Who is responsible for what when supporting deaf students at University?

This article will simply explain who is responsible for what when deaf students are supported at University.

So, we will go through the following stakeholders: Deaf student, University and Supplier.

Deaf Student

Sharing their timetable with their suppliers
Sharing feedback about support workers with their suppliers
Communicating any changes in the timetable
Communicating preferred interpreters or support workers
Informing the supplier if they are unwell/unable to attend
Sign off the booking after it is completed – a text message will be sent to you with the link to sign off

University

Sharing the timetable with the suppliers
Seeking funding to cover the overspend if necessary
Providing the supplier with any relevant information to aid them in supporting the student

Supplier

Organising support
Regular communication with the deaf student
Gathering feedback from the student
Sharing spends and budgets with the university

Suppliers are also responsible for communicating with all stakeholders involved in the process

The deaf student
The university disability team
The university faculties and any other relevant departments
Other suppliers if necessary
Support workers

Working with Suppliers

It is worth you as a university getting in touch with the suppliers, as you will be working together for the duration of the deaf person studies and knowing who you are dealing with really helps.

Also, the deaf student is receiving both BSL interpreting and notetaking support, the DSA spend is likely to be exceeded due to the amount of support. You will therefore want to understand what the overspend is likely to look like so that you can seek the internal budget to cover this.

When you get in touch with the supplier, we would always recommend you sharing DSA 2 letter at this point in case it has not been shared by the student.

SFE will only pay for the student missing three sessions, so any sessions exceeding three sessions would also be invoiced to the University.

One more thing you will need to provide to the supplier, is the University policies and procedures, that are aimed at external visitors/attendees to University.

As suppliers, these are shared with all support workers, so that they are aware of how to work safely within the university.