Working Group on Disabled and Special Needs Support Meeting Notes

Notes of Meeting held 6 April 2006 at SOAS

Present: Anne Poulson (SOAS) (Chair), Tim Cullen (University of Greenwich), Eileen Nazha (Queen Mary), Margaret Robinson (Kings), Margaret Smyth (University of Kent), Mark Walton (British Library)

1. Apologies

David Archer (LSHTM), Liz Kerr (University of the Arts), Jo Knight (British Library), Judith Preece (UEL), Colin Smith (University of Surrey), Nikki Trigg (University of Westminster)

2.  Minutes of last meeting and matters arising

Corrections to the minutes of the last meeting:

• Matters arising: 2.2.  Anne said that she would canvass members of the CPD25 on dates for an Exchange of Experience Seminar (not M25 Steering Group)
• Matters arising: 5. Margaret Smyth had been omitted from the list of those volunteering to join the sub-group looking into disability policy templates at M25 institutions.
• Matters arising not on the agenda:
  3. Margaret Robinson reported that she had been unable to visit Kingston, but had got details of their facilities. They had received £50,000 to start up their Access Centre, and then £15,000 a year to maintain it. She demonstrated an access card which was given to students using it – this had numbered boxes which were ticked to indicate what facilities had been granted, which both let staff know and provided confidentiality to students. It was, however, an expensive system to run.
  She also reported on her attendance at an RNIB training course, which had been very good in demonstrating assistive technology, as well as tactile mapping. Visually-impaired staff of RNIB who had been students talked about their experiences of HE. She had found it very useful on different approaches to the provision of assistive technology.

3. Training Events

Exchange of Experience Seminar dates – we decided to aim for mid-June, but avoiding 9th (M25 Directors’ Meeting), 21st-23rd (SCONUL Conference), venue to be in central London.

Anne had had further contact with Bulgarian librarians since her visit there. They had made great progress in the provision of facilities, particularly for visually-impaired students, and were a very good example of collaboration, which might be useful experience for M25 libraries. We could fund them to come here if it were thought a good idea to have representatives at the Exchange of Experience Seminar.

There was some discussion on who the seminar was aimed at – managers or service providers? Concluded that we should be aiming at a discussion on good practice between like-minded people. Specific training was for CPD to organise.

Suggestions for Exchange of Experience Seminar:

• Examples of good practice to talk about successful schemes –
• Access Centres – better to keep assistive technology apart? Case study from Southampton or Newcastle. Action AP
• Kingston on their card scheme. Action MR
• Some disabled students to talk about their experiences of HE.  Eileen to co-ordinate. Action EN

Each of these to last about 40 mins., with questions, then draw everything together.

CPD25 Disability Law update – several members of the group had attended this session on 4th April, run by Wendy LeMesurier. We agreed that it had been a very useful and enjoyable session – however, we felt it had not sufficiently covered the Disability Equality Duty, an update to the DDA, which meant that organisations had to draw up a plan of action by December 2006, to be updated each year to indicate a proactive approach to disability equality and not just non-discrimination.

4. Website management and content

The new M25 website would be live after Easter, with our updated information on it. Noted that information on it would be presented in a consistent way, and we would have to follow a template for our minutes etc..

5. Publicising the WG

Anne had written a new article for the e-bulletin.  The Exchange of Experience Seminar would also be good publicity for the group.

6. AOB

Anne reported that the Steering Group was considering a change of name and focus for the group, to include wider diversity issues. To be considered in more detail at our next meeting.

7. Date of Next Meeting

To be organised for mid-July at the University of Greenwich. Action EN

EN, 13 April 2006