X Close

FBS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Blog

Home

Menu

Archive for the 'Disability equity' Category

Disability Equity: Captions on Campaign

By b.isibor, on 1 December 2023

Blue person figure holding a speaker and saying: "Make your voice visible: Captions on". Text beneath reads: Turning on captions in meetings and presentations will benefit people with hearing loss, deafness or tinnitus, neurodivergence, non-native speakers among others.

  • Accessibility is fundamental in science communication and benefits everyone
  • Captioning is a simple and effective way to make a difference
  • Embrace captions to enhance your communication and reach a broader audience

The Faculty of Brain Sciences Disability Equity Committee and the Digital Accessibility Team are on a mission to foster a more inclusive and accessible environment for everyone. This includes people with a hearing impairment or are deaf. With approximately 12 million adults in the UK affected by some form of hearing loss, we believe it’s crucial to address this issue and enhance accessibility within our academic and professional community.

Make the change today!

We are asking everyone to switch on their captions when using digital platforms like MS Teams, Zoom and when creating PowerPoints to increase the accessibility of meetings, presentations, and lectures. Check out the Digital Accessibility Services website to find out just how easy it is to switch on caption in MS Teams, Zoom and PowerPoint. It takes seconds. Such a simple action will make such a big difference to everyone in our community.

Disability History Month: Spotlight on Long COVID

By b.isibor, on 1 December 2023

This blog is co-authored by Disability Equity Lead Dr Elise Crayton and Rikesh Rajani.

As part of Disability History Month this year, I thought it would be meaningful and interesting to shine a spotlight on a newer long-term condition: Long COVID. I am sure, given the media storm that has surround Covid-19 for the past few years we have all heard the term Long COVID but really do any of us know what Long COVID is and what Long COVID can look like and the challenges it presents for those living with it.

Long covid

long Covid syndrome and coronavirus pandemic symptoms that persist as a burden concept or being tied trapped as a hauler of a virus infection with 3D illustration elements.

What is Long COVID?

Whilst most people who contract COVID-19 recovery fully within a few days or up to 12 weeks later, some do not with symptoms that linger and last much longer. For these individuals, we would consider them to have Long COVID, sometimes described as post COVID-19 syndrome. However, as this condition is new, we are still working to understand it and there are lots of different strands of reach taking place to do this.

If you are looking for more information, the best first resource to access will be the NHS website.

What impact does long COVID have on the UCL community?

There will be many students and staff across campus who are living with Long COVID, whether this is diagnosed or suspected. The symptom profiles from person to person also greatly vary. The most common symptoms include (according to the NHS):

  • Fatigue
  • Shortness of breath
  • Loss of smell
  • Muscle aches

However, many people report experiencing other symptoms like: brain fog (issues with memory and concentration), pain or tightening in the chest, heart palpitations, dizziness, insomnia, depression, and anxiety among others. Many people also find that their symptoms get much worse following even small amounts of mental, physical or emotional activity (known as post exertional malaise/post exertional symptom exacerbation).

Therefore, those living with the condition may find usual daily activities on campus challenging such as walking across campus or concentrating in meetings or lectures. Some with Long COVID may also be more susceptible to infection, or feel less confident about mixing in large groups as we did before COVID-19 struck, making many of the vibrant and exciting activities that take place on campus and within academia difficult to engage with.

What can we be doing to support those living with this condition?

There are always positive and easily implementable things we can think of doing to support our colleagues and students with Long COVID. Often these types of changes will not only benefit those with Long COVID but many if not all of the community here at UCL.  I do think we need more data and evidence to more robustly understand the types of strategies or interventions we could recommend to help, but I do have a few suggestions that I will present below that I think could have small, but meaningful impact on those with this condition.

    1. Utilise the Reasonable Adjustments/Summary of Reasonable Adjustments (SoRA) schemes within UCL.

a) Line managers and supervisors or personal tutors can support their students and staff to identify some of the person centered approaches to supporting them to study and work successfully on campus via these schemes.

