My son is a full-time wheelchair user and when he first looked into finding suitable universities and accommodation, there wasn’t much information available. I’ve put together an overview of what steps were necessary to make it all happen and included some tips here in the hope it might make someone else’s experience easier.
Finding the right University and when to start looking
Our advice is to begin the process as soon as you can, once you have an idea of the sorts of courses you want to do. My son used the generic sites (What Uni for example) to locate universities that offered his chosen courses. He then made distance a consideration so that travel to and from university would be easier. In the end, my son chose universities within a four-hour radius by train. By complete fluke, the university he eventually attended has a direct train service to home and this has been great but not having a direct service would not have been a deal breaker. We also made good use of Google, student forums, Google Maps and street view to get a sense of what the universities and their local environment were like.
My son had taken a year out after A levels, so he had 18 months to get everything sorted before his planned university start and he did need some of that extra time because unfortunately the university my son chose didn’t have its own halls. This meant we had to find privately owned wheelchair accessible accommodation which ended up proving to be the more challenging part of the process. 18 months would not be necessary in most cases.
Who to contact initially
Course leaders: Once my son had selected 5 possible universities, we emailed each of the course leaders to ask if there were any barriers to doing the course, such as accessibility of facilities and buildings. Only one of the course leaders we spoke to said that one of their teaching spaces were inaccessible.
Student accommodation: At the same time, we contacted each university’s student accommodation department asking if they had wheelchair adapted rooms and how we might secure these for the duration of my son’s course. Most universities have their own student halls and these should have at least one adapted room.
Student disability services: We also spoke to their student disability services (it’s not always called this but you can search the word disability) to ask about support. They have disability advisors who explained that the university will provide practical support such as someone to take notes, carry equipment etc during the University day.
My son used the information he got from the above contacts to narrow down his choices. For example, he decided to discount the university with the inaccessible teaching space (it was also a long way out from the city center with campuses spread all over the city which would mean lots of travel). The above contacts were also useful because my son was able to establish relationships that were helpful in the future-actually having the name of someone was great when he had questions later.
Narrowing it down
My son visited 3 universities in total, on open days, the year prior to his starting and this was extremely helpful. We informed student services we would be coming, and they arranged for us to see the wheelchair accessible accommodation at the same time. We found the universities themselves were generally accessible, the newer the build, the easier access was. But a new build isn’t everything, and I’ve read and heard good things about some of the older universities.
Lecture theatres provided wheelchair spaces which were accessed either at the top or lowest part of the auditorium. We looked at all the facilities, including the student unions, food outlets, teaching spaces and got a sense of the distances around campus and what an ‘average’ day might be like. It was also a chance to ask lots of questions around accessing learning and where the usual student haunts were.
Finding the right accommodation
A major consideration was ensuring suitable accommodation and we found visits essential for this. All but one of the universities had their own student halls with at least one wheelchair accessible room near or relatively near (a short taxi journey for my son) to the campus and I assume that this is the case nationally.
On our early visits, the rooms we saw were generally ensuite with roll-in-showers attached to shared kitchens and living spaces. One university (Solent) had an adjacent room to accommodate a sleep-in support worker. I also learnt through general research that Exeter at one time had a room fitted with hoists too, so whatever your needs, it’s worth asking if they can accommodate them. I advise finding this out early, so you can secure the room you need.
For the university which didn’t have halls, there were many privately owned student blocks nearby and we contacted them to find out about accessible rooms. Plenty of halls had lifts, and larger rooms but roll-in-showers were limited. A few of words of warning about privately owned accommodation: some accommodation was incorrectly advertised as accessible and we even paid a deposit to one company who later told us the room was unsuitable as in the event of a fire there was no way to evacuate my son.
The 5 images above show rooms that were advertised as accessible. The first two were from the accommodation my son eventually chose to live in. Grabrails were fitted in the bathroom and it already had a roll in shower. The last three pictures show a room also labelled as accessible on the website with the fixed extra tall bed and desk height and a tiny bathroom with no roll in shower.
By the way, the accommodation and disabled student services at the university did not know anything about the rooms that claimed to be accessible, they had taken the accommodation providers at face value. Another thing: privately owned halls can be more expensive and with longer rental periods (my son's now only offers 50 week contracts), but you may be able to get help with this extra expense (see the Snowdon Trust below who will help with the additional cost of accessible accommodation among other things).
