Notes on Seale Chapter 10

My organisation has a disability policy which quotes the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA). It was written by a member of senior management (Head of Social Inclusion) and I am unaware of any collaboration with other key stakeholders in the production of the policy. It takes the form of a position statement rather than a policy and offers little practical advice on how to achieve compliance, expectations for compliance such as timescales, or consequences for not achieving conformance. It may also be beneficial to provide additional accessibility policies for areas of specific difficulty such as the production of online materials (online curriculum content and school website).

Points of interest from chapter 10 include :

• Lack of guidance for senior management teams (SMT) on the production of accessibility guidelines.
• A feeling of diminished responsibility from SMT from perceived 'get-out' clauses and unlikelihood of legal action
• Communication between stakeholders was a key factor to facilitating successful change including the set up of focus groups and collaboration during policy writing
• Policy must be accompanied by a plan for implementation, monitoring and evaluation procedures and consequences for non-conformance. This can create a sense of 'collective responsibility'.
• Purchasing responsibilities of SMT can influence the accessibility of technologies used within an organisation