    1. Ask the question: Do all our meetings/social gatherings need to be in person?

a) There are of course many benefits to in person meetings and social gatherings. However, there may be some instances where meetings or social gatherings could take place in a hybrid format (to allow those who find accessing campus harder to stay at home) or even in a remote format, utilising MS Teams or Zoom.

b) To help people with Long COVID avoid reinfection, you could also consider holding social gatherings in a COVID safe manner, such as by having them outside or asking people to do a COVID test beforehand. This can also be helpful for other people living with conditions that increase their clinical vulnerability.

    1. Where appropriate, record meetings, lectures and other presentations or use live captioning

a) Whether a meeting is taking place in person or online, having a meeting recording, captioning or a transcript of a meeting could be vitally important for those who are struggling with concentration or having memory issues. This can also be useful for others though, perhaps those who experience hearing loss and deafness, those with neurodivergence or any one of us who is working in a busy and chaotic environment.

    1. Create and encourage a supportive environment within your team or course.

a) It sounds obvious, but if staff and students feel that they can easily approach others to ask for help if they are experiencing challenges from Long COVID, then it means they are more likely to get the help they need. We may also decrease the chances of students exiting their studies and staff leaving their roles.

b) You can take small, simple steps to do this like:

i) having fortnightly coffee mornings (remote or in person).

ii) having clear, structured processes describing who to contact if you need more support

iii) having clear, structured processes describing who to contact if you need more support

iv) editing your email signature to request that people let you know if they have any needs or adjustments (as it indicates you are open to having these discussions.

v) requesting informal feedback following meetings, lectures or other presentations to sense check whether the format is inclusive

Overall, there are lots of small, simple things we can be doing to ensure that UCL continues to grow and develop into an equitable and inclusive environment. This will have such an important, positive impact on those living with conditions like Long COVID, but in reality will greatly benefit all of us.

Welcoming our new Disability Equity Lead

By b.isibor, on 8 November 2022

The Faculty of Brain Sciences is delighted to announce the appointment of our new Disability Equity Lead, Indie Beedie. 

Indie introduces themself upon appointment:

I am the Executive Officer of the Deafness, Cognition, and Language Research Centre (DCAL). I joined UCL in 2011 and have had a variety of roles in both academia and professional services.

Also, I am a British Sign Language user who also uses speech and it’s my intersectional experiences of disability and identity as an ethnic minority woman which shape everything I do and my commitment to inclusivity.

I am really looking forward to working with the Faculty Equity Leadership team and creating an equitable and inclusive environment“.

If you are interested in joining the Faculty’s Disability Equity Team to progress meaningful change with Indie, please contact the Brain Sciences EDI Team at: FBS.EDI@ucl.ac.uk.

Disability equity in FBS: enough is not enough!

By FBS.EDI, on 28 June 2022

A blog based on ‘The Experiences of Disabled and Neurodivergent Staff and Students at The Faculty of Brain Sciences’ Focus Group Reportby Manjula Patrick and Nick Anim

Within the broader context of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) at UCL’s Faculty of Brain Sciences (FBS), this is the first piece of research carried out to explore the question “What are the experiences of disabled staff and students?”

Against the backdrop of the recent Covid-19 pandemic and the associated disruption to the conventional campus experience, the research was conducted through a series of online focus group sessions that aimed to examine how disabilities, visible and non-visible, shape working and social experiences at the university, for both staff and students.

In total, five focus group sessions were conducted, two for staff, and three for students. The number of attendees involved were eight staff, and twelve students. For both staff and students, the research question was disaggregated into the following five sections: (1) Staff/students experience, (2) Equity (3) Belonging (4) Ableism and discrimination, and (5) Recommendations. The related sub-questions are presented in the appendices of the full report. 

Key Findings

Due to the nature of voluntary engagement of this research method, this report is presented as a representation of some, not all, experiences. That is to say, there may be additional issues not captured by the research. Given that participants presented a very broad spectrum of physical, mental and neurodivergent disabilities, we can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that the experiences shared, offer a significant starting point for the FBS to better understand and hence improve the environment for all disability groups.

