'I don't do stairs,' says Alison John, youth and community worker and disability equality trainer. 'I do ramps and lifts, but I don't do stairs.'
Alison is running a series of one-day courses for Oxfordshire Social Services, and the one I am attending is for playworkers and childminders, and focuses on 'inclusion and disability equality'. Alison is here, she says, to 'change our minds' and she makes us all think hard about things we take for granted.
'Barriers to inclusion might be physical,' says Alison, 'like stairs or non-accessible loos, or they might be to do with people's attitudes.
Historically, disabled children have been shut away, hidden, segregated. To really include all children in play activities, we might have to rethink not only the way our buildings are planned but also the way we organise play activities. Inclusion doesn't just happen. We have to make it happen!'
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