In a nutshell
Our Disability Network was co-founded by Ed Bailey to support people within Newton with their Mental and Physical Health. Read below to find out what it's all about.
WRITTEN BY
Ed Bailey
Starting a job with a mental or physical disability can be a stressful and uncertain time. You can’t help but question if you will have fewer opportunities because of your condition, or if people will look down on you. You find yourself wondering if you will fit in…
Before starting at Newton, I had my own experiences with poor mental health that have shaped how I am as a person and how I work with clients, teammates, and friends. Having a chronic mental health condition is something that doesn’t suddenly leave you, but instead ebbs and flows in an often unpredictable way.
Being able to articulate personal experiences of mental health in an insightful and relatable way is often difficult. For me, it’s something that is ever changing and needs to be cared for and nurtured accordingly. Growing and sustaining good mental health is crucial, especially because it is easier to grow your mental health from an already-strong standpoint than it is a low place.
I was incredibly conscious of how I would sustain my own mental health when starting at Newton. By nature, Consultancy is an industry that seemingly doesn’t always suit disability. Travelling from place to place, spending nights away from home, and often working long hours in high pressure situations can become even harder to those with mental or physical health conditions. I was definitely concerned about what working in this industry would mean for me.
Shortly after I stared in 2016, it became clear to me that I was far from the only person with some form of disability struggling with these concerns. I informally began meeting many individuals throughout Newton with long term health diagnoses, who would know of and introduce me to more people. This led to us creating a series of support networks, where we would get together in small groups and pairs and share with one another in a safe space with a community who could empathise with your situation. This continued confidentially for around five years, and played a significant role in supporting me through good times, promotions, sick leave, and much more – and I don’t think I would have stayed at Newton without the support of my network buddies. The scale of people at Newton with some form of mental or physical disability eventually came to the fore and as a result, we formally established the Disability Network as a group that could take comfort in shared experience and offer support.
In 2021, we held our first outward facing Disability Month in Newton and were blown away by the support and interest that people showed. We held ‘lunch and learns’, released blog posts, and raised awareness of the Disability Network. This was also exciting because it was the first time that we had to think about the external voice of the group and how to articulate our aims and processes to the wider business. As we began to think about what we’d be called and what our duty was, it became clear that there were three core networks within the group: mental health, physical disability, and neurodiversity. With these realisations, we were able to launch the group in more earnest and offer support to people to be able to thrive as their authentic selves.
A story that recently had me thinking about how the Disability Network could support people further was something one of our members, Josh, told me about his experience of joining Newton. He suffers from an invisible, physical disability and when starting at Newton, was concerned by how he would be perceived if people knew this. It took him until the week before he started to disclose his disability and he really played down how it affected him.
He thought he’d managed to get away with it, but ten weeks later had a seizure whilst waiting for a train in Cornwall with the rest of his team. He realised from this experience the supportive nature of the whole company, top to bottom, and understood he needn’t have hidden his disability. However, this story worried me because I don’t want people joining Newton to feel as if they have to hide or downplay their disabilities. I realised that it is the role of the Disability Network to encourage a move away from the rhetoric that disability is something which needs to be kept quiet.
Since hearing this story, we’ve made a real push for people joining the company with a disability to feel supported before they even start. I’ve begun having private sessions with people about their disabilities prior to joining for them to disclose their experiences and concerns. I’ve loved speaking with them and being able to connect them up with people in the network who’ll understand their situation. Again, this all comes back to the fundamental question the network has, asking What can we do to help that individual to be their best?
Ultimately, I and the rest of the network, want to be ready to support any kind of disability coming into Newton. We’ve created a group that is really warm, funny, and incredibly proud of each other. We’re quick to know if someone is going through a tough couple of weeks and are always there to support them through. I’m excited to see Newton continue to grow as a business that does everything it can to support its people in being their best.