Awareness raising and training

Whilst there was recognition and appreciation of some good individual efforts in the FBS, as well as praise for the disability and dyslexia service and Occupational Health services, most participants expressed being very or fairly concerned that there is insufficient awareness and training on many different aspects of disability and the necessary processes to foster an equitable and inclusive environment for disabled people both within the FBS and UCL in general.

“Each HR person should know in and out the Equality Act and what it entails. I am gobsmacked that UCL has not faced any litigation”.

“They had no clue how to deal with a disabled person, so all they could think was ‘access to work’”

The tyranny of protocol

Many negative experiences expressed by staff were also linked to issues of inflexibility in implementing top-down protocols ‘by the letter’. Such approaches cannot, by definition and application, accommodate the variety of individual needs. In that context, for most disabled staff participants, expressions of dissatisfaction were often about their line-manager’s strict adherence or interpretation of blanket Human Resources (HR) edicts and processes that failed to take into account the specific requirements of a particular category of disability, or indeed related concerns raised by the individual member of staff.

“My manager has tightened up doing anything outside the box. It is HR writing off my situation in terms of them asking me to do something. HR is also one of the main barriers.”

For most student participants, the ‘tyranny of protocol’ is apparent in experiences such as long-winded processes of trying to get support, for example, to do with extensions to deadlines, and being “referred from pillar to post” without any clear signposts. For students with AD(H)D, the relative lack of understanding of the condition within UCL mental health services in general, and more specifically the FBS support structures, adds yet another layer of complications. In most cases, similar to staff experiences, the support available was a broad approach that did not address the specific needs of the individual.

You don’t need protocol knocking on your doorstep, saying the same thing every year or so, knowing that your condition is permanent. And that is now starting to happen again as we come out of the pandemic and lockdown.”

Signposting

In many cases, although lecturers and line managers were sympathetic to requests from disabled students and staff, they often did not know how to initiate or implement the necessary remedial procedures. Additionally, support infrastructures such as websites often fall short in providing adequate information; even basic information such as signposting to Occupational Health services. One notable effect of such shortcomings is to discourage people from talking about their situation and needs. Overall, many of the participants in the study thought issues of signposting are rather chaotic within the FBS.

Fear of overreaction and stigmatisation

The decision by any person to reveal or share information about their particular disability is often mediated by the environment within which they are located and operate. For some disabled members of staff, that decision is based on experiences either within society at large, or previous places of employment. In many cases, the constant fear of overreaction and stigmatisation prevent people from sharing information about their disability, even at the point of applying for particular academic courses or employment positions. Relatedly, many of the staff expressed a surprise that UCL does not appear to be a disability confident employer. As a result, people are choosing not to share information about their disability.

“I wouldn’t want UCL to know [about my disability] in any formal capacity. At the back of my mind, I still think what if you think less of me? What if some decision down the line, could influence negatively on me because they think maybe I can’t do certain things?”

 Why am I disclosing something when no one is reaching out to me to see how they can help me?”

The fear of overreaction and stigmatisation for students with disabilities is felt across all levels, from undergraduate to doctoral studies. Many students with non-visible disabilities described experiences of fellow students and lecturers being ‘freaked out’ when they shared information about their disability, leading many to conclude that it is perhaps better not to tell others. Despite periodic events and campaigns, there remains a general lack of awareness and understanding, particularly about neurodivergent conditions such as AD(H)D.

Personal and career development
Across both academic and professional services staff, participants expressed a frustration at what they described as very limited chances of progression. Perhaps most disturbingly, some participants highlighted incidents of being used to access groups or communities related to their particular disability for research purposes, without thinking much about how to encourage or help the personal and career development of the staff themselves. Such experiences left many staff despondent and feeling they cannot progress at UCL.

“I don’t fit in because there’s a distinction between those who are disabled, and senior members of staff and I feel like long term I cannot stay there because I will never grow and I will never progress in that department.”

Questions of personal development for student participants in the study were more difficult to gauge due to the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic and remote learning. Whilst some neurodivergent participants felt they benefitted greatly from the switch to online learning, others felt their personal development was stifled because many courses took on more students than normal, and therefore lecturers could not give sufficient attention to their specific needs. In that respect, many students have felt very challenged and overwhelmed by the lack of recognition and attention.

