Chapter 6 - continued

Another disabled person who made a huge contribution to BDRC in the 1990s was David Heap, who worked at the centre between 1994 and 2000. David was the first profoundly deaf person to be employed at BDRC and like Debbie, he recalls a culture of flexibility in which employees (and disabled people in particular) could develop:

“I started working in 1994 and remained until 2000 when I moved down south. I started by applying for and becoming the Information Worker at the time. It was my first time working in the voluntary sector and for a disability organisation because previous to that I worked for Sainsbury’s and then for NatWest Bank in Birmingham, so it was a whole new departure for me.

“As a profoundly deaf adult I had been used to working with hearing workers and it was the first contact that I had really had with a number of other disabled people all going through similar barriers and so on.

“One of the best things about starting was that it opened my eyes in terms of things like access to work as I had never heard of this scheme before until I joined. When I think of all the times that I had struggled previously with staff meetings with up to 25 people, trying to communicate by lip reading people rather than having access to a sign language interpreter.

“My experiences were quite different as it was a very hierarchal structure working for the bank previously with a Supervisor, a Manager and a Director. BDRC was much more open and a very small organisation at that time.

“As a disabled person, both as a child and an adult growing up, I was quite familiar with a lot of the issues. It was the best move that I ever made actually and I was really thrilled to get the job. It was also a promotion from where I was before which is unusual when you go into the voluntary sector. We all had our own roles and worked under the direction of the Board and the manager, but to a certain extent we were allowed to get on and introduce our own initiatives, if you like.

“In 1994 the Discrimination Disability Act was being formed and a lot of consultation was going on so I was straight in at the deep end because we were having to try to implement this when people came here so it was good.”

When David started working at BDRC, the Information Office was based in a large room known as the Library. This room is now the centre’s Conference Room, but in the 1990s it was filled with resource materials and information.

David recalls that volunteers played a major role in gathering resources and keeping them up to date, particularly his colleague Trevor Bailey who had enormous experience in updating materials and developing resources around current issues affecting disabled people in Birmingham.

Around the same time that David started his post as the Information Officer, Steve Blick joined the organisation as the Employment and Training Officer. Initially they shared the large library but, over time, this area was permanently divided by a wall into two separate areas, a conference and training room and an IT training room which was equipped with computers.

The Information and the Employment and Training staff relocated to some of the smaller offices in the Centre and shortly afterwards Steve Blick was appointed to the post of Centre Manager.

One of the first priorities under Steve Blick’s new leadership was to raise the profile of the centre in Birmingham as well as marketing its services. In spite of the fact that they were operating the foremost disability centre of the city of Birmingham, which also happened to be located deep in the heartland of Birmingham City FC supporters, David reveals how he and Steve successfully introduced the colours of their beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers into BDRC’s new logo:

“One of the good things was trying to market this centre. I came from a commercial background before joining the Disability Resource Centre and all of our leaflets were produced by ourselves on Publisher (I think it was at the time). We thought that we needed to look at the logo.

“I started with that process and developed the current logo which has now been going for over ten years. I am slightly embarrassed because I am a Wolves supporter and Steve was as well so if you wonder why we chose the colours gold and black – I had nothing to do with that!

“The logo was designed by disabled people themselves. The two sisters who ran the graphic design company were profoundly deaf and they came up with the logo and its glossy finish. The original leaflet has obviously changed over the years. It was a bit of a long process as we had to get it right. The logo was accepted by the board and we changed all our letterheads and adopted this one.”

When David moved across into the Employment and Training department, he was joined by Debbie Nunn and replaced in the information department by Brian Cleaver. Brian had previously worked as the regional officer of RADAR (Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation) in the West Midlands and was also a well-known amputee Marathon runner who used the moniker Brian “The Hop” Cleaver. Trevor Bailey continued to be the other familiar face of this popular new duo in the centre’s information service.

David recalls with pride that the Employment and Training team was extremely strong and successful, being part of a larger network within Birmingham and having a service level agreement with the EDD (Economic Development Department).

In his previous role as Information Officer he played a part in setting up other projects, such as BHEARD (Birmingham Hearing Equipment and Resource Display). This was a shop window of all the products that deaf and hard of hearing people could use in the home or in the workplace. As Information Officer, David’s role was to demonstrate the equipment and to set the service up with Colin Whitehouse providing technical expertise as required.