Sarah: At what stage do students usually approach you in regards to ISA’s or adjustments?
Disability advisor: UH, at the application stage. So once they’ve been given an offer, whether that’s an unconditional offer or a conditional offer, usually what will happen is once they’ve applied through UCAS and they’ve been given their offers, they will get in touch with the disability general E-mail and then their request will be portioned out to whoever the disability advisor is. It’s assigned to their course. And then we will reach out with them and we’ll usually have a meeting with them in the summer before they start their course.
S: Is it common during open days to be approached by students with physical disabilities or mobility impairments?
DA: So yes and no. So open days there’s.. we usually have stalls, so we’ll have like a presence from student services and that would include somebody from the disability service. So we do get a lot of prospective students come and ask us questions about, for example, what support we offer and how they apply for disabled students allowance, what facilities we have. We support them with accommodation and getting kind of their access needs met there. So we do offer advice with their in-person open days to answer questions and we do also advise the people running open days on how they can make their events inclusive. Um. Since I started about a year ago, I’ve had a couple of conversations with people that run the open days about simple things about how they present their information or handouts and things like that. Showing them how to book interpreters and things like that. I would say there is probably more room for improvement with our kind of inclusive approach to our open days, I think. That we do have a presence, but it’s something that because we’re not aware of who’s coming, I think we need to be more prepared and have more of a variety of ways to be able to access those facilities and those services. I think we come with the assumption that people will declare their access needs, and some people just won’t. Maybe they feel uncomfortable to do so, or maybe they don’t think to do it. So I think we do need to kind of preempt that a bit rather than treat it as a bit more of an afterthought.
S: How important do you think open days are for students with physical disabilities or mobility impairments?
DA: I think that’s really important. When I was a university student and I’ve got some mobility issues, like going and looking around the building was hugely important for me. I wouldn’t want to go into a building and find out there were classrooms on the 10th floor and there wasn’t a lift. That would not have been a possibility for me and I think that services like Access Able and things like that are great and you know have great visualizations of buildings, but unless you physically go to that space, you aren’t going to really know if you’re going to feel comfortable in that space. And so I think it’s really important that people feel welcome and that they’re able to get around, yeah, you know, to learn more about how to move around the space.
S: How important do you think it is having accessible equipment, furniture and machines already in place during open days for potential students to apply?
DA: I think it’s good. Like, very good for them to be able to see what they can have access to. I think if you’re already going to visit somewhere and you can see that they have an adapted sewing machine that you can use, then you’ll think, well, great, I’m going to go to a place where that’s available from day one. Otherwise you might think, OK, if I turn up I’m gonna have to ask for this and say maybe a delay and for me to get what I need to be able to have this in the course. I think that It’s important to have early conversations. I think that’s why it’s important that we meet up with applicants before they start their course about what equipment and what specialist software and things like that they need, so that we can try to the best of our ability to put that in place for them before they start. It’s, you know, we don’t want any student to feel that they start their course and they’re not able to access the content properly.
S: If a student with physical disabilities or mobility impairment are unaware of potential barriers that may be in place on a practical course, say for example sewing machines they may not have seen before, what is the process of discussing this or discovering these barriers?
DA: During the ISA process. And so the first thing is it happening with me, we’d have a conversation about what those barriers are. Then I would probably suggest that we physically go and visit the spaces that they’re using and have a meeting with the technician or the relevant course tutor so that we can talk about what they’re currently doing now and what is going to be coming up throughout the relevant academic year and the spaces they’re going to be using. Once we’ve identified the barriers, then we can have a conversation about, OK, well, how do we remove these barriers? Is there anything that we have within the building that we can use that is relevant, that would be helpful for them that is quick and easy to get. If there isn’t OK, then what is available externally and then we’d have conversation with that person. Then what the process would be, if there is external equipment or other things that we think would be helpful for that student to be able to complete their work. Then either they could get that funded through student finance or most likely we could put a request in through the university to get specialist equipment funded for them.
S: if they were to start the course and they think that, OK, I’m happy with the equipment there is because it feels like it’s going to be accessible equipment to me. But then say three or four weeks down the line they then discover that there are more barriers. Is there like another opportunity to come to you to discuss those with you?
DA: Yeah, once a student is allocated their disability advisor, we are with them for the full 3 years. We are always there for them to talk to about these kind of issues. Even in year 3 they may discover something isn’t working for them and we are able to work with them. That is down to the student though, so they have to feel comfortable raising these issues with us.
S: Is there a timeline for courses to get equipment adjustments in place?
DA: So the request for equipment and adjustments will always or should always be on the student. On what the student feels that they need. Um. I think. It’s kind of depending on the course. I mean, if a student is doing a particular project and they need to use a sewing machine or something to complete a certain thing and then and the course has to get that marked by a certain time, then that’s kind of the deadline. I think though if that was to be the case then arguably there’d be extenuating circumstances for that, because it would be unreasonable for to ask somebody to do something if they’re unable to do it. From a finance perspective, about getting funding for things. If a student is being funded through a disabled student’s allowance, and I’m sure that you know this, it can take a bit of a while. To have that set up and to get your ergonomic assessment, if it’s anything particular, like chairs you know, or height adjustable desks, there’s restrictions there. But there’s not necessarily a deadline. The deadline is, well, you know, we need to get it as soon as possible. So the key is, is if we already had things in place, it’s going to be far more beneficial to the student if we adjust equipment prior to having students applying, rather than waiting for a student to apply and then worry about making changes. You’ve gotta think about who’s coming to your opening days. And it’s surely far more attractive for a student to want to join a course where they can demonstratively see that they’ve been thought about.
