Communication and working with others
When I started in this role, I contacted the various areas I was expected to work with: the Student Disability Service, Occupational Health, Safety Services, and Information Services Division, the latter of which I was based with. It took some time to balance my time to start with, as I was supposed to work between supporting staff and students in a 50/50 ratio, but did not have the office for the whole week, as I had to vacate it two days a week for dyslexia tutors to work in there. This caused quite a lot of disruption to my working week.
As mentioned in Core Area 1 I spent a number of years lobbying to secure funding for networked assistive technology, and then to have it packaged and loaded for use.
I deliver one to one training sessions on Inspiration, and Read and Write for disabled students and staff and group sessions open to all at the Institute of Education as these packages have benefits for all. Read and Write in particular is beneficial for those for whom English is not their first language.
Alongside this I am also part of a working group that includes Human Resources, Occupational Health, Equality and Diversity Teams and an external consultant to create a new structured support service for dyslexic staff. The outcome of this was to have a faster turnaround for staff identifying as dyslexic to their receiving the support and equipment they need.
In addition to this I sought to purchase a year’s trial of a dyslexia screening package called ‘Quickscan’. This would enable staff or students to take the screening confidentially, and then decide how they wish to proceed with the results. This package allows staff, or students to take a short test anonymously, and at the end it will produce a report indicating if they have dyslexia, and also outlining their learning styles and offering possible strategies to work with those learning styles.
I was the driver behind the idea of Quickscan; having researched the area and bringing previous experience to the project. My report and bid was successful, but there still needed to be many meetings with the GDPR, Information Security, and Moodle teams to get the final go ahead.
I’m a very chatty soul, and naturally like people, and these skills have been really useful in finding my way about the university, and to people who have been really helpful to me. I’ve been recommended for committees and working groups, both internally and externally to the university; from the Staff Disability Forum, Enable, and Disability Standard working committee, through to such things as the Autism Partnership Board in Camden, where I represent the university, along with another colleague, in trying to improve services and opportunities for autistic users. I have given demonstrations and presentations on equipment and services as well as accessibility, set up live captioning for our D/deaf users, and generally fed in to the committees. At present I’m trying to organise a work experience plan with the Autism Partnership/Ability in Camden, for disabled users to get some idea of the working environment, and what our area involves.
I believe in pooling resources, and so regularly offer my services to staff on the National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP) mailing list and DISFORUM if they need help. I recently scanned a book for a blind student at another institution, as they couldn’t obtain an electronic copy from the publisher. They had a hard copy of the book, thus making it legal to scan and convert it into a more accessible format, but I used our book scanner to help the institution, as they had no time to get this done for the student themselves, and we have an automated book scanner.
As another example of working with others, a new member of staff at the another university wanted to set up a similar system, and so I invited them to spend a few hours seconded with me, so I could show them what I’d done, and also give them useful contacts to better enable them to replicate the same kind of service.
The process of obtaining the automated book scanner was also a collaborative effort, as substantial funding was required, and so I found help from Department of Digital Education to produce an eventually-successful bid.
I’ve worked with the Disability Service and the Digital Education Group to test Moodle for accessibility, when they managed to obtain a budget for modification of the system. I liaised with staff to find testers, and helped with arranging to get people to and from meetings, as a few are blind.
I’ve applied for funding and run a couple of student projects, and helped the students to gain knowledge and confidence – as well as some money – by allowing them to help lead the direction of said projects, and produce materials they thought would be useful to our audience of staff and students.
An excellent example would be the films our students created during the first student project in 2014, which have since been published on my section of the University website. These films were featured during the opening of the new SENIT Suite location, and were very well-received by visitors from many different departments. The students also learned a lot about the process of making their video content accessible while they were producing it.
Link to films made by students on this project
After much negotiation with different groups, we were given a new space into which to move the SENIT Suite, to expand the service and increase the number of PCs and other equipment available to students. We more than doubled the number of PCs, were able to buy height-adjustable desks, a new Braille printer, and new chairs. I held a student vote to choose the colour of the room, and I also created a ‘Soft Wall‘, and an adjacent colouring table area, for students to colour or play with gadgets and sensory toys to alleviate stress.
When the Information Services Division (ISD) department had to move to open-plan, ‘agile’ working in a newly-obtained building near St. Paul’s (SMLG), I offered my services to help with the design and ergonomics of the space. This was accepted, and I worked with the architects (Paul Murphy), the Estates department, and the project manager to make the space more suitable for our users. We had users with very specific needs who would be working in the space, and so I helped with passing on this information, confidentially, and working with the designers, etc. to provide for these needs as best they could. I have to say that everyone was excellent in taking my recommendations on board.
For example:
- A user with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who needed their own space because of issues with germs
- Other users with light and/or sound sensitivity needed a different space, and so a quiet room was created, with a small amount of computers and lower lighting
- Instead of long banks of computers and seats, some ‘zones’ were created to give people a chance to ‘hide’ in corners and thus feel less exposed or vulnerable
- Some height-adjustable desks were purchased to enable sit/stand working
- I provide health and safety ‘agile’ working training on an ongoing basis, alongside drop-in sessions, for staff working there
- I wrote a recommendation for the type of chairs needed, and they were purchased in accordance with this
Before and after photos of the SMLG Project
I also liaise between staff and external companies, and try to get the best deals for them when they need to buy ergonomic furniture and other equipment, and have also set up a Yammer group to recycle unwanted assistive technology. While quite a niche-purposed – and thus infrequently-used – group, it has so far aided us in sparing some originally very expensive items from the scrapheap.
I enjoy bringing people and services together to try to improve the lives and systems for my users. I have a good instinct for matching people, and also seeing gaps that need filling within services.
Feedback from some of the staff with whom I have worked with on projects.