New Media Awards 2007 Atos Origin

Disability Rights Commission - Disability Debate

http://www.drc.gov.uk/disabilitydebate/

Nominated in Advocacy award category.

The DRC has one key goal: “A society where all disabled people can participate fully as equal citizens”. Disability Debate uses new media to offer alternative views and foster positive democratic discussion leading to change.

Specifically aimed to engage the user and encourage debate around the everyday barriers disabled people face, it targeted three aims: to challenge perceptions of disability rights, increase users and achieve 2000 registrations, and drive traffic to the main DRC website.

Initiated over an 18 month period, Disability Debate strategically targeted business leaders, public sector and the Government, employers, disability organisations, media, and the general public.

1 nomination from readers

  • The Disability Debate site has enjoyed growing popularity and in 2006 the number of visitors doubled with over 9,000 site visits per month and over 5,000 registered users – that’s a staggering 150% increase form the anticipated 2000 registrants!

    Forums such as ‘increase disabled peoples participation’ and ‘increase life skills’ have helped changed public perceptions and promote greater debate. A MORI poll analysis from the DRC ‘The Future: Who Cares’ Report 2006 shows strong levels of support for reform of social services – 90% thought it important for disabled people to receive support and 78% support services that enable participation in communities.

    The output from the consultation period was a detailed publication outlining what the DRC believe are the chief public policy challenges for the coming decade and the actions required to meet them. This is the Disability Agenda which launched in February 2007. It encourages users to discuss the Agenda’s priorities for reform and attracted almost 2,000 visitors to the live discussion.

    Visitors submitted questions to the Minister of Welfare and Reform and a selection were answered in the live discussion. 11,000 visitors logged on and 205 questions were submitted for the hour long discussion. This was the first in a series to encourage debate surrounding the DRC’s 10 priorities from their ‘Changing Britain for Good’ Paper. It is the first time a webcast had simultaneous text to speech translation enabling users with visual impairments to hear the text read aloud during the live discussion.

    “Bringing together individuals, organisations, and policy makers in this unique way has for the first time encouraged proactive online discussion on the many issues facing disabled people. We are thrilled with the level of response to our campaign and strongly feel that perceptions are being changed and communicated right across the country. A great user friendly experience online has undoubtedly helped us achieve our aims. “

    John Hunt

    Website Manager

    Disability Rights Commission

    Nominated by Stel Grekos, 31 May 2007