Ability Focus and The CSO partner for Disability Awareness Training
The Central Statistics Office is Ireland's national statistical office. Official statistics from the CSO inform decision making areas across a wide range of areas including the Irish economy, health, welfare and of course, disability. Ability Focus, similar to all organisations involved in workplace disability inclusion, hold stats from the CSO in extremely high regard. Their disability statistics in particular are consistently referenced by our team during training programmes, meetings and consultations.
So, it meant a lot for us to be asked to deliver Disability Awareness Training to over 240 CSO staff in October 2023. We worked closely with Deirdre O' Reardon and her colleagues in the lead up to training delivery to ensure a disability awareness training programme was developed which hit all the key points required by the CSO in creating awareness of disability across this progressive organisation. Stephen Kelly, Managing Director of Ability Focus spoke about what it was like to work with the CSO.
"Firstly, as a small company who regularly cite stats from the CSO in all training programmes, it really was such an honour to be asked by the CSO to be trusted with delivery of disability awareness training for CSO colleagues. In the lead up to October we worked closely with Deirdre O' Reardon through MS Teams meetings and regular email contact to ensure all key touch points for the CSO were met. I'm delighted to say that we had great numbers attend training and that it was extremely well received."
Training was delivered to over 240 CSO colleagues via MS Teams in early October. As part of our best practice guidelines Ability Focus always forward a confidential feedback form after each disability awareness training session and the feedback from the CSO was overwhelmingly positive. Stephen continued:
"We could see from our confidential feedback forms that colleagues at the CSO really benefitted from completing disability awareness training and felt it will help them to create a much more disability inclusive workplace going forward."
Ability Focus thoroughly enjoyed working with the CSO and it was great to hear such positive words on our training delivery from Deirdre and the team at the CSO:
"As part of our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion programme, Stephen Kelly from Ability Focus provided Disability Awareness Training to the staff of the Central Statistics Office in early October, which was very well received in the organisation. Stephen understood our brief and was very easy to deal with. The training was delivered through an engaging and interactive presentation to a large audience and feedback from staff was very positive.'
Deirdre O' Reardon, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, DLO. Central Statistics Office.
We would like to wish the CSO the very best in their disability inclusion journey and look forward to future projects.
If you are considering Disability Awareness Training for your organisation please get in touch with Ability Focus by calling (01) 699 1150 or email info@abilityfocus.ie and we will be happy to discuss a programme to suit your disability training needs.
Ability Focus is the leading provider of disability awareness training in Ireland. Our training programmes are CPD accredited, L&DI Endorsed and delivered by qualified trainers with many years' experience working in disability inclusion.