Solutions and recommendations
Both staff and student participants in the study were, in the first instance, very grateful for the opportunity to engage and share their experiences and opinions in this study. All participants expressed a wish for the study to just be the beginning of a process that will periodically invite them to share their experiences, not only online but where people could meet in person.

“You should not have to seek out your own support, it should be there for you. It should just be there, treating everybody equally in that sense without it feeling, well, it always feels a bit secretive to me.”

Beyond that, there were three main recommendations put forward by the participants, which we believe can be set in motion immediately.

First, the FBS should set up a framework for disability support; a substantive post at faculty level with disability leads/reasonable adjustment coordinators at department/institute level who work in partnership with the Disability Equity Lead to provide expert guidance to the FBS leadership, identify and lead key projects.

“I have been told that since I am a PhD student, reasonable adjustments cannot be forced on professors because it is between me and them whether they can give me it… Basically, it is a lottery whether they follow the reasonable adjustment or not. So, there is a bit of a question mark on how they [the faculty] prevent this from happening.”

Second, FBS and all its departments/institutes must go beyond the formal responsibilities, standard operating procedures, and inflexible protocols of accessibility and support, to provide all staff and students with clear guidelines. Obligatory annual training to improve disability literacy is needed to ensure a fair and inclusive environment throughout the Faculty. The training should be delivered in flexible learning formats by/with disabled people, and in association with a framework of accountability such as action planning at department/Faculty level, with proactive contributions to EDI assessed in annual appraisals for all staff and reported to the faculty.

“They were just completely freaked out by it [my impairment] … maybe it’s better to not tell people still. That is so hard because there’s been so many campaigns on normalising mental health and having mental health difficulties.”

Third, there should be a concerted and consistent effort within the FBS, to raise awareness and provide information about various disabilities, seen and unseen, from the social model perspective. In other words, an understanding of disability that steps away from the medical (deficit) model and viewing disability as homogenous. We must celebrate and give platform to the unique contributions of disabled people in our community. Relatedly, as put forward by the participants, the FBS “should adopt a broad approach that assumes everyone has a disability they are not sharing” so take anticipatory action, placing accessibility and inclusion at the core of all activities.

“It always feels like they are saying ‘these are the rules, and we are agreed that you [as a disabled person] are an exception’. But I do not want to be an exception, yet that is the way it is.”

“I think we have a long way to go, and I wish I had a community that would celebrate the differences I experience, but I don’t feel that at the moment”.

It is our hope this study provides some valuable insights into how disabled staff and students at the FBS understand and formulate their own experiences of the barriers that they encounter within the Faculty (and UCL in general) and that co-produced recommendations will be taken forward by the Faculty leadership.

Alan Thompson, Dean, Faculty of Brain Sciences responded to the report: “This report lays bare the challenging reality experienced by staff and students with disabilities in the Faculty. These findings are a much needed first step towards improving disability equity, and meaningful action needs to follow. As Dean, I will work with the Director of EDI and Vice-Dean EDI to consider the recommendations to strategically and systematically improve the way the Faculty and UCL operates, and dismantle the barriers impeding staff and students with disabilities. It is important we raise awareness of the issues staff and students are facing across UCL, educate those in key roles (e.g. line managers, personal tutors and programme directors) and put in place appropriate support for all members of our community; particularly the most marginalised. I am committed to working with colleagues within the Faculty and across UCL to make change happen.”

A warm thanks to all the staff and students who participated in this study for their generosity and openness in sharing sometimes painful experiences in the spirit of helping us work towards an equitable and kind community that values all and enables everyone to be the best they can. The credit for this work goes to them.

Project team:
Nick Anim (Project Researcher, The Bartlett).
Elise Crayton (Psychology and Language Sciences)
Jason Davies (UCL Arena)
Manjula Patrick (Principal Investigator and FBS Disability Equity Lead)
Nicola Ridgway (Ear Institute)

Note: Our full report can be found here.

