Webinar: Disability Assessment, Rights and Inclusion. May 2020



You can watch the complete webinar here. 

On May 8th the European Disability Forum (EDF) organised a webinar to explain the disability assessment process, which is the process by which persons with disabilities are evaluated for having a recognition of their disability and to become eligible to receive, for example, an allowance to fund the support they require.

This webinar was moderated by Haydn Hammersley, EDF Social Policy Officer and was supported by Raquel Riaza, Events and Administration Officer and Marine Uldry, EDF Human Rights Officer. The webinar was accessible for persons with disabilities providing live captioning and international sign language interpretation. It was recorded and it will be available on EDF’s website.

Catalina Devandas, UN Special Rapporteur on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, spoke about the assessment process and the importance of this to be in line with the Convention. She also gave a comprehensive overview about the different approaches to the assessment.

Mark Priestley, Professor of Disability Policy at the University of Leeds, gave a summary of the key points of the work done by the Academy Network of the European Disability Experts with regards to the different methods of disability assessment across Europe.

Gunta Anca, from the Latvian umbrella body for disability organisation, SUSTENTO and EDF executive committee member, explained the practical issues of the disability assessment in the Eastern European countries. She also gave practical examples to illustrate the significance of this topic based on her personal experience.

Nadia Hadad, from the European Network of Independent Living and EDF executive committee member, presented the results of a survey on the extent of how poverty and social exclusion affects persons with disabilities, which was conducted last year by EDF.

Konstantinos Charalampous, from the Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Insurance of the Government of Cyprus, explained the disability assessment system adopted by Cyprus.

Giampiero Griffo, Board member of EDF, spoke about the situation in Italy regarding the disability assessment process.

Finally, there was a little time to answer some questions from the attendees.