Annual Report 2010/11
Gill Beech Operations Manager Disability and Dyslexia Service 26.07.11
Overview The Disability and Dyslexia Service (DDS) annual report for 2010/11 provides an update on delivery of the service’s 5 year plan by highlighting some key achievements of the service during this academic year. Statistics relating to disabled and dyslexic students and an action plan for 2011/12 are also included. Overall, the total number of disabled students at Brunel has increased every year. By the end of academic year 2010/11 there were 1277 students with an enrolment record who had disclosed a disability to the university. 1300 1250 1200 1150 1100 1050 1000 2007/8
2008/9
2009/10
2010/11
Disabled student population 2007 – 2011
Update on delivery of 5 year plan 1. Encouraging and supporting a vibrant research community During 2010/11 a research study was carried out by a Disability Adviser in the team as a dissertation project for an MA in Disability Studies. The study focused on an analysis of 200 needs assessment reports for disabled students at Brunel. In addition, online questionnaires were completed by 121 disabled students to gather their perceptions of the support provided by the Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA). The data gathered demonstrated evidence of a core package of support items recommended to the majority of disabled students applying for DSA, supplemented by additional items on an individual basis. The data also showed evidence that in some cases support recommended in a needs assessment was allocated according to a student’s impairment, rather than their stated needs. Student feedback was largely positive when describing the support provided by DSA. This feedback suggested that the system enables an effective means of providing disabled students with additional support during their time in higher education. The DDS has continued to been involved in a research project with the School of Sport and Education. This project is called What Can We Do to Increase Representation of Visually Impaired Students at Brunel? During the last 12 months the project has assessed the current support, lifestyle and availability of information and equipment at Brunel for both current and future visually impaired students. The project has led to the development of a new website aimed at visually impaired students. Equipment has been purchased which has been reviewed by current students and will be available for visually impaired students to borrow in future.
DDS staff have attended conferences and events to enhance knowledge and keep up to date with current research. These have included the British Dyslexia Association (BBA) conference, National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP) conferences, and the British Educational Training and Technology (BETT) exhibition. Members of the team have worked as board members of NADP and the Association of Dyslexia Specialists in Higher Education (ADSHE).
2. Enhancing the student experience The DDS’s vision is to be an excellent student-focused advice and support service for all current and prospective disabled students. In September 2010 the DDS organised two induction events for new disabled and dyslexic students. The Intro2uni day in early September was an opportunity for new students to meet the team and each other. This was the third year this event has run and approximately 30 new students attended. The annual Freshers’ week induction event attracted approximately 50 new students. Attendees were given information about the support available and were encouraged to book an appointment to see their Adviser to discuss their individual requirements. DDS were involved in a number of induction training events including UBS contacts training, hall mentors induction, and several School induction talks. At the start of the academic year 2010, the DDS launched a new project called ‘Disability Link Up’. This project was funded by the Widening Participation Department. The aim of the project was to provide a network of peer support to disabled and dyslexic students starting at Brunel University. 32 new disabled students were linked with 16 disabled student mentors from levels 2 and 3. The project adopted a flexible approach allowing different peermentoring models to develop according to the needs of the new students. This included
one-to-one mentoring, group mentoring and peer support groups. Feedback at the end of the project highlighted four principle areas where new students felt supported. These were integration into university; guidance with other sources of help within the university; personal and academic advice that they would not know how to get from anywhere else, and learning about what was expected on their course. The DDS worked in partnership with the Union of Brunel Students to establish a network of disabled and dyslexic student representatives for the academic year 2010/11. This was the 2nd year of having student reps and the aim of this was to establish a forum for gathering information and engaging with representatives from the disabled and dyslexic student body. 5 of the 8 students who nominated themselves for this role sustained regular contact and communication with the Disability and Dyslexia Service. Although this was a small number of students, the issues highlighted and the input from these students was valuable and worthwhile. The DDS continued to try and enhance the student experience by making changes to operational aspects of the service. In November 2010 a new part -time post of Assistant Disability Adviser was
recruited within the team. The primary purpose of “Mentoring has changed this post was to provide an additional member of my university experience, staff to deal with quick by having someone I can queries from students. call upon whenever times This included queries relating to get hard is the most accommodation, parking, re-assuring feeling ever!” Disabled Students’ Allowances and ordering equipment. During the spring term of 2011, the in 2010/11. The Support service trialled extended Worker Service provides opening hours each Tuesday 1:1 support such as study and Thursday evening. The skills, mentoring, note taking, number of students using the study assistance, library service during the extended assistance, amanuensis and hours was low; however the non medical help. benefit to those students was high. For example, students Student feedback surveys were used to evaluate the who were on full time provision of 1:1 study skills placements were able to support and mentoring attend appointments and support. The feedback Study Skills sessions with showed that the key areas Advisers. students felt their study skills A key performance indicator had improved in were for the DDS in 2010/11 was planning and structuring to increase the number of essays, transferring ideas students in receipt of onto paper, and managing Disabled Students’ workload. The feedback on Allowances. This was mentoring showed that achieved with the number 71.5% of the students said increasing from 642 in that they would describe the 2009/10 to 792* in support as good or 2010/11 (*provisional extremely helpful. figure provided by SITSOne student commented “The support). support that I did receive was During 2010/11 helpful and made situations approximately 50 hourly easier to deal with. It is a nice paid support staff were feeling knowing that there is employed by the DDS to someone to turn to in a time work on a 1:1 basis with of need”. Another student disabled students. The total said “Mentoring has changed number of hours of support my university experience, by provided by the Support having someone I can call Worker Service increased upon whenever times get hard from 11,140 hours during is the most re-assuring feeling 2009/10 to 11,516 hours ever!”.