Haben Girma: the Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law

By FBS.EDI, on 1 December 2021

Written by Indie Beedie, from the Faculty Disability Equity Team

Headshot of Haben Girma

Haben Girma is a disability rights lawyer and the first deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School in 2013 with a strong appetite for social justice. She interned at the U.S Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and was named a White House Champion of Change during the Obama administration. She has also gone on to receive the Helen Keller Achievement Award and a spot on Forbes 30 under 30. Haben advocates for equal opportunities for people with disabilities and believes that disability is an opportunity for innovation and inclusion benefits all of us not just disabled people.

She was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area after her parents fled Eritrea as refugees of Civil War in the early 1980s. Haben lost her vision and hearing as a result of an unknown progressive condition beginning in early childhood, as a child she had some residual vision and hearing and she currently retains 1% of her sight. She has an older brother, Mussie Gebre, who is also deafblind, he did not benefit from access to technology and education in Eritera unlike Haben did when the family moved to America.

She found herself having to advocate for herself when she went to Lewis & Clark College where she found she couldn’t access the cafeteria menu. She successfully challenged the cafeteria manager that she was entitled to an accessible menu through the Americans with Disabled Act. From there, she discovered that advocating for her own rights benefited everyone, not just herself and went on to become a lawyer to increase access to books and other digital information for people with disabilities.

Now she focuses on the development of accessible digital services calling on programmers and technology designers to use this power to increase access for people with disabilities. She also empowers students with disabilities to become self-advocates and teaching families and educators to set high expectations, through sharing positive disabled stories and asking people to change their negative assumptions and fixed world views.

Haben communicates by connecting a computer keyboard to her braille note-taker which allows her to read the letters a person types on the keyboard in real-time braille and uses the assistance of a guide dog. She frequently points out the different methods that deaf-blind/disabled people use to gain access and that not everyone uses the same technology she does.
When she’s not advocating, she surfs, rock climbs, cycles and during her time at Harvard she competed on the Harvard Ballroom Dance team. She would prefer not to be called inspiring, but living in defiance of great social and physical barriers.

We could all learn to be more ‘Haben’ in advocating for ourselves and others in creating a more accessible environment for all.

If you would like to see more of Haben Girma, in 2014 she gave a talk at TEDxBaltimore where she confronts TED for not providing captions for TEDx talks, including her own. In August 2019 she released a memoir, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Havard Law

Dorothy Hodgkin: the first and only British woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Science

By FBS.EDI, on 29 November 2021

written by Nicola Ridgway, Veronia McConochie and Ash Talwar, from the Faculty’s Disability Equity Team.

Dorothy Hodgkin (12th May 1910 – 29th July 1994) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for her work solving the atomic structure of molecules using x-ray crystallography. Her important findings included discovering the three-dimensional biomolecular structures of steroids, penicillin and insulin.

Dorothy became interested in crystals at around the age of 10 when a family friend gave her a chemistry set and she spent many hours in the attic at her family home doing experiments. When she started secondary school, Dorothy was told that she would need to take needlework classes whilst the boys studied chemistry. She didn’t let this stand in her way and successfully petitioned (along with a friend) to be allowed to study chemistry alongside the boys. After school she secured a place to read chemistry at the University of Oxford. During her fourth-year she conducted a research project to investigate the crystal structure of dimethyl thallium halides, and this provided the launchpad into a career in crystallography.

After graduation, Dorothy went to do a PhD at the University of Cambridge, focussing on the crystallographic investigation of steroid crystals. This work underpins much of her future career. Following her PhD, Dorothy returned to Oxford to take up a position at Sommerville College, University of Oxford where she remained for most of her working life.

At the University of Oxford Dorothy investigated the structures of a range of biological molecules which eventually led to her Nobel Prize. Her work was vitally important and her work understanding the structure of penicillin in 1945 (the first antibiotic) allowed its synthesis in large quantities, overcoming an important hurdle in its wide-spread use. Furthermore, her work understanding insulin enabled the mass production of insulin as a possible treatment for diabetes. Dorothy also tutored many influential students, including Margaret Thatcher (past prime minister), who hung Dorothy’s portrait in Downing Street during her time as prime minister and reportedly asked for her opinions on a range of scientific and political matters.

