Hi all
I hope you are all well?
I work in UCD, (University College dublin) and have been appointed
Disability Access Officer for the University. My role is unique amongst my
fellow third level institutions in that the work of accessibility is carried
out by staff in disability support Services in the other third level
institutions unlike where I work - I have been given the sole responsibility
of driving the accessibility work in my university. I realise that local
authorities in Ireland have been working in the area of accessibility for
several years now and have done considerable work in this area to date as
have many of the other universities who have also been working on providing
the compliance under the disability Act 2005. However, my query is in
relation to the terms used for personnel who work in this area, specifically
if the personnel in the Uk or other jurisdictions apart from the republic of
Ireland are working in the area of accessibility solely or if their roles
are included in other roles? I am asking this as I have been requested to
research into what other third level institutions outside the republic of
Ireland are doing in this area and if they have dedicated stand alone units
who work on accessibility and if so what are their titles of their roles? I
know that there are many boroughs in the UK who have personnel working in
the area of universal access and design and so my question is this - is
there a similar picture in higher education?
My questions specifically are related to universities outside the republic
of Ireland, can you tell me please to those members on the list from the UK
and other areas do you have dedicated roles in your universities or
institutions of higher education for staff working in the accessibility
area?
In Ireland for example, we have dedicated Disability Officers working in
Disability support Services, they are not working in the area of
accessibility as such but rather work in the area of academic supports for
students with disabilities. In the institutions of higher education there
are Access Officers who work in the area of student support for under
represented students i.e. mature students, students with disabilities ,
students from socio-economic disadvantage, again they do not work directly
in the area of accessibility, however, in some cases, both the role of
Disability Officer and Access Officer may have accessibility areas tagged
onto their existing roles. In my University, my role is now solely
responsible for accessibility, which would be similar to roles in local
authorities or local boroughs - my title is Disability Access Officer and
the title of personnel working in local authorities in the republic of
Ireland is Access Officer. So my first question is - in the Uk do you have
disability support Services in universities as stand alone services or do
you have an all encompassing equality driven service? Secondly, do you have
the role of Disability Access Officer or personnel working in accessibility
in universities? If there are personnel involved in higher education in the
area of accessibility are they working in Universal Access and design? If
so are they called for example Universal Access and Design Officers or are
there other titles used?If they do not work in a stand alone service in the
area of accessibility, how do the universities carry out the accessibility
requirements and what is the legislation that drives this work in the UK?
Many thanks for your assistance with my questions.
Kind regards
Tina Lowe
Disability Access Officer
Access & Lifelong Learning
Level 1
James Joyce Library Building
Ph: 01 7167564
Fax: 01 7167503
http://www.ucd.ie/openingworlds/
----------End of Message----------
Run by SURFACE for more information on research, consultancy and the distance taught MSc. in Accessibility and Inclusive Design programme visit:
http://www.surface.salford.ac.uk
Archives for the Accessibuilt discussion list are located at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/accessibuilt.html
|
