Disability Staff Questionnaire responses, anonymised

1. I worked in the Disability Service for 10 years, and during this time typically had a caseload of around 250 students at any one time. Student caseloads were allocated by college and programme – which means I would work with all students who shared that they are disabled within a given programme. This would therefore include students with various additional marginalisations, including BAME students, international students, LGBTQIA+ students, and working class students. I wouldn’t always know about the marginalisations students experienced unless they shared them with me, although I suspect that as a queer working class person myself, students may have been more open about these aspects of their identity than if I wasn’t.

2. BAME and/or international students often describe specific barriers to accessing disability support:

• There are potential barriers for BAME people accessing diagnosis (both medical and SpLD), which may make it harder for BAME students to access evidence to register for disability support.
• BAME and international students may have cultural differences in how disability is understood, which may result in lower disability disclosure rates. I’ve attached a recent paper by Soorenian (2023) which explores tthis is more detail.
• I can think of several times where BAME LGBTQIA+ students have said that they don’t want to also be ‘disabled’ – students have said that they are already multiply marginalised, and they don’t want to also be disabled.
• International students have also expressed concern about the impact on their visas if they share that they are disabled.
• For students who are not dominant-English speakers, there can be barriers to accessing SpLD diagnosis as the testing offered at UAL and in the UK is normed for dominant-English speakers. I also believe that SpLDs may not be picked up in school for students who use different writing systems (e.g. Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese), as this will manifest differently. 
• I suspect there are also assumptions from UAL colleagues about disabled students. You may remember DisabilityTooWhite from the IP unit? Disability representation in the UK is normed for whiteness, so I imagine that colleagues may signpost white students to Disability Service support more than international and/or BAME students. I don’t have any data to back this up, but I suspect this might be the case. 
• In terms of how the may impact learning at UAL, this is something I am very interested in. My suspicion is that the barriers for BAME and/or international students accessing support may be a contributing factor to awarding gaps. I did attempt to investigate this in my MA, but the data wasn’t clear cut so I chose a different topic to focus on. It seems logical to me that if BAME and/or international students don’t have access to reasonable adjustments or disability support, this would adversely impact their experience as students. My view is that UAL and other HEIs should focus on inclusive practices/anticipatory adjustments, which would benefit all students – and would ensure that BAME and/or international students who do not access disability support for whatever reason still benefit from inclusive practices in their day-to-day teaching.

3. Most of my training was embedded into my daily practice, learning as I go. I have of course attended (and subsequently led) lots of disability equality and inclusion workshops. I am a Senior Accredited Member of the National Association of Disability Practitioners, and the NADP has been a wealth of information about the being a disability practitioner. Much of my learning has ben self-directed, and I expect that is true of my colleagues. Listening to students will always be an important part of professional development too.

4. I feel like I’ve folded this answer into question 2 above, but let me know if you need any more information
5. I suppose there are two sides to this: a) one is removing barriers for international and/or BAME students accessing individual support, and b) the other is embedding inclusive practices that will remove barriers even if students choose not to share that they are disabled, or don’t access individual support for any reason. a) In terms of removing barriers for international/BAME students accessing support, UAL’s Disability Service is currently piloting an approach where students do not have to provide medical or diagnostic evidence to access support. I think this is a fantastic initiative and I’m really excited to see how this develops. This will hopefully go some way to mitigating against some of the barriers I outlined in question 2. It’s not a secret that this is being piloted – but nor has it been widely announced, so just be aware that other colleagues may not be familiar with this initiative. I’ve left the Disability Service now, but I understand the aspiration is to roll this approach out for all students over a number of years. b) I could write so much on this! Can I be cheeky and signpost you to pages 34-36 of my dissertation (attached)? These pages refer to institutional recommendations relating to crits and presentations, but the principles could be expanded to all elements of curriculum design. In essence, inclusive practices will have the greatest gain for the greatest number of students, and I firmly believe that UAL and other HEIs need to have clear requirements of all courses to develop curricula with the principles of inclusion and Universal Design for Learning in mind.