During her PhD, in 1934, Dorothy first visited a consultant about pain in her hands. The Dr observed some deformity in her hands caused by swelling in her knuckle joints and prescribed rest. A prescription that Dorothy struggled with as she wanted to finish off some experiments. Dorothy was diagnosed with a painful autoimmune condition, known as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In RA, the immune system attacks health cells and tissues in the joints (such as in the hand, feet and wrists), causing them to become inflamed and damaged. Although Dorothy experienced some pain during her PhD, her first major flare up occurred at the age of 28 (in 1938). After taking some sick leave, she returned to her lab to find she could not operate some of the equipment needed for her work due to the stiffness and deformity in her hands. However, Dorothy did not let this stop her and she instead made aids (e.g. long levers for switches) which would allow her to continue to work. As the condition progressed, Dorothy often required a wheelchair as walking became too painful. Despite these setbacks, Dorothy continued with her demanding work and attending global events until her retirement in 1988 (aged 78).

Dorothy’s legacy remains to this day, not just from her work but also through the Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowships that are awarded each year to early career researchers. These fellowships allow early career researchers to continue their careers on a flexible basis to accommodate personal circumstances, such as caring responsibilities or health-related issues.

Making your meetings accessible

By FBS.EDI, on 22 June 2021

Collaboration between diverse groups is the cornerstone of high-quality work. Ensuring everyone can attend and contribute to meetings and events is essential for effective collaboration.

With the following list of supportive resources from the accessible campus page, making sure everyone can accept your invitation couldn’t be easier:

  1. Accessable–  gives access guides to many of our buildings at UCL, it is a good idea to put a link to the building page in invites especially when inviting outside UCL individuals. It will also assist with any queries about building accessibility. Note: not all buildings are available yet.  These are updated on a rolling programme so are fairly up to date, however if anyone finds any errors, please do inform Pip Jackson (pip.jackson@ucl.ac.uk) .
  2. Sunflower Lanyard Scheme– UCL recognise this lanyard for individuals who have unseen disabilities, it is entirely optional if individuals chose to wear one, staff can get one from some libraries and from Andrew Huxley Security office. Students can get one through SSW and the student UCL app.
  3. Assistance animal policy – Safety services are currently tasked with drafting an assistance animal policy and will respond to queries about individual cases in the meantime.
  4. COMING SOON… ‘Please give me space’ initiative – the Government, RNIB and Sunflower Lanyard organisation have launched this initiative for covid that is optional for those who struggle to keep spaced mostly due to visual impairments or neurodiversity or for those who are in the governments clinically extremely vulnerable or clinically vulnerable groups.

Reasonable adjustments

Please note when requests for adjustments are made:

  • There is no expectation to understand the intricacies of every disability/neurodivergence and associated adjustments, it is more important to be receptive and supportive.
  • It is fine to ask exactly what adjustments are needed… always better to ask than make assumptions. For example, not all deaf people use sign language interpreters.
  • TIP: Breaks, clear structure and for online events, a protocol of how to contribute and good chairing benefits everyone participating… this guide on accessible online events has more information

Include information like this with meeting invitations…

Note: Accuracy of automated live captioning is dependent on sound and speech quality so may not be adequate for equitable access. UCL has live captioning service providers as approved suppliers, please see procurement list.

MSTeams has in-built accessibility tools, including the option for live closed captioning, but if you have any concerns or additional needs (e.g. you require a BSL interpreter), please email us at NAME@ucl.ac.uk by the DATE.

To enable closed live captioning:

    1. Join the Teams meeting (instructions below if you need them!)
    2. Once in the call, click on the 3 ellipses (More actions)
    3. Click on Turn on live captions (See image below)
Screenshot of MSTeams function to enable live captioning, with 'Turn on live captions' option highlighted

Screenshot of MSTeams function to enable live captioning

Screenshot of additional MSTeams tools as they appear on an MSTeams call: Participants, Chat, Raise Hand, More Actions, Camera on/off, Mute/Unmute, Share screen, Hang up

Screenshot of additional MSTeams tools

 

Zoom accessibility:

For guidance on the various accessibility features on Zoom visit this webpage.

