Alex has worked for West
Yorkshire Police since 2006, where she first joined as a Police Community
Support Officer. She was diagnosed with Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia in 2014. Alex
is involved with the Positive Role Model Programme, a West Yorkshire
Police initiative to encourage more people to be open about disability. The
message is “It’s okay to be you” and in this blog, Alex shares her story.
Before joining the Police I
had lots of ideas of what I wanted to do as a career, but I never seemed to be
able to focus on any one single pathway. I struggled at school in all
things academic, especially Maths, but nothing was ever flagged up.
Hidden
impairments were not really known about in mainstream schooling. I think
it was partially due to excelling in my social abilities. My reports always
said ‘Alex is a cheerful, chatty person, a delight to have in class, very
sociable’, coupled with ‘but she could try a little harder, she needs to
concentrate more’.
When I was diagnosed a
massive weight was lifted
When I was diagnosed in
2014 with Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia a massive weight was lifted. I am not
stupid, I do not need to concentrate more. I am already concentrating much more
than most people on the simplest of tasks. I also realised I had to stay
away from anything to do with numbers if I wanted a stress free life.
I once had a job as an
Assistant Manager of a high street shop. Most of the time I was good at it
until it came to cashing up the tills at night – nightmare! It was so stressful
and I assumed I must be really stupid to get things wrong time after time.
Thankfully, my personality has always kept me going even if sometimes I feel I
am going to crack. Now that I know I have Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia I can
give myself a bit of a break from being ultra-hard on myself and ultra-critical
of my mistakes.
Fighting to succeed
In a way, not being
diagnosed earlier made me the person I am today who works hard to achieve
everything I want at work and at home. I am driven, confident and sorely honest
with myself. My conditions do not disable me but they do challenge me and
I am up for a challenge in any form. It is this drive to succeed at everything
I do that keeps me fighting to stay at work.
In my 11 years in the
Police, I’ve had several roles and I am currently in a dream position at the
Regional Scientific Support Service, training to become a Fingerprint
Identification Officer. This is my biggest challenge to date and my Dyspraxia
is really putting up a fight with the capabilities required for the position.
But I have had this battle before and it hasn’t stopped me succeeding!
We need to think about
reasonable adjustments
The assessment did get me
thinking: why make a person with Dyscalculia (someone with no natural ability
with numbers) do a Maths based test? Is that not setting them up to potentially
fail? I fully acknowledge the need to assess people’s skills and resilience –
especially in jobs like the Police – but I feel the current methods of
assessment do not match our modern day understanding of disability. I think
assessments could be more reasonably adjusted – impairments are much more
complex than requiring a bit of extra time.
I think the recruitment
process has moved forward with the introduction of a presentation as it’s
another means of demonstrating a specific skill. These are much more relevant
than demonstrating you can work out percentages.
My advice for anyone with a
hidden impairment
Some people feel like they
want to hide the fact they have an impairment but I almost want to shout it
from the rooftops. It validates me, my quirks and my frustrations. It means
that people know to give me that little extra time and patience and afford me
the right to get things wrong more often than is considered ‘normal’.
I would say to anyone with
a hidden impairment: be open, be honest, be confident, be adaptable! Life is
challenging enough without a hidden impairment and in coping with both you
already have one up on the rest of them.
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