22 Jan October is Disability Awareness Month
The month of October is set aside as the time to learn how to behave around people who live with disabilities. Disabilites may be seen as in having to use a wheel chair or crutches. You may know people who have unseen disabilities such as blindness or deafness or neurological issues. The population who live with physical disabilities is growing due to war wounds and the medical breakthroughs that allow previously injured people who might not have lived through their injury years ago being able to survive now and be part of society.
Therefore it is important for us to know how to be gracious and appropriate when we are with disabled friends, relatives, colleagues and everyone else. A Lett Group member and colleague, Ellen Shackelford recently appeared on Good Morning Washington on WJLA ABC in Washington, DC to talk about the etiquette involved with living among others who are disabled. Ellen knows first hand the challenges of being disabled due to a car crash she was engaged in 33 years ago after which she was paralyzed from the waist-down and uses a wheelchair for mobility. Tragically she also lost a son in that crash.