NB This is the fifth page of the online version of the SDT Guidance Note Disability disclosure, confidentiality and evidence in a Higher Education context, published in July 2004.

5: Recommendations for Practice

A summary of the Recommendations presented in the text of this Guidance Note:

Recommendation for practice (1): Encouragements to disclose can be embedded in the institution's information systems.
Questions can be put on application forms, reminders of the institution's policies and encouragements to disclose can be circulated to students at key times in the academic year. The existence of specialist resources in the institution can be publicised.
Recommendation for practice (2): Good practices by the institution can minimise the need to disclose.
The natural effect of anticipatory reasonable adjustments embedded in the general design of courses might be to make disclosure unnecessary in many cases.
Recommendation for practice (3): Appropriate training and exhortation to staff can make them easier to disclose to and help them to handle disclosure in a way that is both useful to the student and meets the institution's legal obligations.
Staff development can help staff to deal respectfully with disabled students who disclose and may save staff from making elementary mistakes which can involve the institution incurring liability.
Recommendation for practice (4): The institution should ensure that it is easy to disclose and easy to decide if a person has disclosed.
Efforts should be made to ensure that students know that facilities exist in the institution for them to disclose impairments in a way which is responsive to their sensitivities about disclosing. Establishing such a system and promoting it to students so as to encourage disclosure may well count as an effective anticipatory reasonable adjustment.
Recommendation for practice (5): Assurances relating to the removal of barriers should be realistic.
If an institution gives false assurances regarding adjustments, it might find itself having to compensate a disabled person who, in reliance upon unwise and over-optimistic assurances about possible adjustments, has perhaps given up a job or incurred other expense to enrol for a course which is, in fact, wholly inaccessible to him/her.
Recommendation for practice (6): Course descriptions should provide students with fair, accurate and appropriate information on which to make informed choices.
Course descriptions should fairly and accurately reflect the demands made by a course. This will often help clarify the issues raised by a particular applicant's impairment. They should also be cast in a mode which encourages applicants to discuss with institution staff the extent to which a given course is accessible or can be made accessible to them.
Recommendation for practice (7): Disclosure itself should only be regarded as preliminary and should lead naturally to discussion of study implications.
Disclosure that one falls into an impairment category, or carries medical diagnosis, contributes little if at all to the task of identifying what are the barriers to study in a particular case. That depends on the nature of the subject and the course, as well as on the precise extent or degree of the impairment - matters which require to be discussed with the disabled person.
Recommendation for practice (8): Institutional policies should be clear on the confidentiality of student disclosure.
The institution ought to have a well-thought out policy on the confidentiality of disclosures of a sensitive nature made by students to staff, and staff who are likely to discuss such sensitive matters with students ought to be well-versed in their obligations.
Recommendation for practice (9): Institutions should check that their existing DPA Notification is sufficient to cover processing activities.
If an institution is processing data which is not covered by its Notification, such processing is likely to contravene the DPA. It is worth checking that academic staff and other staff who work with disabled students are aware of what types of processing are covered in the Notification of their institution.
Recommendation for practice (10): Institutions should review documentation on which the personal information of students is collected.
Staff who work with disabled students should be aware that sensitive personal data, including data concerning students' impairments, should normally be gathered, stored and used only in such a way as the student has explicitly consented to. Staff should also be aware that a disclosure of such data which is inconsistent with the DPA may incur liability for the institution. All documentation on which the information on students is collected should contain an appropriate data protection statement outlining what types of processing will take place.
Recommendation for practice (11): Ensure that staff are aware of valid reasons for seeking evidence and refrain from requesting evidence when this is inappropriate.
It is important to ensure that any requirement to produce such evidence is supported by having a proportionate reason for requiring it. Asking a disabled student to provide this evidence, in the absence of clear reasons which are both material and substantial, is likely to be discriminatory.
Recommendation for practice (12): Ensure that mechanisms are in place to enable a balanced judgement of a student's requirements to be made.
Decisions which call for evidence often require evaluation of a student's requirements and entitlements in the context of wider issues. Such evaluation should be done explicitly and in a collaborative manner between the disabled student, the institution's Disability Service and the relevant academic department, with a Disability Adviser normally assuming a lead role.
Recommendation for practice (13): Ensure that some form of evidence of the discussion is collected where a student discloses verbally that s/he has an impairment or disability-related requirements.
Members of staff should make written notes of their discussions with a student where s/he disclosed that s/he has an impairment or disability-related requirements so that the institution has written evidence of the same.

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