Chapter 6: Awareness-raising

6.1 Overall approaches

Besides ensuring environmental accessibility, it is paramount to raise the awareness and understanding about disabilities, equality and accessibility in order to effectively co-create cultural and systemic shift for an inclusive campus.
Awareness-raising training should be provided for all university members including staff and students to promote mutual support, help, respect regardless of the disability status to cater for the inherent diversity of university members.
Training on the concepts and practice of rights-based accessibility provision should be incorporated as a core value in all types of awareness-raising training and materials.
Wherever possible, staff and students with disabilities should be involved in the development of the training from idea conceptualization to drafting the training manual (or even the training delivery) to ensure the perspectives and needs of people with disabilities are properly included.
Training workshops, resources and consultation are provided to university staff to boost their perceived efficacy in providing accessibility services and disability-related accommodations.
Up-to-date knowledge transfer and inclusive culture immersion should be encouraged. Periodic electronic newsletter of disability- and accessibility-related information can be issued by the Office of Accessibility Services to all university members through mass emails. Examples of such information include educational materials, activities updates, collaborations with NGOs and relevant latest research findings.
Funding may be provided for inclusion promotion projects initiated by university members.

6.2 Staff development

6.2.1. Engagement of new staff

The University should incorporate elements of disability and accessibility awareness into the new staff induction and orientation programmes as well as the “New Staff Handbook” to engage them in an inclusive culture, shaping their perception that disability and accessibility awareness is inherently part of the nature of the job duty.
For universities which provide official name cards for staff and postgraduates, Braille can be printed on the name cards as well.

6.2.2. Handy guide and online self-learning materials

The University should include the relevant policies and brief information about accessibility services and disability-related accommodations in the Staff Handbook to shape it as an inherent part of the job nature and duty.
The University should provide the following online self-learning materials as a handy guide:
- Integrated guidance to staff on how to support students with disabilities
- Fact sheets, e.g. statistics of staff and students with disabilities, basic concepts of disability, diversity, equal opportunities, inclusion, and accessibility
- Leaflets about available accessibility services and examples of disability-related accommodations
- Frequently asked questions and sample scenarios
Examples:

6.2.3. Staff training workshops, seminars and courses

Workshops can be regular or periodic. The workshops can focus on different aims each time, e.g., attitudinal shift, knowledge and skill-building, contact-based, experiential simulation, or storytelling of living experiences.
Topics to be covered include but are not limited to:
- the intersecting issues of the understanding people with disabilities;
- CRPD, Disability Discrimination Ordinance (Cap. 487), other relevant policies and manuals;
- basic concepts of disabilities, diversity, equal opportunities, reasonable accommodations, inclusion, and accessibility, rights-based model of disability;
- assistive and accessible technology, web and multimedia accessibility, and other support approaches;
- how to interact with guide dogs and their users
- sight guide technique, especially for buddy of students with visual impairment and security guard of the campus
- sharing of living experiences of students and/or alumni with disabilities. The sharing sessions might be videotaped upon students’ and/or alumni’s consent and uploaded onto the staff intranet for reference later when they encounter students with disabilities in the near future.
These training workshops should be mainstreamed by making them part of the existing staff training workshops. For example, web and multimedia accessibility skills workshops could be included in the existing information technology and library workshops series.
The training workshop materials should be uploaded on the staff intranet for future reference unless there are issues with copyright or other issues.
External guests could be invited to give talks and/or exchange ideas with students and staff on specific and more advanced issues and contexts of disabilities, diversity, equal opportunities, inclusion and accessibility.

6.2.4. Joint-university tours, forums and conferences

Observation of current practices and campus environment
Service experience sharing, networking, establishing cross-institutional collaborations, knowledge exchange of up-to-date inclusion and accessibility concepts and good practices
These events aim to build up a stronger voice to advocate the government to formulate policies regarding inclusive education and accessibility in the higher education and to allocate more financial resources and manpower to this area.

6.2.5. Consultation service

Given the myriad of accessibility services and disability-related accommodations and students’ personalized situations, sometimes staff might encounter difficulty figuring out the appropriate ways to practice accessibility when performing their duties.
Staff might experience different extent of stress and negotiation situations with colleagues and/or students.
Consultation service that is mainly managed by Accessibility Coordinators and counsellors could provide preliminary advice and guidance to staff on how to address the concerns and difficulties. Counsellors would help relieve the stress and recurrent negotiations in relation to the provision of accessibility services and disability-related accommodations. Referral to other departments or external organizations for further consultation and/or help might be conducted.
The consultation sessions aim at forming a reliable channel for the staff to safely and comfortably give any constructive feedback and share their first-hand feelings of providing the accessibility services and disability-related accommodations.
The Office of Accessibility could make effective use of any feedback collected from the staff and submit to the Accessibility Service Governance Committee and even the Cross-institutional Accessibility Service Committee for service evaluation and continual improvement.

