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Your experience of Disability Support Service
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02-12-2009 7:15am#1
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Hi 'Guys'
Was looking in the UCC societies page and found no society for 'disabled'
students. Its not for me to say whether there ought to be such.
Couldn't find a postgrad common room listed by the union either, but thats another bucket of wierd. :rolleyes:
Wondering out loud if the 500 odd 'disabled' students that the DSS office says are attending UCC should start a society and/or otherwise get organised.
Any thoughts?
Max
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Hi 'Guys'
Was looking in the UCC societies page and found no society for 'disabled'
students. Its not for me to say whether there ought to be such.
Couldn't find a postgrad common room listed by the union either, but thats another bucket of wierd. :rolleyes:
Wondering out loud if the 500 odd 'disabled' students that the DSS office says are attending UCC should start a society and/or otherwise get organised.
Any thoughts?
Max
Max,
All i know is that UCC have a post Grad Library which is different from the Main Library.
I think 500 'odd' disabled students are attending UCC is not an accurate representation. It could be a misleading figure. I would expect a lot less than that. I could be wrong there but HEA would know the exact figures as they give funds to all eligible students with a disability in Ireland.
Also in their website, some of the data seems to show or massage their inflated figures. Also UCC website in relation to DSS data is outdated and it doesn't reflect the present time. For example, i left UCC last October but i am still registered with them. It's strange allright.
They have an Assistive technology lab for all disabled students. The opening hours last year was from 10am to 7pm.
Their website said 500' odd disabled students attending in UCC.
If that was the case, then the Assistive lab would then stay open for long hours to faciliate them & also to assist their assignments work etc.
Now the opening hours for this year (2009-2010) is now from 10am to 4pm. That would suggest or point to a lot fewer or a lot less disabled students attending UCC are using the Assistive technology lab.
There was a society called Irish Sign last year as it caters for a Sign language for people who wants to learn or join the society. I e-mailed the auditor for that society as i got no response from them since up to now.
Then i learned that the Auditor for that society was a Sign Language interpreter from Cork as she made no efforts at all to reply re same. It reflected on her badly in my view given the fact she has a deaf Brother and sister as well. It was a shame really and perhaps reflected their attitude of a distant society.
Corkhurler0 -
Can't sleep either eh?
Can't argue the logic of your points, nor would I intend to. As I couln't sleep was googling other uni disability sites and clicked through a lot of Glasgow's and was impressed.
Mind me asking your opinion on setting up a UCC society to support/lobby for disabled students?0 -
Can't sleep either eh?
Can't argue the logic of your points, nor would I intend to. As I couln't sleep was googling other uni disability sites and clicked through a lot of Glasgow's and was impressed.
Mind me asking your opinion on setting up a UCC society to support/lobby for disabled students?
Yeah can't sleep either as i was coming out from a nightclub and grab a quickie food to eat to appease my hungry stomach !!
Set up a lobby for disabled students in UCC, from what i can see from other post (paws) that UCC DSS were seen to be unwilling to give them information to contact all other students with a disability with a view of meeting and perhaps friendship and talk about something that they may have something in common to share.
That would suggest to me or you or others that they are not very open to share things and perhaps more secretive which impressed on myself when i queried them - how much did i get for re my application for support grant in an academic year? They were very vague re figures and then said to me 15K. Nor did they showed me the correspondence in relation to the funding which i asked them for but none.
You can pm me if you want or post it on this forum.
Corkhurler.0 -
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Birdalone.....thanks so much for your post. So glad you feel things are improving for you. I understand what you mean about what fighting for your rights can take out of you, I really do. I don't know how it is for everyone else dealing with a disability....sometimes I find it very isolating, which is why I thought a dedicated society for support / lobbying might be useful.
Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I'd hope there might be a good model elsewhere that we could use initially as a way to get started. Maybe someone could do some research on this.
Possibly meeting with the SU societies president might be a good first step. May as well seek out help and advice from the get go. Happy to set up a meet for late next week, or early the week after. Anyone interested in going? We could meet up beforehand if you like to put names to faces 0 -
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I have been reading this thread before i could post it here. I am an ex UCC student with hearing loss - deaf. Hence, Deaf student.
My experience with UCC disability support service (UCC DSS in short) was nothing short of appalling and they called themselves ' experts' in the area of disability particularly as regards to provision of any deaf student support needs. It's a total joke re they called them themselves 'expert' by labelling themselves as disability professionals.
I recalled when i was called up for an interview with a head of the department as i asked him... would they pay for the services of Irish sign language interpreter? The head of that department said it was no problem. So i went there and communicated via the means of a sign language interpreter.
It was grand until i contacted UCC Disability support service to set up an appointment with a view to discuss my support needs (i was offered a place).
For instance, various support needs such as Electronic Note taking, Sign Language interpreter, hand-outs in advance- these were the supports that i need so on in order to follow the lectures. Otherwise, I or other student would be lost.
