1. Best Practice for Engaging Disabled Students
Hannah Webber
Disability Sport Officer
University of Nottingham
Welcome to the workshop on ‘Best Practice for Engaging Disabled Students’
My name’s Hannah Webber and I am the Disability Sport Officer at the University of Nottingham.

2. Format Team Introduction University of Nottingham Overview
What is Engagement?
Why is Engagement Important?
Barriers to Engagement
Overcoming those Barriers
Interactive Discussion
Disability Sport Pledge
This is the format that we’re looking to follow today.
I’m going to be talking for around 10 – 15 minutes about our experiences at Nottingham and will hopefully be giving you some things to think about along the way/
We will then break you up in to groups for some interactive discussion and come together to discuss your findings towards the end of the workshop.
Before we let you escape for the afternoons sporting activities, we are going to ask you to complete a BUCS disability sport pledge

3. Team Introduction Hannah Webber Disability Sport Officer
Alex Hingley AU Officer
Paul McKeown Assistant Director of Sport
Introducing ‘Team Nottingham’!
Obviously you’ve met me, but there are two other key people from the University who have played an integral role in the engagement of disabled students at Nottingham.
Alex Hingley is our fantastic AU Officer, who was key in helping to deliver our disability awareness event – Any-Body Month.
Paul McKeown is our Assistant Director of Sport, my boss and running coach! I couldn’t really leave him out!

4. University of Nottingham Approach
Social Model of Disability
“the recognition that primarily it is the loss or limitation of opportunities, due to environmental and social barriers, that prevents people who have impairments from participating in society on an equal level with others.”
I’m going to start by talking about the two models of disability:
The social model
The medical model
As you can see from the slide the University of Nottingham works with the social model of disability. This social model sees the disabling world as the barrier to participation, examples could include badly designed buildings or prejudiced attitudes from staff.
The medical model sees the disabled person’s impairment as the barrier to participation, examples could include the fact that they are confined to a wheelchair or that they need carers to support them.

5. University of Nottingham
Number of Disabled Students
9% Undergraduates =1800+ students
7% Postgrads = 500 students
39% LD
32% Unseen
10% Other
This is an overview of the make up of disabled students at the University of Nottingham.
As you can see we have around 8% or 2,300 registered students with a disability. The highest proportion for us, is of students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia or dyspraxia.
Your University is likely to have a different make up of disabled students. How you successfully engage with disabled students is all about tailoring your approach to your specific user groups.

6. What is Engagement? Interaction Information Delivery Consultation
Involvement + collaboration
Empowered action
What is engagement?
Well to me it’s all about;
The interaction between you and the disabled students
The delivery of information, about things such as memberships, fitness classes, sporting events etc
Consultation with your disabled student community (focus groups etc)
Involving and collaborating with them in the decision making process. Making them feel valued.
Empowering students to take action

7. Why is Engagement Important?
Participation
Empowerment
Knowledge
Communication
Positive Experience
Breaking down Barriers
Why is engagement important?
This is something that I think most of you probably know the answers to;
It encourages participation in sport and physical activity
As I’ve already mentioned it leads to the empowerment of students
It provides students with knowledge about how they can access sport. As well as providing you with knowledge about your students.
It’s opening up a communication between you (the provider) and the students
It’s hopefully helping to provide students with a positive experience at your University, which they will hopefully pass on to friends, family and colleagues
It helps to break down the barriers and provide a more inclusive approach to sport
This list is relevant to non-disabled students as well. The difference is how you deliver this engagement to your audience of disabled students.

8. Barriers to Engagement
Communication
Cost
Competitive Clubs
Inaccessible Facilities
Inclusive Equipment
Transport
Staff Knowledge
What are the barriers to engagement?
Communication - students are often bombarded with 100’s of messages, so often your communications don’t filter through. It could also be down to the tone and kind of language that you use.
Cost – this was a particular barrier to disabled students at Nottingham. Many felt that the memberships costs were too high given the number of times they would be using the University sports facilities and accessing the clubs.
Competitive Clubs – a lot of the Nottingham AU Clubs are focused on BUCS competition and catering for recreational / disabled students is simply not a priority. Lack of resource being one of the key reasons.
Inaccessible facilities – this is particularly relevant to Universities with older sports facilities, which often don’t have accessible change facilities for example.
Inclusive equipment – not all Universities have access to inclusive gym and sports equipment that disabled students need to enable them to engage in sport and physical activity.
Transport – actually getting to sports facilities can take up a lot of the disabled students time and energy.
Staff Knowledge – staff who aren’t confident or who have no experience of dealing with disabled students can often put them off coming to your facilities and accessing sport.

