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Mark Williams
I have been disabled all my life. I was educated in a ‘Special’ school and endured people's low expectations of me, but on leaving school went to a mainstream college to take ‘O’ and ‘A’ Levels. I then trained and qualified as a social worker at the former Bristol Polytechnic. I subsequently worked part-time in an Adult Care team for nearly two years.
I was one of the people instrumental in setting up an Independent Living Scheme in my home town of Bristol and live independently and employ my own personal assistants. Throughout my life I have become more and more aware of the barriers put up by society that prevent disabled people from living a full and active life, and I am convinced that people who are not generally involved with disability see it as an individual and medical problem only. They are not aware of the extent to which society is responsible for disabling people.
In 1999, I was fortunate to be asked to participate in a Disability Equality Training for Trainers course, which helped me to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to train other people in disability equality. Training I am currently involved in includes preparing medical and social work students at Bristol University in how to meet disabled people’s needs when they eventually start work in the real world.
I believe my training and life experience puts me in a very good position to educate people about how society discriminates against disabled people, and it is something I am very committed to doing. My aim in this is to be able to give people the opportunity to rethink perceived ideas and to enable them to understand disability more in terms of society as a whole.
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