NADO Inaugural Conference : Workshops
In the afternoon delegates divided into three groups to engage in workshops which carried forward the individual themes of the morning talks. One member of each group then summarised the workshop findings to all delegates before the start of the plenary session.
- Workshop A (chaired by Sophie Corlett)
- Workshop B (chaired by E.A. Draffan)
- Workshops C & D, Session chaired by Bernard Mallows and Sally Hunt
Workshop A
We looked at two main things:
- what such an organisation would be for;
- who it would be for.
There needs to be clarity about what NADO is for and what its purposes are. We identified three areas:
- it should be for its membership (providing accredited training, mentoring, determining standards and looking at different job descriptions, developing a code of practice for members);
- it should work sector wide (raising the status of our work, promoting our role within the institution and disseminating disability issues to senior management);
- it should work for students (if there is a code of practice or a generic job description for disability officers, students would have an idea of what they could expect).
Who is the organisation for? Is it just for disability officers or also for support workers (tutors for deaf students, notetakers etc). We decided it was mainly for those who had a remit for the whole of disability in their role.
What should happen next? We think it would be unsafe to launch straight into a membership organisation without having an idea of where it is going. We envisage a three-stage process:
- setting up a working group to discuss what the aims of the organisation are and who its members will be (we may need some pump-priming money from an external source to get this going);
- setting up an organisation with associate members;
- associate members become full members.
Workshop B
Who are we?
People coming into this profession come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Out of the twenty in our group, ten were on permanent contracts, four were on temporary contracts and four had waiver clauses. Backgrounds included: teaching, management consultancy, speech therapy, nursing, customer service, local government, catering, within universities (registry, welfare). Getting together professional development will be a complicated task!
About 70% of our group had a job description. Grading of jobs was identified as an issue. Over a third of the group complained of working in isolation without appropriate support.
We agreed that it is important to have a qualification and that this qualification should have the following characteristics:
- available flexibly;
- NADO to assemble information about appropriate qualifications that are already available;
- validated - by a teaching development led body or other validation system;
- nationally agreed - at NVQ or SVQ level 4;
- recognise disability officers prior experience.
In developing this qualification it would be useful to use a personal and professional development planner. It is practical and wouldn't involve people giving a lot of time. Whatever we ask people to do should have multiple uses so they are not doing tasks in isolation, they are doing things which could also be used in a CV or appraisal. It should be easy to read and understand, be easily available and flexible. We pointed out that the work of speech and language therapists is often an individual, one to one thing, whereas we must remember the strategic and managerial aspects of the work of disability officers.
We agreed that the minimum required personal commitment should be approximately ten half-day sessions.
We discussed registering. Should individuals or institutions pay?
What is the minimum required standard for someone being appointed for a job called 'disability adviser or 'disability co-ordinator'?
We identified the need for a system of peer support or mentoring during the process of acquiring the professional qualification.
How would links with the AUT work? We discussed unresolved questions about personal and professional liability and how this would fit in with having a professional qualification.
We finished by asking what role NADO might have in producing publications, but decided that although this should be considered over the long term but isn't a priority now.
Workshops C & D
Firstly, the group agreed that they did want a professional organisation such as NADO to represent them as Disability Officers.
The main issues that the group decided they would like NADO to do:
- have the national credibility of an established professional association;
- provide one united voice for disability officers. NADO should be consulted by organisations such as HEFCE, the NUS, the AUT, Skill and the CVCP. In the case of being respected by CVCP and asked to comment on issues, this will assist in the dissemination of information throughout HEI's, as Vice Chancellors do read CVCP bulletins;
- identify the needs of its members and respond accordingly. This may include issues such as training/professional development, for example;
- promote dissemination of best practice. There is no point in reinventing the wheel and for time to be wasted developing policies which have worked successfully elsewhere;
- offer discreet, confidential support for its members.