Ensuring Inclusion: A Good Practice Checklist
This checklist intended for people who are planning and putting on
events or producing or publishing information.
Produced by the Disability Task Group. This is an online version of a
publication by Aimhigher West.
Introduction
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) requires that disabled people should not be disadvantaged in accessing information or services. The act requires service providers to anticipate potential barriers and make reasonable adjustments to eliminate them.
Disabled people are significantly under-represented in higher education and are a priority group for Widening Participation (WP). It is particularly important that people working in the area of widening participation should not be disadvantaging disabled people. It is essential that we examine our current practices, review where they can be improved and take appropriate action.
The following document is a first attempt by the Aimhigher West Disability Task Group to inform its own practices and further to inform the work of Aimhigher West as a whole.
Access
Access is most commonly understood to imply means of entry or way in and an Accessible Venue or Event is one that has few or no physical barriers at the means of entry. However, for many people, access is restricted by more than just physical barriers. Barriers can be cultural, economic, attitudinal, organisational or one or more of many others.
To ensure that Aimhigher West is as inclusive as possible, this document contains practical checklists to assist us in making our WP work (e.g. meetings, events, printed information and electronic information) as accessible as possible. We recognise that the checklists are not exhaustive and we welcome feedback from colleagues.
Disability
We have assumed the social model definition of disability, i.e. that the person is disabled by barriers erected by society.
Language
We advise a person centred approach to language. For example, “disabled people” rather than “the disabled” and “Students with dyslexia” rather than “Dyslexics”.
Contents
This checklist should assist us in making events and/or meetings as accessible as possible. The checklist appears on one page for ease of photocopying. More detailed, explanatory notes appear in the following pages.
Checklist for producing accessible information
This checklist should help us to produce accessible information material. Most of the material we produce is on computer and lends itself to reformatting or transcribing. Information material could include invitations, leaflets, handouts, prospectuses, evaluation forms and web pages.
Appendices
1. Equality and diversity statement (draft)
3. Aids and Equipment (Hiring, borrowing or employing)
