Sharing a story of support

Sarah Cullen is a Resource Assistant at the Mary Mackillop Outreach service and a stroke survivor.

Sarah recently spoke at a roundtable discussion for Society employees ahead of International Day of People with Disability.

She is a long-time advocate for people, like herself, who have had a stroke – or in her case two – at a young age.

In 2008, she received recognition at the National Disability Awards for her work in starting a recovery club for young stroke survivors, which continues to this day.

Sarah is also a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society NSW’s People With Disability Employee Network.

“The real use of it is about bringing people with shared experience together to share that experience and take the best gains from it.

“Rather than reinventing the wheel every time an employee with a disability comes along and needs reasonable adjustments, that there’s already a process and procedure and maybe some ideas as to solutions to the problems that are already working out there.

“Every person, obviously, is different, every disability is different, so everyone will come along with a different set of challenges but the solutions might be transferrable,” she says.

Sarah highlights that providing reasonable supports for people with disability can be very simple.

“One of the major things when I first got to working in the office at Haberfield is that everybody was on chairs that were on casters because, of course, for an able-bodied person that’s an easy way to scoot around the office.

“For somebody with a lack of balance and an ability to stay perfectly still on a chair that’s a nightmare waiting to happen.

“One of the very first adjustments they made was getting me a chair that didn’t move, and that seems so obvious and basic, but that’s a really huge thing for me,” she says.

Sarah says it’s really important for organisations employing people with disability to find out what supports individuals need.

“I feel like all day I’ve been saying, you have to ask people.

“As early in the onboarding process as possible,” she says.

“The fact we’re having these conversations and that this is even being thought about… is a step in the right direction.

“At least it’s on the radar and the thing we can think about to make lives better and get more people included and involved,” she says.

“In some ways I’ve probably been a great case study for Vinnies.

“The manager who gave me my job – I was a volunteer, at the time, and he offered me a traineeship and then I progressed from traineeship to part-time employment.

“He was very on the ball and motivated and knew what he was doing around disabilities – he had been working in the field for a long time and really knew his stuff,” she says.

“The really good thing about Vinnies is that there are good people who are motivated to do the right thing in positions of authority and power and that’s a really good thing because it means that they do strive for doing the best thing,” she says.

The key, Sarah says, is the next step and having the skills and the knowledge to implement appropriate systems, procedures, and supports for people with disability.