We All Need Inclusion Lesley Berrington
I’m Lesley, Author of the ‘Hattie and friends’ series of inclusive books. I am NNEB qualified and former owner of Stepping Stones Day Care Ltd. in Lincoln. My books promote positive images of disability to teach acceptance, respect and understanding for the differences we have. I created ‘Hattie and friends’ when I couldn’t find suitable books to use in my nurseries. Two things happened to make me realise there was a growing demand for inclusive resources. • During an inspection at one of my nurseries an Ofsted Inspector asked if our resources reflected diversity. This made me question the resources we were using. • I attended a ‘Disability Discrimination Act’ Training Course. It was clear from discussions with the Trainer and other Nursery Managers that there were very few inclusive books available at that time. I started searching for more diverse resources for my nurseries. It was quite easy to find books and other resources featuring children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but disability was just invisible! I found very few story books featuring disability. The ones I did find made the disability ‘special’, I did not want that, I wanted to introduce disability without drawing attention to it. 28
It was also important to me that the disability was not mentioned in the text, it was purely incidental so that the character was not defined by their disability. After further research I decided that I could meet this growing demand and Hattie was born!I created ‘Hattie and friends’ around 15 years ago and, sadly, over that time I’ve seen very little change in the way we present disability in our society. Teachers and Childcare Professionals understand the need and importance for positive images of disability, so my books have been very well received and widely used by them. Unfortunately, I think we still have a long way to go to educate our wider society that books like mine are for ALL children. When I talk to people about my books they often assume that they are for disabled children until I explain the benefits for all children.
