NDEAM Advocate Spotlight: Heather Watkins
Meet Heather Watkins. Heather is a disability rights advocate who serves as a member of a handful of disability-related boards such as, Disability Policy Consortium, Open Door Arts, National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities, and more.
You can read the Q&A below to learn more about Heather and her work, disability inclusion, and how companies and individuals can be better allies and advocates.
Can you share a bit about National Disability Employment Awareness Month?
NDEAM began in 1945 when Congress declared the first week in October “Employ the Physically Handicapped.” Years later in 1962 “physically” was dropped to include disabilities of all kinds and eventually evolved in 1988 to a month-long celebration and name changed to what we recognize today. NDEAM is meant to highlight disabled employees’ contributions and the importance of inclusive hiring practices with the goal to have year-long carry-over so that disabled employees are not an afterthought in the workplace or left out of the pool of talent when determining candidacy for employment.
What does National Disability Employment Awareness Month mean to you personally?
I see it as a reminder that disability/being disabled has many facets and a full-bodied experience that is way beyond the lens of limitations only. It shapes your awareness and can be a contributing asset since it helps inform your lens and lived experience. Disability is often downplayed and an important factor in a person’s experience; NDEAM is both a reminder and call to action. What you don’t know actually does hurt you, and also untapped potential and pool of talent remains in the margins. We can change that by working toward the endeavor, so it becomes normalized practice when considering disabled people and candidacy for employment.
What does disability inclusion look like to you, in the workplace and in our world, and why is it critically important in leading us collectively into the future?
Disability inclusion looks like welcoming spaces, in attitudes and atmospheres. It looks like representation not in any tokenized way, but a range valuing the disabled person in all their granularity so that disabled persons don’t have to tuck parts of themselves away to “pass” and appease comfort levels to find semblances of quality of life.
As an advocate for people with disabilities, what other leaders or members of the community are inspiring you the most to do the work you do, and why?
Oh quite a few, leaders and change agents like Talila Lewis, Alice Wong, Keith Jones , Allilsa Fernandez, Anita Cameron to name some out of many who have impacted my awareness and lens perspective. Their staunch advocacy, projects, and experience coupled with their work centered on disability justice which moves the needle past disability rights and legislative focus that often overlooks the most-marginalized have been great examples and teachers for me. They are part of a grand collective that has given me the fuel and nod to keep going, many times without even knowing.
How can we, as companies and as individuals, stay better informed and committed to the work of “Increasing Access and Opportunity” for all?
By staying tapped into the disability rights and justice community, listening and learning about the unmet needs and barriers to access structural and system wide. Follow a wide range of disabled persons in diverse advocacy circles. Support and signal-boost disabled persons’ work and invite them to speak/write and properly compensate. Cite and credit work. Incorporate ideas and lessons into concrete plans toward beneficial change. Move past only PR/Mission statements and make sure to put in normalized practice throughout companies. It’s not enough to say, “we want to do better.” Be reflective of that aspiration by having informed representation in leadership, board, positions of power and decision-making. Lastly, be mindful that your self-investment, whether as a person or organization, has the potential of having a far-reaching impact beyond you. It has connective tissue to the community, and we all become beneficiaries of that broad vision and awareness.
