By Laura Nevay
School of Criminology Administrator & PA to Head of School
One of the best aspects of working within Criminology is being surrounded by colleagues who are as passionate about accessibility as myself. Accessibility is not necessarily something people automatically think of when organising events and other workday tasks however for myself it is extremely important to create an even playing field for all.
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Accessibility to me is providing reasonable adjustments to give everyone the same opportunity to take part no matter what disability or neurodiversity someone may have. On a personal level, I have needed reasonable adjustments and so understand how important it is to think about accessibility during the organisation process for anything from teaching spaces to conferences and much more in between.
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Building on this, our passion for accessibility can be seen in a number of exciting developments and projects within the School of Criminology. We have created a Diversity and ‘Inclusion’ Committee where colleagues within the School, students, members of the student union, and external stakeholders/practitioners come together to ascertain ways in which we can incorporate changes to what we do, to improve the accessibility of both students and staff alike.
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For example, it was flagged that students with disabilities and neurodiversities struggle to find a space to study that is conducive to their needs. As a result, for two hours twice every week we’ve designated part of the undergraduate area a quiet space where those who need can study or just sit. We’ve also been looking into purchasing noise-cancelling headphones that can be duly borrowed if needed outside these quiet times.
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Factor in the School’s EDI committee, Accessibility Tutor and a current project linked to Neurodiversity and Intersectionality in Higher Education and our commitment to improving accessibility for both staff and students is clear for all to see.
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Outside of the School, we’re as equally passionate about improving accessibility. From an event perspective, the School co-hosted the first-ever, international, Disability Hate Crime Conference in June last year. The conference was not only significant in how it successfully brought academics, practitioners, policymakers and users together to discuss a range of timely issues but so too its outputs. One of the most impactful has been the creation of an accessibility checklist. This checklist has been shared throughout Leicester University as well as De Montford University and networks within the British Society of Criminology and Association of University Administrators. This checklist will hopefully be used in the future so people across different institutions have an equal chance to attend a whole range of different events taking place across the country.
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Personally, I feel very fortunate to work in an environment where I have received exceptional support from my line manager Simon Poole, Head of School Professor Lisa Smith, as well as Occupational Health and Access to Work (just to name a few) to enable me to keep on working full time in a fantastic school.
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There are so many exciting changes happening around the University and School with the united goal to become as accessible as possible.
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