Our first Disability Pride Café

The Essex Access Forum held their first Disability Pride Café on Friday 7 July to celebrate and learn about disability. Here’s just a few things we spoke about during a relaxed chat in Zest.

Reasonable Adjustments Passports

Stuart Henty, our Workplace Health and Wellbeing Manager, told us all about the new Reasonable Adjustments Passport that will be circulated soon. When a member of staff experiences challenges in the workplace they can work with their line manager and Occupational Health to identify Reasonable Adjustments that will support them in their role. One of the challenges we have faced, until now, is how these adjustments travel with the individual when they move internally between roles. These passports will mean that staff can carry their adjustments with them throughout their career at Essex without having to go through the entire process every time they change roles.

It’s an excellent document and we’re really excited to see it being rolled out, but we all agreed that engagement with line managers is key – so, line managers, please keep an eye out for details of this upcoming wellbeing enhancement.

Exploring the role accessibility plays in patient care

We discovered that Health and Social Care explore the role accessibility plays in patient care as part of their degrees. This involves them taking a fictitious patient from A to B across our Colchester Campus, and documenting the challenges they face in navigating the campus. We have reached out to one of the lecturers on this course and will be working closely with them to develop a short awareness raising film.

Some of our Postgraduate students in Health and Social Care will also be including accessibility in their dissertations, so we have extended a warm welcome to these students if they ever want to share their surveys or do general research through our mailing list.

Head to Zest fresh to pick up more info

There is a lot of information available about all the support for staff, both inside and outside of the University and handouts were available for the Reasonable Adjustment Passport, as well as the Wellness Action Plan (and guide for managers). 

These were so useful, that we left a pile in Zest fresh, so you could pop down for a nosey. Most of the handouts are next to the window seats with the computers.

Come along to our next café 

Our next Disability Pride Café meeting is taking place in Zest fresh on Tuesday 25 July. We’ve even managed to arrange some food and drink vouchers, so if you want to join us for some lunch, and have a natter about disability, please feel free to come along.