New Meaning Training (NMT) seeks to proactively promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people in all its functions. It pays due regard to the Equality Act and acts within the law to ensure equality of opportunity.
NMT policies and procedures are upheld to ensure that disabled people receive equal opportunity relevant to their particular situation.
2. Scope
This policy is relevant to all NMT employees and learners and sets out the guidelines everyone is expected to follow regarding any person involved with NMT that has a disability.
The Disability Equality Duty requires Colleges and Centres to have due regard to the need to:
Promote equality of opportunity between disabled students and other people.
Eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010.
Eliminate harassment of disabled students that is related to their disability.
Promote positive attitudes towards disabled students.
Take steps to meet the needs of disabled students, even if this needs more favourable treatment.
A disability is considered a “protected characteristic” under the Equality Act 2010. Therefore, it is unlawful, in the context of education, for an education provider to discriminate directly or indirectly against a learner on the basis of their disability.
NMT’s Disability Discrimination Policy ensures that the statements above are adhered to and that disabled learners have access to education as easily as non-disabled learners.
3. Definitions
The Equality Act defines a disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities.
The following list on the meaning of impairment is not exhaustive, but generally considered the best starting point.
A disability can arise from a wide range of impairments which can be:
Sensory impairments, affecting sight or hearing.
Impairments with fluctuating or recurring effects such as rheumatoid arthritis, ME, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, diabetes, depression and epilepsy.
Progressive, such as motor neurone disease, muscular dystrophy, and forms of dementia.
Auto-immune conditions such as lupus (SLE).
Organ specific, including respiratory conditions such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and thrombosis, stroke and heart disease.
Developmental, such as autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), dyslexia and dyspraxia
Learning disabilities.
Mental health conditions with symptoms such as anxiety, low mood, panic attacks, bipolar affective disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, OCD, and some self-harming behaviour.
Mental illness such as schizophrenia, and depression.
Any long term, severe and significant condition produced by injury to the body and to the brain.
4. Implementation
On a continual basis, NMT will analyse:
Whether there are areas of the curriculum to which disabled learners have limited or no access.
Whether there are parts of the sites to which disabled learners have limited or no access.
Whether different forms of communication are made available to enable disabled learners to express their views and hear the views of others.
This enables NMT to make judgements about the significance of its policy and helps determine where NMT needs to set priorities.
Where possible, NMT has a legal duty to try to remove the barriers a learner may face due to their disability. These barriers can be alleviated by making reasonable adjustments to aspects such as the learner’s learning and assessments – it can be considered discrimination if NMT fails to provide these adjustments.
All learners will be required to confirm any reasonable adjustments at the start of their course with NMT so that the awarding body, NOCN, can be informed, and the adjustments can be put into place prior to any exams being held.
NMT aims to promote greater engagement of learners so that areas to further promote equality of opportunity can be identified and implemented. Learners with a disability will be actively involved in the continuous review and development of this policy by being encouraged to give their comments and suggestions.
NMT recognises that bullying is more likely towards disabled learners and NMT staff will carefully monitor the personal wellbeing of disabled learners.
Positive attitudes to disability will be promoted whenever possible, ensuring staff and other learners have respectful attitudes to everyone.
NMT will monitor and record equal opportunities information about disabled learners based on their individual disability.
NMT stores disability information as confidential personal data and restricts access to this information. Disability information will be used exclusively for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring and will have no bearing on opportunities or benefits.
NMT ensures that attitudes are conducive to disclosure and will ensure learners feel comfortable about acknowledging an impairment or health condition. Any information will be used sensitively and confidentially and used to improve opportunities/outcomes for the learners.
In the event of evacuation of the building, risk assessments will have been drawn up with an evacuation plan for any disabled learners, if necessary. NMT tutors will personally allocate themselves to ensure disabled persons in their classes are helped to the meeting point.
5. Complaints of Discrimination
NMT will treat all complaints of unlawful disability discrimination seriously. This is on any forbidden grounds, made by employees, learners or other third parties and will take action where appropriate.
All complaints will be investigated in accordance with NMT’s grievance and/or complaints procedure, and the complainant will be informed of the outcome in line with these procedures.
NMT will also monitor the number and outcomes of complaints of disability discrimination made by staff, learners, and other third parties.