S: So you kind of talked about this little bit already about funding. So is there funding available for courses to make specific adjustments and what is the process of accessing that?
DA: Yeah. I think yeah, funding for some things will come through and disabled students allowance and ergonomic assessments. For very course specific equipment, it will not come from Student Finance England and that would have to come from the university. And the funding is assessed on a student basis, on a case by case basis like for their needs essentially.
S: So for example this sewing machine adaptation, if we had one machine set up in each room as soon as possible without students who currently need them, would we be able to get funding for this?
DA: That is a good question. And that’s something I don’t know the answer to. So there’s something to look into.
S: Because what’s great about this (Moving3DMachine) is that it is usable by everybody, so it’s usable by able bodied students as well. So it would be my ideal to have at least one per room. That’s ready to go and it’s such low cost of £8 per room.
DA: No, I know it’s it’s nothing. The way that the funding works at the moment from disability department is that it’s funded per student per need. So if somebody needed it and they were a student, a wheelchair user that needed it and they needed that machine and we would fund that support and then obviously if they left the university, that would stay with the machine here, so that anyone else could use it, and the that’s not very proactive. Um, there could possibly be a case for it to come out of this project, sort of. Like teaching innovation, Sort of like budget, you know? But maybe the course budget. I don’t know. That’s a good question.
S: Are there any common barriers that get discussed with you in terms of equipment and machines for students with physical disabilities?
DA: Yeah, I mean, that’s also kind of a good question because. But we don’t have that many on our courses, and none on the performance courses, so it’s a bit of a difficult question to answer. The main issues or barriers that students regularly talk to me about, that have physical impairments is around tables and seating rather than specific machines. Breaking barriers that people identify in this particular building, although the lifts are great, they’re very slow, so people have to stand for long periods of time. And the staircase, although beautiful, is not very intuitive. You have to walk quite a long way to that upper floor. Um, lack of storage Is a regular issue, although that’s something that we’re working on. Having a lack of transport really. It’s a good 15 minute walk away from the station. So that can be a big barrier for students. I know they’re building a bus stop and I know there will eventually be disabled parking bays. So we’re hoping to work on some of these things and taxis can drop students off to the building if students are experiencing particular barriers around transport. In terms of their mobility, the university will pay for that transport. Other things are seating though. Again, that’s something that we’re working on. I know that a few students find it difficult with the different kind of heights of seating, but you do have quite a few different chair options within the building and the technicians are super flexible. About moving things around, So that’s great. Yeah, it’s tables again. They’re very high, the shelf underneath is high. These are not wheelchair accessible, you can’t put your legs or wheelchair under.
S: The pattern cutting tables were designed for the student to stand while drafting patterns, so definitely not designed for wheelchair users.
DA: Yeah, which is not ideal. What we would really need is at least one height adjustable desk in every room that could be used for people with or without disabilities, but depending on how the student feels at the time. So I think it’s good just to have these options which we do have them but we don’t have enough of them. That’s the barrier for students, is that they have to come and ask. And. Which, you know, some people really don’t mind doing and are very proactive, but some people just aren’t, and that’s another step that they need to take. Whereas if we have these options that were available to them already, they don’t need ask, they could actually just access it in a way that suits them. Yeah. And I don’t know about other regular barriers. I mean have any students asked you about particular issues ?
S: Not yet because we don’t have that representation here that required the adaptations to the machines or furniture…yet. I keep saying ‘yet’ because the hope is, is that is going to change. This is a big part of the inspiration of my project is to encourage more students to apply. A lot of the research that I’ve been doing says that about 2% of students in the UK are wheelchair users and that 2% isn’t within the London College of Fashion yet. I haven’t a doubt that’s down to the fact that prior buildings, prior open days were at non accessible locations. So the hope is that this year, now we’re in an accessible building is that hopefully that will change and that demographic of students will come. There are some factors, you know, they’re not in our remit like Transport like trains and buses. However at least Stratford station is a wheelchair accessible station, which is really nice, but there is a bit of a barrier like you said, having such a distance to travel from the station. So there’s obviously some things that are in our control and not in our control. So but the hope is that. Yeah, it will change and we can encourage more students to come. Because yeah, it’s a great, great building, great university and great courses. But we need to make those courses themselves as accessible as the building. Especially the practical courses
DA: 100% agree.
S: So the last question is there anything you think is important to add?
DA: Not really. I mean, I think like it is a really great building and I think we just haven’t quite worked out how to utilize all the resources and all the spaces that we have yet, and that’s not any sort of like criticism of any of the staff or how we’re doing. It’s just really new space and we’re still trying to work out how to use it. And I think that If we have an accessible space, people will come and that’s exciting. And that’s, you know what we should be doing. We should be encouraging. So that’s something to look forward to.
S: I wanna see our new building on Access Able going. Yeah, look at this wonderful new building and look at these wonderful courses within it. That would be the dream.
DA: Yeah. That insight, kind of like the machine adaptation you have is something that we should definitely be like championing, and it’s really inexpensive, so I don’t see why we can’t. Yeah, its things like that. It’s a start. It is.
S: amazing well thank you very much for your time, its been great to talk to you.
DA: You’re very welcome and I look forward to seeing how your project works out.
