Supporting Disabled Candidates

Candidates with Additional Needs
A guide for Local Parties

These guidelines are for your information based on our collective lived experiences in life and politics. They are intended to assist and are, necessarily, only intended to provide a framework for the different needs that may be encountered.

In this document Additional Needs refers to someone with disability, long term health issues and hearing impairment. These can be Physical, Mental Health or Neurodiversity and may or may not be immediately obvious.
A candidate with additional needs is as valuable to the Party as anyone. This guide is to identify methods that allow discrete engagement that will identify any Reasonable Adjustment that may need to be made.

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  You will need to engage with anyone that shows an interest in standing for any post as a party member who has identified they have any additional needs and what those are, in a
  suitable format agreed with the candidate.
  All in-person gatherings and meetings must be in a fully accessible premises with an accessible toilet nearby and an assumption that your participant with additional needs will
  need safe nearby parking. It is always a good idea to walk any anticipated external route to identify where dropped curbs and slopes are likely to need to be used. Ramps should not
  exceed 1 in 15.
  The easiest way to identify need and ability is to ask. ie: What can you do with suitable support, what do you want to do, how can we best help you? Do not make assumptions
  about anything. The majority of people, with additional needs, have to problem solve on a daily basis and therefore they understand their needs and methods of adjusting far more
  that you do.
  Another area for consideration is, medication, rest and food breaks, which may be quite different for such individuals.
  Do not assume that additional needs implies low intelligence. A person with additional needs knows their limitations and these must be accepted at face value.
  Associated with this is a more comprehensive document with some guidance on how to source the additional support someone may need.
  A designated point of contact with one or two discrete members of your team is an absolute necessity.

Please remember ask, don't assume.

For further information, please email us - info@disabilitylibdems.org.uk