In December 2010, on International Day of Disabled People, the DDS and DASH (the local disability association in Hillingdon) ran an inclusive sports day in Brunel’s indoor sports hall. The event was a great success with about 50 people involved altogether. Participants included Brunel students, children from local schools, teachers, local day centre users, DASH members, Interactive, UBS sabbatical officers and staff within the DDS. A second event took place in March 2011, during the University’s One World Week. The sports available included boccia, disability golf, table top cricket, table tennis, judo, wheelchair basketball, street dancing and polybat.
3. Competing globally Since winning the 2008 Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding
Support to Disabled Students, the DDS has received a lot of positive publicity and interest from other institutions, both in the UK and overseas. During 2010/11 the service has hosted overseas visitors from New Zealand and Qatar. Colleagues from Oxford University and the University College of Professional Studies (BPP) have also visited the Service.
purpose of the event was to promote the benefits of coming to university to future disabled applicants. A similar day took place in March 2010 and feedback from attendees was excellent following both events.
4. Enhancing our enterprise culture
The DDS are particularly grateful for the support The reputation of the DDS given by the Widening and the support available Participation Department for disabled students at Brunel is excellent within the during 2010/11. Funding from Widening Participation UK disability sector. The DDS has continued to work was used for the Disability Link Up project and fully with organisations such as the NADP, Dyslexia Action, funded an eight month contract for the post of the Higher Education Assistant Disability Adviser. Academy and DASH. The Disability and Dyslexia Service and the Widening Participation Office facilitated an event in March 2011 for disabled students attending local further education colleges, their parents and teachers. The
All three Dyslexia Advisers within the team continue to hold current practicing certificates from PATOSS (Professional Association of Teachers of Students with Specific learning difficulties) enabling them to carry out
diagnostic assessments for dyslexia. A total of 36 diagnostic assessments were carried out in-house during 2010/11. This generated an income of £10,800 to the DDS from the Access to Learning Fund (ALF). As a result of a recent finance review, from 1st August 2011 the DDS will no longer be able to claim any funds from the ALF for in-house diagnostic assessments and therefore this income stream will no longer be available to DDS after this date. Following the restructure of the non-academic departments of the university, the DDS now sits within the Peoples’ Services directorate. From the start of the 2011/12 financial year, less emphasis will be placed on the income generation potential of the service. The focus will be on the provision of a high quality service to students and staff.
5. Providing an enabling environment The DDS regularly work in partnership with other departments and Schools to strive to provide an enabling environment for both disabled students and staff working with students. During 2010/11 the DDS provided expertise at many events and occasions of the university calendar. This included during induction week, Dyslexia Awareness Week, One World Week, ASK weeks, exam periods, graduation week and throughout the year on Open Days. The DDS also delivered a variety of staff development sessions such as ‘Dealing with distressed and disturbed students’, ‘Understanding anxiety and depression’, ‘Confidentiality and disclosure’, and ‘Understanding dyslexia’. Some disability awareness sessions were delivered to colleagues in departments such as the Library and Placement and Careers. Regular training sessions were also delivered to placement educators within the School of Health Sciences and Social Care. The DDS have worked with the Computing Department to increase the availability of assistive technology across campus. Jaws and Zoomtext are now available for students in labs across campus as well as Texthelp and Inspiration which have been available on the majority of student PCs for several years. Training in specialist assistive technology has taken place with technicians from Computing to ensure that the university does not rely on support from our sole Assistive Technology Adviser. During 2010/11 the opening hours of the Assistive Technology Centre were reviewed and extended. The centre is now open 7 days a week including until 10.30pm from Monday-Thursday. New computers have recently been purchased for the Assistive Technology Centre and the new build for these machines should be completed before the start of the new academic year.