Ask about my access requirements as well as my dietary ones

By sjjgmpa, on 25 April 2021

Written by Manjula Patrick, FBS Disability Equity Lead

In the last decade, accommodating dietary requirements has become the norm. I am old enough to recall the panic that used to set in if someone requested a vegetarian meal, let alone one that was vegan or dairy-free, yet now, who doesn’t routinely (and rightly so) ask if someone is vegan, gluten intolerant, etc. and provide appropriate catering without a second thought? We have successfully adapted our behaviours and attitudes to ensure inclusion of varied dietary requirements.

However, we never ask about adjustments, we assume everyone is able to get into a building, hear, see, etc. to the same extent and so participate in a uniform way but we also advocate diversity. Isn’t that curious? Why is this? Perhaps we do not wish to be intrusive, cause offence, embarrassment. There are many possible reasons not to ask, but the impact of this is most significant – exclusion and marginalisation. None of us would advertently exclude or marginalise another person, but by overlooking accessibility we are complicit in doing exactly that.

Access/reasonable adjustments are vital to enable disabled and neurodivergent people to participate equitably but often the connotations around access requirements are less than positive… you need this because you ‘lack’ something – sight, hearing, etc. Is it then really any great surprise that disabled and neurodivergent people will not share information about their disability or neurdiversity? Yet, we agree diverse contributions enrich us…?

Let’s turn the accessibility tables for a moment, does providing access for disabled and neurodivergent colleagues not benefit everyone?… if you aren’t a British Sign Language (BSL) user and find yourself in a room with BSL users, who needs the interpreter to participate? So isn’t it time we embraced the view that to benefit from diverse contributions, we all need those accessibility provisions in place?

For those of us in privileged positions, the labour of always having to request access is one that we don’t give a passing thought to. Asking for access is having to share deeply personal information time and time again with strangers.

It is bad enough that disabled and neurodivergent people have to constantly ask, but we also overlook their ‘hidden’ labour organising access. I can turn up (currently, log in) to a meeting/talk at a moment’s notice, however, a deaf or hard of hearing person for example, has to plan way in advance – ask the organiser for access or book a captioner/interpreter themselves, and if an event is at short notice, odds are no service provider will be available. They cannot participate after all that effort, and also miss out on incidental opportunities, like networking that are so valuable. Imagine this hidden labour on top of your ‘day’ job. Effort that is not accommodated when objectives are set or indeed even acknowledged.

Even worse is when an access request is overlooked, refused or received with annoyance – the message we are sending to disabled and neurodivergent people is ‘you are a bother, your contribution is not of value or needed in this space’. How hurtful and damaging is that experience even once, let alone when it is repeated and routine? Yet we are all regularly party to perpetuating this exclusion of disabled and neurodivergent people and so we erode their self-worth and de-value their contributions to our community. Is it time we as individuals reflect more on how much we really value diversity?

We have it in us to change our behaviours and attitudes to provide access and create a culture that values and includes disabled and neurodivergent people; let’s start now by committing to taking a small step to progress inclusion.

Here are some simple steps we can each take:

  • Ensure meetings/events are announced in good time to arrange access – at least 2 weeks in advance. Note: If a service provider is required use a professional service. UCL procurement has many such providers setup as suppliers.
  • Whenever you send out an invitation to a meeting/event (even routine ones) ask – ‘please let me know if you need any adjustments related to disability and/or neurodivergence’… you never know who might need access but has not felt safe enough to ask.
  • Don’t be concerned about causing offence by use of language or seeming intrusive; as long as you inquire with sensitivity and are open to learning, the response will reflect that.
  • If someone makes an access request, don’t say no or assume it’s going to be hugely expensive and painful to organise. If you aren’t sure how to accommodate an access request, do not make assumptions, ask the person – they are the expert on what they need and what works best for them.
  • When an access request is made respond and arrange it promptly. Most access requests are not fulfilled because organisers leave them until the last minute.

Here are some resources that can guide you further….

If you would like specific guidance please get in touch with your department or institute Disability Equity representative or contact the Faculty EDI team FBS.EDI@ucl.ac.uk