9. Overcoming those Barriers
Create Engagement Networks
Training / Education
Review Policies and Procedures
Communication
To overcome those barriers to engagement with disabled students, there are 4 areas that you should look at;
Create engagement networks > look at who can help you to engage
Training and education of staff, clubs and coaches
Review your policies and procedures > making sure that they are as open and inclusive as possible
Communication > looking at where, when, how and what you communicate to students

10. Create Engagement Networks
Students
Partners
External
Internal
>YOU<
Sports Provider
Creating engagement networks.
Why do you need to do this?
And with the best will in the world Universities often don’t have the resource or the expertise to engage fully with all of their disabled students. You are likely to need help from partners to facilitate this engagement with students, especially in the initial stages.
At Nottingham I have focused on building an engagement network with a wide range of partners externally and internally. The external partners include;
Other HE/FE Institutions
National Governing Bodies
County Sports Partnership
English Federation of Disability Sport
Local Sports Clubs
County and Local Sports Development teams
The internal partners include
University Departments, such as Student Support, Marketing and Communications, Professional Development etc
Student and Athletic Union
Sports Clubs

11. Training and Education
Disability Awareness Training
Staff
Students
Clubs
Coaches
Support staff
Coaching Qualifications
Coaching Experience
Training and Education
People’s perceptions, knowledge and lack of expertise, can often prove to be a barrier to student engagement.
This can often take some time to tackle, but one way of doing this is to provide disability awareness training for your staff, students, clubs, coaches and support staff.
At Nottingham we have developed a programme of disability awareness training for all full time and contracted members of staff in the sports department. We started with introductory training sessions and we now have a 2 year programme of impairment specific sessions planned in.
We have also worked with the AU to put on a training session with clubs, which was very well attended and received.
You also need to think about investing in disability specific coaching qualifications for your staff and clubs, if the demand is there. Empower them to be as knowledgeable and inclusive in their approaches as possible.
If resource is an issue you could look at how you can provide your qualified coaches with some disability specific experience. At Nottingham some of our staff have been working with disabled students and staff on fitness and training programmes – learning how to adapt their coaching styles to specific disability groups and gaining some great experience in the process.

12. Review Policies and Procedures
Memberships
Costs
Student Support
Timetabling
Sporting Provision
Reviewing your policies and procedures
A lot of the feedback that we’ve had from disabled students at Nottingham is that the memberships need to be more flexible. It’s important to appreciate that one size doesn’t fit all and that disabled students are often limited in terms of the facilities and equipment they can use.
Costs – think about whether you offer disabled students a discounted or free sports membership? Combined with all the other financial outgoings, sports membership can often be a commitment too far. But talk to your disabled students and get their feedback, because this can be quite a sensitive issue.
What do you have in terms of student support? Do you offer a sports induction or a buddy scheme? Disabled students often find it intimidating and quite scarey turning up to sports facilities on their own, so these are areas that you need to give some consideration.
Timetabling – is your focus on giving premium hall space etc to your BUCS clubs? When are you fitness and well-being classes timetabled in? If they’re all late at night – this can prove to be a barrier to participation.
Sporting Provision – what sports do you provide? Is what you offer inclusive? If you can’t accommodate a disabled students sports, do you have links to local clubs that you can signpost them to?

13. Communication Who is YOUR audience? What do you communicate?
How do you communicate?
Tone
Text
Layout
Where do you engage?
Online /
Print
Radio / TV
In Person
When do you engage?
Communicating with disabled students
You really need to think about;
WHO your audience is? What are your more prevalent impairment groups that you need to communicate with?
What you communicate? What are the key messages that you want to get across? Ensure that you’re not giving out too many at one time.
How do you communicate? How do you make your communications stand out? Think about tone and language, text – size and font, as well as how your communication is presented. There are best practice guidelines for printed publications on the EFDS website.
Where do you engage? Think about where most of your students get their information from? What communication channels provide you with the best level of response?
When do you engage? Timing is important. Students get bombarded with information, so you want to be communicating at a time which is most relevant.
This is an area that I would advise speaking to your Communications and Marketing teams about. They are the experts after all!

14. Now it’s your Turn! Right now it’s your turn to do some talking!
If you could split yourself up in to about 4 or 5 groups.
We are going to provide you with case studies of some real life disabled students studying at Nottingham.

15. Interactive Discussion
Develop a plan for how best to engage your disabled student in their desired sporting activity
Think about;
Your Engagement Network
Your Training and Education Programme
Your Policies and Procedures
Your Communication
We want you to develop a plan for how to best engage your disabled student in their desired sporting activity.
Break your plan down in to the following areas;
Creating your engagement network – what partners do you need? Are there any other existing networks?
Do you need to implement any kind of training and education programme? If yes, what areas do you need to focus on?
Do you need to adapt any of your current policies and procedures? Do you need to create any new ones?
What’s your communication plan? Think about your communications tools? What are the key messages that you want to get across?
We’re going to give you about 15 minutes to work on this.

16. Disability Sport Pledge
BUCS Disability Sport Commitment Card
How is your University going to try and engage with disabled students?
Please return forms before you leave

17. Email: hannah.webber@nottingham.ac.uk
Thank you!