6.3 Student development

6.3.1. The University should:

Integrate the topics of disability, diversity, equal opportunities, inclusion, and accessibility into the curriculum for student development, e.g. cross-disciplinary general education course. Topics to be covered include but are not limited to:
- the intersecting issues of the understanding people with disabilities;
- CRPD; Disability Discrimination Ordinance (Cap. 487), other relevant policies and manuals;
- basic concepts of disabilities, diversity, equal opportunities, reasonable accommodations, inclusion, and accessibility, rights-based model of disability;
- assistive and accessible technology;
- how to interact with guide dogs and their users
Include workshops on web and multimedia accessibility skills in the information technology and library workshop series.
Provide training by the Office of Accessibility Services to all cabinet members of student societies. The content could include the importance and skillsets of practicing inclusion in all kinds of programmes organized by student societies such as orientation series, recommendation of inclusion activities. It equips students with diversity and accessibility awareness so that the events they organize will have different accessibility elements right from the beginning.
- This aims at building up an inclusive culture and reducing the chance of making any “afterthought accommodations” upon individual request.
- The cabinet of the student societies would be re-formed every year. It is suggested to record the workshops and the actual events for future reference by new cabinet members in coming years to ensure continuity.
Make available the support guidelines and relevant resources for staff to postgraduates who may work as teaching assistants and hostel tutors as they often help instructors to execute different accessibility services and disability-related accommodations for different courses and students with disabilities.
Foster inclusive culture by promoting mutual support, help, respect regardless of the disability status to cater for the inherent diversity of university members.

6.3.2. Examples of practices of overseas universities

Disability Equality Training, Disability Resource Center, University of Cambridge

6.3.3. References

6.4 Message framing in inclusion-promoting programmes and materials

6.4.1. Introduction

We should pay careful attention to the possibly ableist implications of the following message framing in cultivating the awareness of disability, diversity, equal opportunities, inclusion and accessibility. Also refer to Chapter 5.5 Inclusive terminology.

6.4.2. Misuse of the "love and caring 愛心 / 關愛" approach

Mind the issue of reinforcing the charity model of disability.
It is always good to show love and care to others. However, accessibility should not be solely reduced to an act of benevolence showing love and care, or anything that is “extra” of the existing provision.
All persons including people with disabilities are entitled to accessibility as basic human rights. Accessibility should be an inherent and integral component of the environment and system functioning.
Therefore, rights-based instead of benevolence-based provision of accessibility should be emphasized.

6.4.3. Fostering inclusion by promoting helping behaviour

It is common to foster inclusive interactions by emphasizing the needs and barriers encountered by people with disabilities, which drive other people’s intention to help people with disabilities.
When talking about ways of inclusive interactions with people with disabilities, it is often framed as “how we can help them [followed by some examples]”.
However, we should not stereotypically assume that people with disabilities are always the one-way receivers of assistance.
Mutual assistance on the basis of the needs of each other is one of the many facets of inclusive interactions.
It is suggested the idea of “inclusive helping behaviours” should be conveyed:
- do give helping hands when people with disabilities are asking for help;
- do not make assumptions of the needs of people with disabilities;
- be careful of providing uninvited help and forcing others to accept your helping hands;
- politely ask whether and how you can help; and
- do not feel offended if your helping hands are rejected
Avoid motivating student volunteer work and helping behaviour by writing slogans such as “you complete the life of students with disabilities” or “your volunteering makes students with disabilities shine”, which might reinforce the wrong stereotypical perception that “people with disabilities are incomplete”.
- People with disabilities are not incomplete.
- Equal status of people with and without disabilities should be emphasized.

6.4.4. Possible issues of inspiration porn

Avoid putting much pressure on other students with disabilities when emphasizing too much on some current students, staff and/or alumni with disabilities who have “remarkable achievements” as role models through storytelling or first-person sharing. Mind the issues of possibly manifesting “inspiration porn”.
Inspiration porn is the stereotypical portrayal of people with disabilities doing something ordinary as “inspirational” solely or in part on the basis of their disabilities (Stella Young, 2014).
However, this storytelling approach is often used to “inspire” others by conveying the idea of “see how these people with disabilities can overcome barriers with a never-give-up attitude and complete this and that” to motivate people without disabilities to try harder. The hidden agenda is that if people with disabilities can achieve their goals, then surely can people without disabilities. It might also put much pressure on students with disabilities to think that they have to be an “inspiration” to matter.
After all, the accomplishments of people with disabilities are worth celebrating on the basis of their competency (instead of their disability status) just as it is to celebrate the accomplishments of people without disabilities.

6.4.5. Mixed effects of disability simulation programs

Disability simulation program is a common training approach to increase understanding of people with disabilities.
However, some studies found that participation in disability simulation programmes was associated with mixed effects and some even an increase in negative attitudes toward people with disabilities (Flower, Burns, Bottsford-Miller, 2007; Nario-Redmond, Gospodinov, & Cobb, 2017; VanPuymbrouck, Heffron, Sheth, The, & Lee, 2017).
Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the significance of message framing and debriefing to minimize the unintended and stereotypical reinforcement of ableist concepts.
It is expected that participants might be shocked by many obstacles during the simulation, which they would not experience in their own daily life, e.g. getting stuck at the front door just because of a step while you are using wheelchair.
Such intense experiences can be addressed at the debriefing by deciphering the sources of these environmental barriers and the corresponding solutions.