jacket. She is sitting in her wheelchair

29/07/2024

Last month I featured in a podcast about neurodiversity. It was great to have such honest conversations. Thank you Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)

https://www.iom3.org/resource/iom3-investigates-encouraging-neurodiversity-in-stem.html?_gl=1*pprte2*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTcwOTE4NDA3My4xNzIyMjU5NTA2*_ga_FS09K3G91Q*MTcyMjI2MTYxMS4yLjEuMTcyMjI2MjY1NS4wLjAuMA..

What are the issues behind neurodiversity in STEM? Katy Deacon, Associate Professor Asiya Khan and Martin Griffins discuss for IOM3 Investigates.

29/07/2024

I featured in this webinar last month about neurodiversity in engineering.

It was great to have such honest discussions. Thank you Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)

https://www.iom3.org/resource/iom3-investigates-encouraging-neurodiversity-in-stem.html?_gl=1*pprte2*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTcwOTE4NDA3My4xNzIyMjU5NTA2*_ga_FS09K3G91Q*MTcyMjI2MTYxMS4yLjEuMTcyMjI2MjY1NS4wLjAuMA..

What are the issues behind neurodiversity in STEM? Katy Deacon, Associate Professor Asiya Khan and Martin Griffins discuss for IOM3 Investigates.

24/07/2024

I’m really proud to announce that last week I was chosen by the Royal Academy of Engineering to be a visiting professor at The University of Huddersfield and Aston University. I will be specialising in and teaching new engineers why it’s so important they design with accessibility and inclusion in mind

21/07/2024

I am just leaving Coventry, after attending the wonderful

The feeling in the breakfast room this morning was electric. Women and men celebrating their links, experiences and the wonderful three days we have all spent together.

The key learning I am taking away is
- Challenging a Simp is the right thing to do, I just need to practice my lines so I am smoother at it
- The engineering community really wants to learn how they can be more inclusive of disabled people, they just need to understand what to do and how to do it
- I need allies and supporters to help me bring Towards Belonging Limited into a space where it can have meaningful impact

Thank you to Yewande and all of the organisers, speakers and attendees at this event. It has been amazing and I am really looking forward to coming back next year.

02/07/2024

Welcome to the Towards Belonging Ltd Facebook group. Our mission is to enable the engineering world to hear and understand the voices of the disabled community.

The purpose of this Facebook group is to interact with the disabled community and Help you get your message to engineers, in the hope that these messages can be translated into improved designs and action to make our world more accessible and inclusive.

You can post your images and comments here or you can use our website and the Google form embedded within it to go into more detail

Towards Belonging, founded by Katy Deacon is a company that's bridges the gap between engineers and the disabled community to make the world more accessible.