When i met the deputy head of the UCC DSS as i asked her would they (their office) pay for the services of Irish Sign Language interpreter in order to facilitate the meeting between me and her? She refused to pay for the fee for the services of Sign language interpreter. Naturally, i was stunned and shocked when i heard her remarks. Our meeting ended sometime quickly after that. Compare that to the head of accounting dept, who agreed to pay without any hesitation. It was more of an attitude problem rather than money issues.
It was very clear that it was breach of discrimination. It's like refusing a Braille sheets to any blind man/woman. It was a breach of their/our rights in terms of access.
Then other poster that i met in UCC as we knew each other well. We discussed it re Deputy Head’s refusal to pay for it as compared to the head of department which i had an interview with. Then we contacted the HEA (Higher Education Authority) afterwards re UCC Disability office's refusal. They were shocked when they heard my story. They were insistent that i should contact UCC Disability office again which i refused to have anything do with it.
Then i got a text message from the interpreter saying that UCC wanted to meet me. So i told her that it has to be on my terms -for instance that they pay for the interpreter's fee and loss of CAO offer which i turned it down in the first place.
So we met in their office and they agreed to pay for interpreter's fees and offered me a place in Finance instead of accounting course (which was full).
So i thought that chapter was closed after all that. However it went on from one set of problem to another set of problems over the past 2 years.
Various problems such as booking the Electronic note taker/s and scribe writer who came in a certain (same) lecture quite a few times despite my e-mails (i stated-only electronic note taker) to the disability office. Unfortunately, they had to pay out two of them out of my support grant at the end of the day, which they had obtained from the Dept of Education. That demonstrates poor organisation on their part re hiring of two people in a certain lecture.
One of their problems was i wasn't notified of one exam which hadn't shown up nor was it posted in their electronic blackboard. Imagine that i wasn't aware of it until on the day of the exam. It was shocking and surreal. No wonder i was furious & pissed off with UCC disability office.
Also some lecturer had shown their video's without any subtitles or a transcript of that video. It was unacceptable- how can you expect me to hear everything without any form of subtitles or a transcript compared to my ex class mates???
It was no problem as regards to other things organising exam centres, other support such as laptop, hiring the electronic note takers et al. HOWEVER, a strong nagging & persistent point was their negative attitude towards us.
Example of this was when a friend of mine emailed them re only 6 weeks note taking instead of 12 weeks but they (UCC DSS) went ahead with 12 weeks booking which infuriated her. She knew that they made a huge mistake there as there was no redress in her case. She lost 6 weeks of grant money, which was totally unacceptable in my view. That 6 weeks grant money could be used for other things such as extra support. They had to go for the cheapest note taker that they can get as her grant budget got smaller after that.
Naturally i was furious and pissed off with UCC disability office for making many mistakes over the past twenty four months. There was a huge question mark regarding their negative attitudes towards any deaf student/s like myself, my two Deaf friends of mine in UCC. It was very stressful as i got sick. It was only when i recovered as i realised it played a part there. My doctor said it to me it was the cause of it as he was furious. So when i left UCC as it was like stress had been relieved in some kind of a way.
Theirs (UCC DSS) negative attitude had already played a part there- defined direct bearing on us as regards to their service & also their refusal to pay for it, many of their staff not fully aware of it re various disability needs, their continued discrimination to me (3 times) even they at times were seemed to be unaware of it that doesn't really excuse them of anything including discrimination.
No complaint procedures back then only highlights their lack of awareness in provision of their services. It could only be construed as sweeping under the carpets re no complaints procedure.
Their negative attitudes towards us and their inability to solve various problems which seems to run and run, their knowledge of ' deaf' awareness (their provision of Sign language interpreter doesn't however mean that they have full knowledge or full awareness at all). For instance no hand-outs in advance re a certain tutorial as head of my course apologised to me re this after I walked out.
All you have to do is go behind their facade and see it for yourself. It's like any surface where you can see it on the top of the surface (no problems- illusionary surface) but not beneath the surface where many problems lie lurking there). That’s for the sake of analogy.
What prompted me to leave UCC was their persistent negative attitude/s towards us as i was discriminated again which i have had enough of that shyte coming from them which was not surprising(when looking back now). In hindsight, i shouldn't have taken up their offer at all after HEA intervened in the first place. All of these above mentioned problems were the main contributory factor in my decision to leave UCC.
I have transferred to another higher education institution. I have no regrets of transferring out of UCC as it went well for me so far up to now.
The main reason for my posting here is to warn any Deaf aspiring students who wish to come to UCC to study re pitfalls there.0 -
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Thanks for the advice Cormac,I think you were the interpreter at the CDA introductory class a few weeks back
I've decided to do that class but It just a bit of a pain having to go back to the beginning again. I already paid €200 to do a 20 week FETAC course in Limerick and passed their Level 1. Its just a bit of waste of money having to go back to the beginning again and I'm trying to save my funds for my masters in social work! They should really have a national regulated ISL training, it seemes to be different courses all over the place. OK,Sorry rant over
Sorry I didn't mean to derail thread! 0
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