University of Warwick

Q&ALightning Talk 2 – Reasonable Adjustments in Labs team - University of Warwick [extracted from Padlet]

• For the Russell group stats, do you think it is 'Real', or could it be down to people not feeling comfortable to admit their disability in more prestigious institutions?

It is probably acombination of lack of diagnosis, lack of comfortableness in disclosing, and lack of representation.

My personal opinion (Emma) for neurodivegent students is that the demographic intake includes a large proportion of students who have never “needed” a diagnosis in the predictable environment of school, and with family backgrounds who are able to provide an environment for a low-support needs person without realising they are doing so. For physically disabled students, I think they are likely to be let down by the school systemand not have equal access, but also that they are likely to miss more school with medical appointments etc so perhaps are not able to get grades that allow them to attend Russell group unis. For staff, I think again we hit the reality that a job in a university is linked to “publish or perish” -disabled people are less likely to be in full time work but will be constantly compared to abled peers.

• Can Warwick team give examples of adjustments that generally seem 'safe' but aren't in labs?

Open the windows! Wearen'tallowedto,it was put in as an RA.

Ear defenders - we provide 'loops' but try to avoid anything that is hard to clean.
Access to food/drink -obviously they can leave, butcannot bring them in!

“Seating by a door” - not necessarily unsafe, but obviously limited by the number of doors, and swapping some of the bench space normally used for equipment close to doors to accommodate students instead can limit access for everyone!

• What is the number one resourceyou'remissing to better implementResAdj? time? Money? People
  Training, time=money

People (also money)
Ability to change the space (money, but also very timesensitive;any building changes would need to be done out of term on a very tight turnaround).