WK9 SOCW 6361 Project: Part 4: Identification of a Policy Alternative As an astute social worker and professional policy advocate, once you have selected and identified a social problem, you begin the

Running head: ANALYSIS OF THE DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT 1

ANALYSIS OF THE DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT

SummerLove Holcomb

SOCW 6361

Instructor: Terri Lewinson

07/24/2020

ANALYSIS OF THE DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT

The physically or mentally disabled persons are being discriminated in their various aspects of life. This discrimination has become a barrier for the disabled to access services like proper healthcare and employment opportunities. It is against the law to discriminate against any disabled person in various aspects of their lives and the Disability Discrimination Act is supposed to protect the disabled (Oliver, 2016). The Act provides laws that require service providers and employers to make reasonable adjustments for the disabled and help them overcome mobility barriers that deny them access to some services. The problem with the policy is the failure to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people overcome physical and mobility barriers.

In the analysis of the disability discrimination act, the evaluation criterion is based on the strengths and weaknesses of the policy. In the evaluation, there is the provision of what is working and what is not working with the policy. The strength of the Disability Discrimination Act policy is that it grants the disabled a reasonable adjustment in their various aspects of life (Oliver, 2016). The disabled are getting employment opportunities and changes being made at their workplace to accommodate them. The policy provides fundamental egalitarianism to the disabled in society through the provision of equal rights in getting jobs, access to goods, services, facilities, education, and use of public transport. The strength of the Disability Discrimination Act policy is that it has created disability awareness among businesses, employers, and educators that the disabled people can perform tasks like other abled people with the provision of reasonable accommodation (Oliver, 2016). The weaknesses of the Disability Discrimination Act policy are that disability discrimination cases are time-consuming, difficult to prove, and expensive making it difficult for the disabled to get justice. Some disabled people do not know their rights under the Disability Discrimination Act making it difficult for them to know the options available for them if discriminated against because of their disability. The policy does not change deeply held attitudes and views in society regarding people with disabilities.

Disability social workers help people with physical or mental disabilities to cope with their daily life challenges. Changing the Disability Discrimination Act will change the perception and attitudes of clinical social workers towards their clients who are disabled. Clinical social workers continue to hold similar attitudes towards people with disabilities as the general public. When changes will be made in the Disability Discrimination Act, these social workers will be taught the disability theory in their social work programs. The disability theory will push the clinical social workers to advance for the rights of their disabled clients (Macdonald et al., 2019). The barriers to access to healthcare services will be removed and the people with disabilities will access proper treatment.

In my proposal advocating for change for the disabled, I proposed for the need to create social awareness of disability. Recently, the Coalition for Independent Living conducted a social awareness campaign for people with disabilities in Georgia. The coalition created awareness of the rights of the disabled through seminars with university students. The youths used social media platforms like Facebook to post their advocacy messages that included “Youth for equal society and democracy” and “Recognizing the barriers, Change the Attitude.” The outcome of the awareness campaign is that it created a countrywide awareness of disability. The campaign led to the removal of mobility and bureaucratic barriers giving the disabled more access to services like education (Coalition for Independent Living, 2020).

There is a need for continued monitoring of the Disability Discrimination Act policy to determine whether the proposed changes are effective and bring reasonable change to the disabled (Oliver, 2016). The impact of the policy should be measured.

References

Coalition for Independent Living (2020). Retrieved from http://www.edf-feph.org/members-clasification/coalition-independent-living-cil

Macdonald, S. J., & Deacon, L. (2019). Disability theory and social work practice.

Oliver, M. (2016). Rewriting history: the case of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Disability & Society, 31(7), 966-968.