The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 sets out to provide protection against discrimination for people with severe disfigurements, however many employers and service providers will be unaware of what this means in practice, much less how to avoid bias and discrimination in their organisations.

Facial prejudice is often unintentional and due to lack of awareness or contact with people with disfigurements. It can affect every aspect of employment; particularly selection, promotion, retention, staff morale and customer-service. Changing Faces carried out research in 2008 which showed that 9 out of 10 people unwittingly judged those who have disfigurements to be less attractive, less likely to succeed and less easy to work with. This could mean that they are more likely to be unemployed, under-employed or to receive a lesser standard of customer care. These preconceptions can impact negatively on employers, service providers and people with disfigurements. They can also lead to inadvertent discrimination, resulting in employers and service providers finding themselves in industrial tribunals or in court, and ultimately loss of revenue and reputation.

Changing Faces has a holistic approach to creating fair and equal environments for people with disfigurements. We provide a mentoring programme supporting our clients in learning the skills they need to job-seek with confidence. It is essential that employers in all sectors create a culture of Face Equality for employees and customers with disfigurements, removing facial prejudice and discrimination on three levels:

Personal

 Professional capacity – procedures

 Organisational – ethos and policies

Using the information on Changing Faces’ website will help employers to create equality for people with disfigurements, together we can make some real changes that will benefit everyone.