Thanks to all contributors to this discussion, I should like to make a public
apology as (pardon the expression) clearly wasn't enough, to Alison Courtney.
By 'cosy local arrangement' I meant one like the arrangements some LEA's
seem to have with some Access Centres, where the Access centre is central to
all decisions made by LEA officers who feel they are unable to 'trust' (probablyget into trouble for that as well!) a university's @adviser, Officer, Co-
ordinator, call us what you will, 's judgement/assessment. Or they feel
they don't know enough 'about the disability' to make a judgement. That
kind of arrangement is sometimes unhelpful when, for example, myself, the IT
co-ordinator for disabled students, members of staff from the course and
sometimes the Dysalexia support officer (not forgetting the student of course)
have all been involved in an 'assessment of needs' which given the involvement
would have been a costly one, which is then offered to the LEA for them to then
say 'Oh but we always use the.......Access Centre for all our assessments,
and then quote the bit about the student being assessed by 'an appropriately
qualified person' ....... Professional snub aside for the moment (my shoulders
are broad enough) this is a gross waste of time and money. In one instance
the Access Centre and the LEA took 12 (yes twelve) months to organise an
assessment for one particularly non-assertive students this was in her
2nd year !
Thats what I meant aboutr cosy local arrangements, this I believe is not
true of yourselves and Devon and yes in my opinion what ever you can do
to push the boundaries is extremely helpful.
Apologies again for any unintentional offence.
Best wishes
Chris Baxter
The Nottingham Trent University
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