Services for disabled students and employees in five allied health professions: the UK experience

Services for disabled students and employees in

five allied health professions: the UK experience

Colloque de l’AQICESHUniversité du Québec à Montréal

June 6th – 8th 2012Presenters: Jane Owen Hutchinson

and Karen AtkinsonAllied Health Professions Support Service

Introductions

Jane Owen Hutchinson, Manager Allied Health Professions Support Service (AHPSS)

Karen Atkinson, Manager AHPSS Resource Centre, Senior Lecturer, University of East London

Context

In the UK, disabled people: are half as likely as non-disabled people to be qualified to

degree level twice as likely as non-disabled people to have no qualifications continue to experience high rates of unemployment (50%

compared to 79%) In 2009 42.4% of disabled graduates were in full-time

employment compared with 46.2% of non-disabled graduates (AGCAS 2011)

This indicates that the role of higher education is vital in enabling disabled people to realise their potential in terms of employment

AHP Educational Context

Majority of programmes are 3 year BSc (Hons) degrees

Increasing number of accelerated 2 year Pre Registration MSc courses

Less part time opportunities Universities generally becoming more

inclusive

Educational Context

Significant proportion of the education of health care professionals takes place in the clinical setting

Clinical placements – educational experiences very variable for all students

AHPSS

AHPSS supports disabled students and employees in the following professions throughout the UK: Dietetics Occupational Therapy Physiotherapy Podiatry Speech and Language Therapy

Significant barriers are still encountered

AHPSS Mission

Our mission is to challenge disability by delivering a service that promotes equality of opportunity by:

• empowering disabled healthcare students and employees to overcome the barriers they encounter within the educational and employment environments

• raising awareness of disability issues to support educators, clinicians and employers to promote best practice within education and employment settings

• enabling an inclusive approach to disabled health care students and employees

AHPSS

Unique

Authentic

Experience

Expertise

Reputation

Influence

Resources

Our Resource Centre

Resources

Funded by DH – has enabled us to provide essentially free services to all UK based clients Peripatetic Advice and guidance Employment preparation Advice on inclusive educational practice Staff training sessions - in HE and the clinical context One to one support for disabled AHP students and

employees Consultancy services to employers, Professional/Voluntary

Organisations and Disability Services Teams

Research

Transition from HE to NHS for Visually Impaired Physiotherapists

Experiences of Physiotherapy Practice Educators: Supporting Disabled Students

Barriers

Lack of awareness of disability issues Lack of awareness/availability of resources

and sources of support Stereotyping, discrimination, prejudice and

stigmatisation Fear and anxiety:

Staff don’t know what to do to support, don’t want to offend

Applicants think that if they disclose their disability they will not be successful

Barriers: contributing factors

Inadequate communicationReluctance to discloseVariable student engagementFailure to implement reasonable

adjustmentsHuman and financial resourcesAttitudinal issues

Inadequate communication

Reluctance to disclose

“…disclosure’s not something I’m very good at especially

because a lot of people don’t believe me, and because I don’t look like I’ve got a disability...I

can get away with looking completely normal”

“I had to say ‘I’m visually impaired’…I hated it…it just used to grate on me every single time I said it because I thought why should I

have to tell it to somebody?”

Variable student engagement

A student contacts and visits the clinical area

in advance and organises all necessary

adjustments

A student goes onto placement with no support and has issues

with time management, organisation and documentation

A student does not even consider himself to be disabled

Failure to implement reasonable adjustments

“in terms of computer access I was limited

because I couldn’t read what was on the screen”

“what I had agreed with my tutor was that I was always going to be somewhere that was on a bus route or on a

train route - easily accessible. I don’t think they ever took that into consideration...”

“..I was told that there wasn’t any other assistant available…I’d have to go

it alone…and it was a case of oh well you’re just going

to have to cope”

Human and financial resources

Attitudinal issues

One clinical manager formally asked the

programme to stop recruiting disabled students as they

“could not be fit for practice”

“the best I got was I’ll get that done, I’ll do it sometime…so you

end up not getting a lot of information…this is incredibly frustrating”

“For no reason at all they said I

couldn’t walk around the school without

being accompanied…”

Thank youAny Questions?

Contact details

Jane Owen Hutchinson Manager, AHPSS Mobile: 07748 657457 Email: jane.owenhutchinson@rnib.org.uk   Karen Atkinson Manager, AHPSS Resource Centre Tel: +00 44 208 223 4950 Mobile: 07918197995 Email: k.a.atkinson@uel.ac.uk