Disability & Wellbeing ServiceInformation for staff

Our Disability Advisers advise University staff on how best to support their students. Advisers are happy to provide guidance, training, and development in the areas of:

• disabled student support
• University policy
• disability awareness
• other areas

Who we support

Disability Advisers will support anyone experiencing physical, psychological, or mental impairments. These impairments may create barriers to life as a student. These might be, but are not limited to:

• Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD's): students with dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (AD(H)D)
• visual impairments: students who are blind or have a serious visual impairment not corrected by glasses
• hearing impairments: students who are d/Deaf or have a loss of hearing
• physical impairments: students who have mobility difficulties
• mental health difficulties: this category includes a student who has depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia
• unseen disabilities: students with diabetes, epilepsy, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, cancer, or other illnesses
• Asperger's Syndrome: students with Asperger's or other Autistic Spectrum Disorder
• another impairment: for students who have an impairment not listed above but are classed as disabled under the Equality Act (2010). You're disabled under the Equality Act if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a 'substantial' and 'long-term' negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities

The sections below give University staff information about how we support disabled students. If you have a query that's not answered here, please contact us for more information:

• Disclosure & confidentiality
• Needs assessment process, including:
  • evidence
  • reasonable adjustments
  • disabled students information system on Pegasus (MS PowerPoint version)
  • Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) & other funding
• Legislation
• Reasonable adjustments
• Exam arrangements guidance
• Role of the Departmental Disability Contact (DDC)
• Support available for students
• Guidance for the Provision of Live Captioning in Zoom
• Funding (Disability Resource Development Fund (DRDF))

Training and development

We also run a variety of development opportunities through the Organisational and Staff Development Unit (OSDU) including:

• ensure an inclusive approach in the classroom
• disability awareness
• working with students with Asperger’s Syndrome
• working with students with dyslexia/specific learning difficulties
• working with students who are deaf/hearing impaired
• working with students who are blind/visually impaired
• making documents accessible