About the Stickman Communications keyring cards

These are laminated cards which the disabled person can show as and when they want to share the information, communicating about disabilities and condition in a way that makes them an accepted part of life. Covering over 200 conditions, symptoms, and management techniques, these can be mixed and matched to create a pack that fits the person’s needs.

Cards are created through our own PIF TICK information quality mark accredited process. This ensures each card: accurately conveys the need/symptom from the disabled person’s perspective, is medically accurate, and will be understood quickly and easily by a reader without the need for prior understanding of the condition or symptoms.

Why the stickman cartoons?

-        The stickmen are relatable for the non-disabled person, helping them to understand the symptom or condition in question.

-        People don’t like hearing that someone has challenges or limitations – making it almost impossible to communicate these without coming up against either ‘your life is so pitiable’ OR ‘it can’t be that bad’ – both are huge barriers to being believed and getting the needed support. The stickmen immediately inject enough humor to help circumvent this.

Who will benefit?

Anyone with a condition or disability where meeting societal norms, and communicating clearly about symptoms and needs is not always possible or practical. For example where affected by limited energy levels, overwhelm,  brain fog, brain injury, pain etc. This includes: Long covid, ME/CFS, autism, depression, anxiety, fatigue, hypermobility, diabetes, ADHD and more.

Hannah Ensor originally created these to use herself. She said

“I wanted to be able to live in a way that works for my brain and body without people making a fuss. And without needing to spend my whole life – and most of my limited energy – explaining the same information repeatedly and having to justify and fight my corner in anything the other person doesn’t understand or which don’t meet their preconceptions or assumptions.”

Key benefits that promote independence:

The keyring cards fill a unique need: creating understanding of the person’s needs and ways of being at a social and practical level, requiring no prior understanding of that person’s condition.

They can:

1. Explain conditions
2. Enable medical professionals to understand quickly and accurately.
3. Enable the card user to communicate what they need (practically and emotionally) wherever they are, without needing to speak. 
4. Reduce anxiety by reducing the fear of “what if my symptoms kick off” because if that happens, the cards provide a solution.
5. Normalise and create acceptance and understanding of unconventional behaviors.
6. Remove barriers of preconception and misunderstanding in social and work interactions.
7. Save energy (vital for many conditions that feature fatigue)
8. Avoid situations where body language or manner offends and prevents the message being accepted. 
9. Give card users ability to communicate key points effectively that they may otherwise feel too embarrassed, angry, upset, frustrated, fatigued, unwell etc. to explain.
10. Gives the non-disabled reader confidence, and enables them to relax around the disabled person.