Recently at the Elite Business Conference we had the chance to meet Daphne Clarke, an inspirational lady who has started Equality Equality, a business providing holistic human resources and dyslexia consultancy support. The company’s services include one to one consultancy, team workshops, mediation, policy review and workplace assessments to ensure businesses are dyslexic aware and compliant.
It helps managers become aware of dyslexia and dyspraxia in order that they’re making reasonable adjustments and keeping in line with the disability awareness act. It also helps individuals with dyslexia and dyspraxia devise coping strategies that will help them in the workplace.
Prior to setting up the business, Daphne worked for a local authority for 22 years, which included 12 years in HR. She suffered from Dyslexia and Dyspraxia and had a great job and felt that it didn’t impede her in her role at all. However, when she changed roles in the organisation she noticed a major change in her ability to deliver at the same level, and it was all about the support she received, she says;
“It made me think, how is this organisation actually equipped to deal with these issues? I realised that there was no provision across the board and support was completely dependent on individual managers. I also knew that if there was no consistency where I was, it was likely to be similar elsewhere.”
Daphne decided to accept voluntary redundancy so that she could help organisations in this area, not only to benefit the individuals but to ensure that the organisations were compliant legally and weren’t opening themselves up to law suits and negative PR. Once she’d explored the opportunity she knew she wanted to pursue it as a business, she says:
“I’ve got an absolute passion for this area. If you come up with a manager with no idea what they should be doing you just want to make a difference, it was a no brainer”.
Daphne heard about the support available from The Prince’s Trust for Mature Enterprirse (PRIME) about a year before she set up the business, and then expressed an interest in taking voluntary redundancy. Eventually leaving her employment in July 2013, she started the SFEDI Awards Level 2 Certificate in Creating and Starting Your Business, in October. As it’s a SFEDI Awards nationally regulated qualification, Daphne received the year’s membership of the IOEE provided by SFEDI Awards as part of her qualification too, she says:
“The best thing was to do the course early on, it equipped me with lots of information I needed to have before starting my own business. What I loved about the course was not just the business plan and start up support, but the fact that I got a nationally regulated qualification at the end of it, it made it feel really worthwhile, I can’t praise it enough.
Also the information I continue to get from PRIME and the IOEE is incredibly useful too. The sources of information, events, and support available has been invaluable, For me it provides me with a knowledge base and a trust, it’s one course and two organisations that are providing people what they need to develop the confidence to go forward. You can have some very lonely days as a business owner, when you’re not sure if you’re going one step forward, or a thousand steps backwards, so the support provided by PRIME and the IOEE can keep you grounded”.
Daphne has recently been allocated a mentor by PRIME, who she’s very excited to work with as they have developed a great working relationship already. Daphne has ambitious plans for her business and is currently building a portfolio of clients to work with, she says:
“Now it’s about getting out there and marketing and promoting the organisation, I have a passion for what I’m doing and I’m very excited about the future of the business.”
Why not connect with Daphne on the IOEE and visit her website at Equality Equality.
If you are interested in how you can get involved in joining the SFEDI Awards approved delivery network please visit the SFEDI Awards website by clicking here.