Ensure support at all stages of placements – before, during, and after
Students in AcTinSite’s research identified a lack of support at all stages of placements. They often began placements without an understanding of the barriers they might encounter in this new setting, so allowing for site visits beforehand would help them know the accommodations they might need beforehand and allow them to make arrangements to receive them. It could also help them identify if a placement simply won’t work for them. Additionally, conducting an accessibility audit of each placement prior to matching students can help to identify potential barriers and solutions. To begin this process, look into Abilities to Work, a not for profit that conducts these audits to “to address your accessibility needs, implement strategies and create best practices so that your organization can achieve exceptional accessible workplace design, thus re-enforcing safety, accessibility and inclusion.”
Additionally, professionals often only check in on students at the beginning of placements when they are first trying to establish the appropriate accommodations. However, students may not know all the barriers they will encounter until later in the placement. Also, many disabilities fluctuate or are episodic in nature, so access needs may change throughout the placement. By offering more checkpoints throughout placements, students would have the chance to re-assess as the placement goes on and bring up any new challenges they encounter. By creating this ongoing dialogue, students would be better supported throughout the placement as a whole. Additionally, offering a checkpoint at the end of placement could allow students to provide feedback to sites regarding challenges they faced and ways to improve the placement experience of future students. However, there is a need for better processes around integrating student feedback. This would involve offering resources for students who share their experiences and suggestions for the WIL process, therefore building student capacity to participate in the conversation. Since they are sharing their time and expertise, HEIs should ensure that they are able to give back to these students. This could take the form of providing them with monetary compensation or course credit. For student groups, it could also involve organizational support such as space or technological resources.
These ideas can be coupled with the previous Action Area of offering continuing education and training for supporting professionals. Oftentimes, a placement can be made more accessible by simply offering greater support to disabled students, which can require placement supervisors to become better educated about accessibility issues and how to mitigate them.
Example tactics:
- Conduct accessibility audits of placements: Accessibility audits help to identify possible barriers for disabled students, so by conducting them before placements, there is an opportunity to address these issues prior to placements starting. Try reaching out to Abilities to Work to see if they will help you conduct them.
- Find or develop education or training sessions, webinars or teach ins.
- Create a web-based platform for students to give feedback to sites post-placement: This gives students an opportunity to review their placements in terms of accessibility, which can help placements improve before their next round of placement students.