Making universities more disability confident:

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• Making universities more disability confident
  
• promoting access and inclusion for disabled
  students
• Levi Pay
• Head of Equality Service
• University of Leeds

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• Delivers over 23,000 hours of one-to-one support
  for disabled students every year (includes
  support during lectures and seminars, study
  strategy/skills support, library access support,
  etc.)
• Produces Assessmentof Study Needs reports for
  disabled students (around 1,000 students have
  an AoSN in place)
• Daily drop-in sessions

• Transcribes 45,000 pages of printed material
  (mainly text-books) each year

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• Disability Confidence
• at one-to-one level
• at team (module, department, faculty, etc.) level
• at University level

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• Disability Confidence
• 3 min summary of the law
• at one-to-one level
• at team (module, School, Service, etc.) level
• at University level

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• 3 minute summary of the law

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• Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (as amended)
• Defines a disabled person as someone with a
  mental or physical impairment which has a
  significant and long-term adverse effect on their
  ability to carry out normal day-to-day
  activities
• Makes it unlawful to treat a disabled person less
  favourably than a non-disabled person is, or
  would be, treated

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• Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (as amended)
• Places a duty (on employers, service providers,
  education providers, etc.) to make reasonable
  adjustments to ensure that disabled people have
  equal access to job opportunities, services,
  courses, etc.
• Places a duty on public bodies (including
  universities) to promote disability equality in
  carrying out all of their functions

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• Disability confidence at
• a one-to-one level

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• What practical steps can help to promote
  disability confidence at this individual level?
• Disability awareness training what kind of
  training culture exists within your university?
• Personal experience especially when the
  experience is positive and/or supported
• Written guidance are there particular
  disability issues which lend themselves to
  written guidance?
• Expert advice direct, when it needs to be, but
  open and non-judgmental at the same time

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• Disability confidence at a team level

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• People often know more than they think they know
  consider using a spider diagram or a case
  study approach (What would we do if?) to
  generate ideas within a team
• Make use of your disabled student support office
  ask for a presentation about their work
• Does having equality issues as a standing
  agenda item for team meetings work?
• Does giving someone a specialist remit for
  disability or equality issues work?

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• A few important points for any team to remember
• Give people different ways of contacting you or
  your team
• Always ask about specific requirements, and build
  in enough time to respond to requests
• Choose accessible venues (and challenge
  inaccessible ones!)
• Offering info in accessible formats the
  floodgates rarely open (especially if you provide
  a link to an electronic version)

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• Disability confidence at
• a university level

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• Discussion points
• Some of the current challenges within HE
• higher student expectations (leading on from
  better support at school level?)
• students with more significant support
  requirements
• more students whose impairments relate directly
  to their ability to study dyslexia, Asperger
  Syndrome and mental health difficulties
• finding funding for support for disabled
  international students

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• Discussion points
• Do you encounter attitudinal barriers within
  particular parts of the University?
• Estates departments and access audits the gap
  between the DDA and building/planning regulations
• Universities often undo good work on supporting
  disabled students by failing to support disabled
  staff members
• The new duty to publish a Disability Equality
  Scheme friend or foe?

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• To contact us or to request a copy of these
  slides in an alternative format (e.g. braille,
  large print, audio, etc.)
• Visit Equality Service (Ground Floor,
  Social Sciences Building, University
  of Leeds)
• Email disability_at_leeds.ac.uk
• or equality_at_leeds.ac.uk
• Website www.equality.leeds.ac.uk
• Textphone 0113 343 2616
• Telephone [phone]
• (Calls via RNID Typetalk are welcome)