Media & Disability

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• Guide on media & disability
  • Who Created this Guide?
  • Disabled People as Programme Participants
  • Employing Disabled People
    • Recruiting Staff for Programme-Making Roles
    • Presenters
    • Legal Issues
  • Access to Broadcast Services
  • Communicating with Disabled People
  • Adjustments and Aids for People Specific Disabilities
  • Glossary of Terms
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• Legislation
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Guide on media & disability

Presenters

Paying for adjustments

Many disabled people need no adjustments to be made, just the opportunity to prove they can do the job. Many adjustments cost little or nothing. The average cost of an adjustment is just 75 – 150 Euros. Some countries have government support to assist with payment. Adjustments for disabled people are likely to benefit others.

Training

As the percentage of disabled people working in the audio-visual industries is still fairly small, you might consider increasing the training opportunities for them in your organization.
Here are some ideas:

• Set up a regular trainee scheme for disabled people.
• Encourage expansion of training funds to fund disabled trainees in production.
• Identify sources of matching funding for traineeships.
• Contact any local or regional film or television commissions or agencies to explore ways of promoting training for disabled people.
• Set up a production course for a mix of disabled and non-disabled people.
• Consider different types of training and support such as mentoring, and networks.
• Evaluate training and assess future opportunities for inclusion.
• Establish work placement schemes specifically for disabled people.
• Ensure that existing work placement and trainee schemes include disabled people.
• Hold open day sessions for disabled young people from schools and colleges to increase their awareness of work experience and careers in the audio-visual industries.

Training for Access Information Technology

There are various software packages that enable disabled people to use computers. They are available via the Internet. I.T. trainers need to be aware that they will have to adapt their training methods to teach these specialist packages to disabled people. Reasonable adjustments need to be made to training where necessary to ensure that it accommodates the requirements of a disabled person, and can be delivered to an equivalent standard to that given to a non-disabled person. It should also accommodate the additional functionality of the enabling technology.

Three examples of software packages are:

• Jaws Speech output for blind people (www.freedomscientific.com)
• Zoomtext Screen magnification for people with low vision (www.nanopac.com)
• Dragon Naturally Speaking Voice activated software for people who can't use the mouse or keyboard (www.dragontalk.com)

Any supporting materials such as handouts will need to be supplied in a format that is accessible to the user. Perhaps large print, email or audio-tape.

Disabled people will not have the same peripheral support because members of their team are likely not to be using access technology. The training team may need to visit a site each time a new disabled person joins a department. Even though you probably wouldn't provide this to your non-disabled users, it is a reasonable adjustment under the law to accommodate the additional requirements of a disabled person.