Disability e-courses: the new frontier

Co-Editor, Martyn Sibley, talks about his new disability e-courses, a selection of free workshops that he hopes will inform and inspire disabled people.

You have read the blog, you have read the Disability Horizons magazine, and you have attended the webinars! Now get ready for my new and amazing project – disability e-courses!

To explain my aims and spell out my vision, I would say that: I work to inform, inspire and change the world around disability issues, using personal experiences and online tools.

An “Inspiring Employment” disability e-course is the next step I am taking to achieve this. It is a free 7 week course for disabled people, their friends/families and professionals to understand the challenges and opportunities of employment for disabled people. The course provides a weekly email guide to video interviews with 13 global contributors and a resources section on the main website. There are 6 key modules:

1. Volunteering
2. The ideal job
3. Job hunting
4. On the job
5. Career progression
6. Self-employment

Inspiring Employment is for people who can work and can achieve amazing things in their careers, but who are finding many barriers in their way. This e-course showcases stories of disabled people starting out in their careers, to those in very prosperous jobs already. This is backed up with useful information on how to define personal ambitions, personal challenges and personal solutions.

No matter who you are, this course will provide you with insightful and practical guidance!

Personally, it was one of the most demanding projects I have run, but I am glad to say it is the most rewarding. The e-course took me several months to plan, recruit the amazing contributors, video our interviews, video my introduction messages around London, edit them, add subtitle transcripts for deaf/hearing impaired people, research the links, write the website copy, write the weekly emails and work with Misfit-Inc on the web development.

The reason I chose employment for my first course (yes, I am already planning more) has many layers. Employment gave me financial independence to buy myself treats, socialise and travel. It gave me fulfillment and a reason to wake up everyday. It also gave me skills and experiences that are invaluable. Conversely, I found employment difficult to find and often it impacted negatively on my energy, health and well being. This is why I included a module on self-employment to offer disabled people a flexible approach to work.

You can view the entire course by clicking here

Here is a little introductory video explaining the course and what I hope disabled people can achieve through it.

If you have any questions on the course please do get in touch via email. This really is the first of its kind, so I am relying on you to tell me the things you found good, bad and indifferent for the next one!

By Martyn Sibley

Read about Martyn’s webinars and visit our Employment section for employment and volunteering advice. If you’ve signed up to Martyn’s e-course we would love to hear from you, email us at editor@disabilityhorizons.com.