No Need to Feel Awkward: Disability Etiquette Training

One of the most common comments people make when signing up to volunteer with a therapeutic riding program is “I’ve never been around people with disabilities before, how do I know what to do?”

In order to answer that question, Blue Sky Acres brought in some guest speakers from Life Inc. 17 BSA volunteers and staff were in attendance at the training, which was held at Grace Community Church. The presenters were staff members at Life, Denise Howard and Clay Mims. This presentation was incredibly thorough and covered a variety of different situations that one might face in interacting with people with disabilities.

This presentation was especially fascinating because of the perspective of the presenters. Denise is blind and Clay has Cerebral Palsy. Because of their unique perspective, they were able to cover these topics in a way that no one else could! The audience had lots of questions for the presenters and were especially interested in hearing their story.

Although there was a lot more information, here were a few of the overall takeaways from the presentation:

1. Always use people first terminology when talking about people with disabilities, which means not using the words handicapped, retarded or disabled person. As Denise said, “labels are for cans, not people!”

2. Don’t assume that because a person has a disability in one area that they have one in another. For example, don’t yell at someone who is blind or in a wheelchair thinking they can’t hear you.

3. Be sure to ask someone first before assisting them. Sometimes helping can be more hurtful than helpful!

4. Always be sure to address the person with a disability rather than just their caregiver. If you are speaking to someone who is deaf, look at them instead of the interpreter.

We would also highly recommend checking out the following video of a previous training that was put on by Life Inc. if you were unable to attend this training!

https://youtu.be/0KpXubPl9Lg