Student Data 1. Overall disabled student population During 2010/11 there were 1277 disabled and dyslexic students at Brunel University. This includes students with an enrolment record and a disclosed disability. This includes students who disclosed either to the University or confidentially just to the Disability and Dyslexia Service. The gender breakdown was 54% female, 46% male. The chart below shows the breakdown by type of impairment.
Breakdown by type of impairment Other disability, 51
Two or more impairments, 42
Autistic spectrum condition, 12
Long standing illness/health condition, 168
Mental health condition, 141
Specific Learning Disability, 741
Wheelchair user/mobility impairment, 67 Deaf/hearing impairment, 30
Blind/visual impairment, 25
2. Number of students in receipt of Disabled Students’ Allowances (data received from SITS-Support): The graph overleaf illustrates the statistics relating to Disabled Students’ Allowances over the last 5 academic years. The number of students claiming DSA has grown from 437 to 792 during this time period. This huge increase is a result of the DDS encouraging and assisting students to apply for DSA. The funding helps to pay for extra costs that disabled students may have during their studies as a direct result of their disability or specific learning difficulty. It provides equipment, assistive software, support workers, a general allowance for consumables and travel allowance, if needed.
Disabled Students’ Allowances 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2006/7
2007/8
2008/9
2009/10
2010/11
The student has a disability and is in receipt of DSA. The student has a disability and is not in receipt of DSA. The student has a disability but information about DSA is not known/not sought.
3. Undergraduate degree classifications Analysis of the awards data for 2009/10 shows that disabled students are achieving awards at a comparable level to their non disabled peers. It can be suggested therefore that being disabled is not a significant factor impacting on the degree classification achieved at Brunel. Degree Class
Disabled students
% of total
Non disabled students
% of total
Not known
% of total
First
36
12.7%
369
12.5%
-
-
Upper second
126
44.5%
1323
44.7%
4
33.3%
Lower second
64
22.6%
780
26.4%
6
50%
Third
9
3.2%
93
3.1%
1
8.3%
Pass
3
1.1%
23
0.8%
-
-
Ordinary
-
-
9
0.3%
-
-
Dip in prof dev
13
4.6%
101
3.4%
-
-
Cert in HE
16
5.6%
167
5.6%
-
-
Dip in HE
15
5.3%
84
2.8%
1
8.3%
Grad cert in law
1
0.4%
11
0.4%
-
-
283
100%
2960
100%
12
100%
Total awards
Undergraduate bachelor degree classifications 2009/10 45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% First
Upper second Lower second Disabled students
Third
Pass
Ordinary
Non disabled students
4. DDS contact with students The DDS was open to students all year round from Mon-Fri, 9-4.30pm. In addition during spring term the service was open until 6.30pm every Tuesday and Thursday. The pie chart below shows contact that students had with the DDS during 2010/11. This does not include the 11,516 hours of support provided by the in house Support Workers Service. It also does not include 211 diagnostic assessments for specific learning difficulties which were carried out by external psychologists or specialist tutors following a referral from the DDS. Drop in appointments, 307 Other 'face to face', 1443
Diagnostic assessments, 36
Screening (for dyslexia), 248 Email, 4955 Pre-booked appointments, 1435
Phonecall, 1708
Action plan for 20011/12 During 2011/12 the DDS will continue to provide an excellent advice, information and support service for disabled students. In addition to this, the following are some key actions for the next 12 months: Establish an information and advice service for disabled staff Restructure the DDS and the West London Assessment Centre to enable a closer working relationship between the two services. Work with Computing Department to develop a new database system to meet the needs of the service and improve efficiency of working methods. Run two induction events for new students – ‘Intro 2 Uni’ day on Sep 6th and Freshers’ Week induction event on 21st Sep 2011. Work with Staff Development and individual Schools to implement a programme of disability awareness training. Continue the development of online assistive technology training materials for students. Continue work with NADP to assist with establishment of national accreditation for disability practitioners within HE institutions. Work in partnership with the Union of Brunel Students (UBS) to establish a new group of disabled and dyslexic students’ representatives. It is also hoped that UBS and DDS can work closely together to organise and run more inclusive sports events, especially in the run up to the Paralympics in 2012.
Gill Beech Operations Manager Disability and Dyslexia Service 26.07.11
Disability and Dyslexia Service Tel: 01895 265213 | Email: disability@brunel.ac.uk | Web: www.brunel.ac.uk/disability