A University Disability and Wellbeing Champion has shared the ways in which they are planning to further support staff across the University with neurodiversity.
In an interview with Professor Alison M Dunning- Co-Chair of the Disabled Staff Network -she explained the areas that the team are currently looking at, to improve disabled services within the University.
Alison said: “We are working quite hard on more equitable adjustments, but the reasonable adjustments aren't necessarily what people might be thinking about, they're often about working flexibly.
“The one that's coming up a lot- that I think will be a bit of a concern- is the use of hot desking.
“This is a great idea in principle, but in practise for people with neurodiversity, it's quite worrying.
“They like to know where they are and that it's not too noisy or too uncomfortable. “So there's all sorts of talks going on around that.”
Listen to the full interview here:-
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This year’s theme for International Day of Persons with Disabilities is- ‘Transformative solutions for inclusive development, the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world.’
Alison expressed she thought it was a “really positive theme”, saying that the Covid pandemic really opened up a whole new world of possibilities of how people can communicate with one another.
She said: “Across the university there is more opportunity now for more hybrid working and communicating online -as well as in person- and this definitely supports disabled people.”
Alison also went onto say that although there are more classically disabled issues they are also addressing across the University and not all of the challenges they face are necessarily about visibility or being able to use a wheelchair ramp.
She said: “There about our fatigue and the fact that we're often over stimulated at work and we're trying to manage that.”
Here is more information to the Disabled Staff Network