Home – Ability Focus

I would be very happy to recommend Ability Focus to an employer/HR Manager looking to promote and foster Inclusion in the workplace. This training is really valuable from an organisational culture perspective and as a life skill. Ability Focus were excellent from the start, from supporting our Work & Access funding application to planning/scheduling and working around our time commitments, it was all very easy. The feedback of the programme content from our employees was really excellent and it all ran seamlessly. 5 sessions and 80 employees covered. Thanks again to Stephen and his team. I look forward to working with them again in the future.

We worked closely with Ability Focus to develop and deliver bespoke disability training to our staff in the National Screening Service. The training covers disability awareness, reasonable accommodation and effective communication with disabled people. Stephen actively enabled the development and delivery of the training. He advised us on many areas of disability inclusion and how we can aim to continually improve the way we engage with people with disabilities. Our staff found the session valuable and engaging. 98% of the attendees strongly agreed or agreed the training has improved their general understanding of disabilities. I would highly recommend Stephen and Ability Focus to organisations looking to improve disability awareness with their staff.

As part of UCD’s Equality Diversity and Inclusion Training Programme, Stephen Kelly from Ability Focus delivered training on Disability Awareness and Reasonable Accommodation to employees including managers. Stephen was a pleasure to work with during a College pilot and provided demo sessions for our steering group. He understood our needs and worked with us to tailor the training to UCD employees. We rolled out the new training in the 2023/2024 Academic Year to over 80 participants and the feedback is very positive, particularly on how knowledgeable Stephen is and how engaging and informative the sessions are.

Having facilitated and led the CPD-accredited Disability Awareness in the Workplace training session with the firm last year, Stephen Kelly rolled out an excellent Reasonable Accommodation Training session for Grant Thornton covering five key areas: Disability disclosure; objective analysis; procedural obligations; disproportionate burden; and policy and process. Joined by a number of my Grant Thornton Ireland colleagues, I know there was a lot of learnings for us all to bring back to the discussion table – a productive Friday morning! Thanks Stephen.

Ability Focus have played a pivotal role in advancing An Post’s Disability Inclusion agenda. From March 2022 to March 2023, Stephen designed and delivered bespoke Disability Awareness, Reasonable Accommodation, and Inclusive Recruitment training to over 1,000 An Post employees across our 3 business units. The feedback has been incredibly positive thanks to the engaging & memorable content delivered by Stephen. An Post colleagues have benefitted greatly, and are better equipped to provide support to disabled people in work and in our communities. Thank you so much Stephen & team @ Ability Focus!

Bord Bia is committed to keeping disability inclusion forefront of our business, and one way we do this is by partnering with Ability Focus for a number of training sessions which are always well received by staff. Stephen’s sessions are highly engaging, very informative and clear. His expertise and passion for the area really shines through in his sessions and attendees as a result feel more knowledgeable and better equipped to engage with persons with disabilities. Ability Focus play a pivotal role in raising awareness of disability within our organisation.