Disability Support and Inclusion

BARBRI provides a confidential, professional, and accessible service for disabled students or those requiring adjustments for other reasons, e.g. pregnancy.

The objectives are to:

• Provide advice and guidance for prospective and current disabled students.
• To ensure equal opportunity, access, and attainment for disabled students within the university.

Whom we support

We support individuals with any impairment, disability, medical condition, or injury, including those with:

• Specific learning difficulties
• Physical or mobility impairments and injuries
• Sensory impairments
• Mental health difficulties
• Long-standing illnesses or health conditions
• Asperger’s syndrome and autism
• Temporary - We will assist students who have a temporary disability, which lasts for a period longer than three weeks. Temporary disability can include injuries, e.g. broken arm, or viral infections, e.g. glandular fever
• Pregnancy - Pregnant students can register with our service and can receive reasonable adjustments throughout their pregnancy
• Trans* students in medical transition

^{*Trans is intended to be an inclusive umbrella term which may be used to describe a student whose gender identity differs in some way from that which they were assigned at birth included but not limited to; non-binary people, gender non-conforming people and those who partially or incompletely identify with their sex assigned at birth.}

Contact Us

Please contact BARBRI for further information, a confidential chat, or to arrange an appointment. London Team at +44 2038 550162 or international@barbri.com. BARBRI Altior Team at +44 2920 451000 or infoaltior@barbri.com.

For more information please see our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy, a copy of which can be found here.

Disabled Students’ Allowance

What is the Disabled Students’ Allowance?

• You can apply for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) if you live in the UK and have a disability that affects your ability to study on an undergraduate or postgraduate course in the UK.
• The DSA helps to pay for extra costs that you may have to pay when attending your course, as a direct result of your disability. The allowance can help with the costs of a non-medical helper, major items of specialist equipment, travel, and other costs.
• More information about DSA can be found in Bridging the Gap on the Government website.

How to apply

Students should apply as soon as they can for DSA to make sure they have everything in place for starting their course; however, students can apply during their course. The process can take up to 14 weeks, DSA is open for applications in the early Spring.

• Obtain medical evidence (e.g. doctor's letter or full diagnostic dyslexia report).
• Complete application form available from the DSA website.
• Your funding body (either Student Finance England or Wales) will respond to you in approximately 3-4 weeks stating your eligibility
• If your application has been accepted, the letter will ask you to arrange a Study Needs Assessment. The DSA Needs Assessment is not a test but an opportunity to evaluate a range of assistive technologies and study strategies. These will be considered in relation to the impact of your disability and the demands of your chosen course of study.
• Book a Study Needs Assessment with an accredited DSA Quality Assurance Group assessment centre.

Your chosen assessment centre will help you through the rest of the process.

Other sources of funding

EU and international students are not covered by the UK Disabled Students' Allowance system.

Funding from charitable trusts

Trusts may help you for different reasons, depending on their criteria. For example, they may help because:

• the subject or course you are studying
• your circumstances, such as your impairment or medical condition
• where you live or have been brought up
• your family, your parental circumstances or their occupation
• your current or past occupation
• or a combination of the above.

Please see the Disability Rights UK website for more information.

State benefit assistance

For further information about state benefit assistance, please visit the UK government website. Please note that not all benefits are compatible with Disabled Students’ allowance. Please check with DSA for an updated list.

Disability Support Agreement

A Disability Support Agreement is a document put together by BARBRI, which specifies all the reasonable adjustments an individual student is entitled to while studying with us.

We require supporting medical evidence in order to put any reasonable adjustments in place. Once we have received the medical evidence, we will review the recommendations and draw up a Disability Support Agreement. Disability Support Agreements are valid for the length of the course, including any re-sits, unless agreed otherwise.

Where BARBRI considers that an adjustment requested by a student is not reasonable or is not supported by sufficient evidence, the student will be advised accordingly. The student can subsequently liaise with BARBRI and either submit further evidence to support their case.

Non-Medical Helpers

Non-Medical Helpers is the (non-medical) human support recommended in a students Disabled Students' Allowance Student Finance entitlement letter, which may include the following:

• Specialist study skills tuition for students with specific learning difficulties (SpLDs), including dyslexia and dyspraxia.
• Specialist mentoring for students with mental health difficulties and chronic health conditions (including chronic fatigue syndrome/ ME).
• Specialist mentoring for students with autism spectrum disorders or Asperger’s syndrome.
• Notetakers to assist students who are unable to take their own notes.
• General support workers for assistance, for example with carrying study materials between sites or accessing library resources.
• Orientation support on arrival for new students with visual impairments or who have difficulty route finding.
• Assistive software training.

Disclosure and Confidentiality Declaring your disability or needs

If you have a disability, medical or mental health condition, pregnancy, specific learning difficulty, or if you are in the medical aspect of gender transition, please make sure that you let our team know and provide the appropriate supporting evidence as soon as possible.

This information will allow us to contact you prior to your course to ensure that we can work with you to make informed decisions about the support you may require.

We can then liaise with others who should know about the effects of your disability, such as staff and the assessments office. It is important to understand the value of declaring your disability. If we do not know about it, we may not be able to provide the support you require.

It is advisable and beneficial to declare your disability as soon as possible. However, you can let BARBRI know at any stage of your course. Please note that support cannot be backdated; in some cases of late disclosure, students may need to take a break from study in order that sufficient support can be put in place for them. We would, therefore, encourage you to disclose your disability to us as soon as possible, as failure to do so may affect our ability to put in place certain adjustments by the start of your course.

How your information will be used

The information that you provide will be used to enable us to liaise with those colleagues who need to know about the support that you require.

Your data will not be disclosed for other purposes without your consent, except where there is a legal obligation to do so or where exceptional issues of personal safety arise.

The information will be processed and held in the university administration systems and used for the administration of your academic-related support and any other legitimate purpose. In doing so, BARBRI will observe at all times the data protection principles embodied in the General Data Protection Regulation.

Useful links

Disabled Students Allowance - Help if you're a student with a learning difficulty, health problem, or disability.

Royal Institute for the Blind - Help if you're a student with a learning difficulty, health problem, or disability.

Dyslexia Association - The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) has been the voice of dyslexic people since 1972.

Dyspraxia Foundation - Offering help and advice to people with dyspraxia, parents, carers, and families about or on the subject of dyspraxia.

Action on Hearing Loss - We're the UK’s leading charity supporting people with hearing loss, deafness, and tinnitus.

The Disabilities Trust - We are a leading national charity offering specialist community-based and residential support for adults with acquired brain injury, complex physical or learning disabilities, and for people with autism, including those in education.

Access to Work - Get support in work if you have a disability or health condition (Access to Work).

SANE - Mental Health Awareness - We believe that no-one affected by mental illness should face crisis, distress, or despair completely alone.

AbilityNet - AbilityNet supports people of any age, living with any disability or impairment to use technology to achieve their goals at home, at work, and in education.

Educational Guidance Service - Our large team of Educational and Occupational Psychologists have a wealth of experience working with children, young people, and adults who are experiencing specific learning difficulties and social and/or emotional problems.

Student Health Association - The Student Health Association, serves as a forum for members to discuss matters relevant to the provision, quality, and effective management of student health care.