Ultimately, and after a few false starts, my son found suitable accommodation near his chosen university. He had to widen his search, but he secured the large ensuite room with roll in shower, grab rails, on the first floor in a building with 2 lifts (I always worry about them breaking down), in a shared flat-below is a picture of the shared kitchen and living space. The accommodation provider’s attitude was very ‘can do’ which is always encouraging. They shared the cost (with the university) of fitting 3 push button mechanisms to overcome the heavy security doors, and also fitted a small cooking and washing up area in the shared kitchen.
Support on campus
Student Disability service and advisors: Every university has a student disability service and their contact details can often be located on the student welfare page. In the early stages we used these services to ask general questions about access etc. but ultimately, their aim is to ensure that you get the support you need on your course and will conduct an interview with you prior to your start, to ensure they understand what you need. The kind of help they might offer, for example, is to organise for a support worker to take notes in lectures, help you to set up your equipment and/or support you around the campus.
Once my son had decided on his chosen university, the disability service allocated one person he could communicate with, a disability advisor. This direct point of contact made sharing and getting hold of information much easier. They also conducted the interview that established what support he would need when he attended. If your university don’t offer a single point of contact and you would like one, you could always ask for the sake of continuity.
Support with day to day living
Care needs assessment: When it comes to getting support in your student accommodation and for getting out and about, shopping etc. funding for this falls to your local social services (where you usually live). Get in touch with them and ask for a care needs assessment, even if you already have a social worker (because your circumstances are going to change). Do this good and early because getting a social worker to do the assessment can take a long time (and how long depends on the length of your authority’s waiting list) and don’t be afraid to keep ringing social services and ask how your case is progressing to make sure it’s all in hand.
Direct payments: The care needs assessment will be a meeting between you and a social worker to help you identify how much and the nature of the support you will require. Your local social services should then fund that support via direct payments. If you are already in receipt of direct payments and/or have a social worker, contact them to explain to them that your needs are changing because you plan to go to university.
Support Workers for your day to day living: Employing support workers was tricky for us: I think a general shortage of support staff nationally plus the relatively small number of hours my son required didn’t attract any applicants. To advertise, we used the social services bulletin board in the university city (I rang them to arrange this). I also contacted agencies and they were prepared to do it, but charged more per hour, meaning he would have less help (I could possibly have gone back to our social services and asked for more hours at this point?). In the end, I contacted a friend I had in the city who was able to suggest a couple of people but if this hadn’t happened, I would have used the local job centre and papers.
Also Useful: My son requested a managed Direct Payments account, which means all he has to do is submit the hours monthly and doesn’t have to do the HMRC stuff.
Applying
UCAS Application Process and Disabled Student Allowance: At the point you fill in your UCAS university application, you will have a chance to tell them about your disability. This will mean any university you apply for should know in advance of any interviews or offers that they may need to organise for ‘reasonable adjustments’. UCAS actually recommends that when you accept an offer, you get in touch with the university ‘to discuss arrangements’. My recommendation would be to make this a running conversation from the start, use the student disability service as a point of contact and just make sure they know when you have accepted the offer.
Disability Student Allowance: Access to this fund , which covers any additional study related costs you might incur because you are disabled, is triggered when you tick the box for having a disability when you apply for student finance. Unlike student loans you don’t have to pay it back and its non-means tested. You apply for this via the student finance site. DSA then conduct an assessment (my son’s was over the phone) that aims to identify any extra study related costs. The allowance might help pay for some equipment, a computer, for example, or a table with a riser. The cost of my son’s taxi to and from university is mostly covered by the DSA (we pay the equivalent of the bus fare; DSA pays the rest). The DSA interview was really positive, helpful and thorough.
Other useful contacts
Snowdon Trust-This brilliant charity will help with some of the extra costs of attending University that social services, DSA or the University don’t cover. If your adapted accommodation means higher rent or there is some mobility equipment you require because of distances or, they might help foot the bill. The application was very straight forward.
Wheelchair services-Every NHS Trust is different, but ours has a mutual agreement with my son’s university city’s wheelchair service which means when he has a problem with his wheelchair, the local service will fix it and bill our service here at home. This has been really useful. Contact yours to find out how they can support you when you go to university.
Disability Rights UK- Disability Rights UK run a Disabled Students Helpline, and will help those wishing to study in England. My son’s chosen Uni was in Wales so they couldn’t really advise us. If you plan to study in Scotland, you can contact Lead Scotland.
Charities- you might find that some of the charities can help advise, for example we found Scope really helpful explaining who funds what in the early days.
I hope this information is helpful and doesn’t sound overwhelming because going to University has been brilliant and my son says It’s the best thing he ever did.
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