Now contrary to belief that NUS grinds to a halt the day after annual conference I thought I would write about what I have been up to since the long long drive back from Blackpool at the end of March. It seems that people forget that outgoing NEC actually has a quarter of their time in office left after annual conference and I for one was not slowing down because elections had been won and lost. I am the National Disabled Students Officer for the 3 months after annual conference as well and I am determined to make sure the campaign carries on changing the lives of disabled students. So since annual conference what has been going on? Well grab a cup of tea and maybe even a choccie biscuit (maybe even a sandwich considering how long this bloody blog is!!!) and have a read. I will be talking about:-

Liberation 2006

DSA/QAG

Consultations

Fitness to Practise

Sex

Regional Conferences

AUT/NATFHE Action

National Council

Keele Referendum

Handover

And jobs

Liberation 2006

Yes liberation is back- so come along. I have been the lead officer on this event, arranging venues, getting publicity done; liaising with events, sorting out agendas and chasing liberation officers (now have this whole visual in my head of me chasing Jo, Pav, James J and Kat around NUS HQ- hope that vision hasn’t made you swallow your cup of tea down the wrong way!!!). But now it is here and done and all ready to rock. Liberation 2006 looks like it will be the best yet and it would be great if as many of you attended this event as possible on July 16th. And I mean ALL officers- please please do not just hand this over to your liberation officers. In fact sometimes it’s not the liberation officers who need to attend this event but others. You know those ones who sit there and mutter quietly under their breath why do we need liberation campaigns anyway? Aren’t we all equal anyhow? This event will hopefully get rid of some of the myths of the liberation campaigns, introduce you to the new officers and campaigns but also give you ideas and thoughts on how you can get you and your Union involved. This is an important year for equality in education with lots of legislation going through so it would be great to see as many people attend the day as possible. We also have some great panel speakers and to top it all off the event is £10 for HE and free for FE- to find out more go here

DSA/QAG

NUS is a member of the DSA QAG group- which is all about quality assurance of the disabled students allowance. We now have a web site up and running - www.dsa-qag.org.uk/ and from June 2006 there will be a new era of QAG. NUS is now a board member of QAG and I think it is great that NUS has fully engaged in this process.

Consultations

It seems that at the moment nearly every week we have a consultation to respond to. Responses that have been done so far over the last 3 months have been the DRC Post 16 code of practise, the Equalities Review, Disability Debate about young people and feeding into policy seminars about housing, education, transport, incapacity benefit and social and health care for disabled people. It seems that every week I am at a meeting with the DRC, at parliament and writing a response!!! This is definitely the year for disability and it is great for NUS to be playing such an active role in these consultations and we are being recognised as the representative voice for disabled students in the post 16 sector.

DRC Fitness to Practise

Out of all the consultations that we are responding to the one I really wanted to flag up was the DRC Fitness to practise. The Disability Rights Commission’s (DRC’s) 12-month Formal Investigation will look into how training, qualifying and working practices within these professions may be posing challenges to the entry and progress of disabled people. To find out more about the investigation go here to find out more about it. We have been asked to be a member of the steering group. This will hopefully have a huge impact for disabled students who want to study teaching, nursing or social care. Frequently we hear about students who study these disciplines and then disclose their disabilities and are told that they no longer can continue their studies. NUS wants to ensure that we play a really active role on this investigation so if you have any thoughts or questions then please do get in touch as we realise that fitness to practise is still a huge issue.

Talking about sex again

I attended the NUS Sexual Health lobby where I spoke about the issue of disabled people and sex and their access to sexual health advice and protection. To find out more about this read my blog titled Lets Talk about Sex. Now as you know NUS SWD Campaign has been running the sexual revolution campaign (check here and here) about this issue and it seems that we have been making a big impact. So much so that 2 of the elected representatives on the panel wanted to meet NUS further to discuss the campaign. So a week later it was back to parliament on 2 separate days to meet Sandra Gidley and Baroness Gould. The meeting with Baroness Gould, who is the chair of the All parliamentary group for pro choice and sexual health, was very productive. She requested that the campaign give a presentation to the all parliamentary group on 2 separate occasions. One about why and how we got the campaign to be pro choice- to read more go here and then to go again to speak about the sexual revolution campaign. Now we need your involvement for these presentations because we need case studies etc. to take forward so please do get in touch.

Regional Conferences

This time I was on the West Side and I went to 3 out of the 4 regional conferences. I am sad to say I missed one of the regionals but there is a reason. I was at RAWS conference doing workshops about the Disability Equality Duty and mental health- so I hope that I was forgiven. Regionals were full of the usual:- elections, holding us to account, motorways, hotels, power points, debates and lots of frustration. I have to say this I think in theory regionals are a good thing and whilst they have vastly improved since I was a sabb they are definitely not quite there yet and there is still lots of room for improvement. Sometimes I do wonder how do you really keep us accountable at these things- I mean in the end what can you do? Censure us? That’s just a metaphorical slap on the wrist. But I do think that you need to keep coming to them because it is a great way of networking, pulling the regions together, finding out what is happening and sharing good practise. I don’t think that we should get rid of regionals- we just need to improve upon them. To see the regional presentations go here

AUT/NATFHE Action

Have been doing lots of things lobbying on this issue with regards to disabled students as we had concerns that disabled students might not receive their DSAs, that there might not be the correct support put into place etc. when students did sit their exams. Its not like some disabled students can just hop back onto a train to go back to university to sit their exams and we wanted to make sure that disabled students requirements had been taking into consideration. I sent letters to the Minster for the Disabled, Minster for HE & FE, wrote briefings and met with staff within NUS on this issue.

National Council

I couldn’t be at national council because I had to be at Keele University for the NUS affiliation debate and campaign but let me say this I think that it is totally wrong that it was inquorate and shame on all those members who did not have a good reason not to be there and actually allow the movement to have policy and debate about the AUT/NATFHE action.

Keele Referendum

I headed up the NUS Affiliation Campaign at Keele UGM. So on bank holiday Monday it was off to Keele Uni to say yes to NUS. The team including Veronica (who did a brilliant yes to NUS speech- well done VK), Kat Stark, Ama and Andy and Joe from WMANUS who all did great and guess what we won. A huge well done team and also a huge thanks to both the incoming and outgoing exec at Keele. Highlight for me? Getting a huge boo from the Tories :D. Hehehehehehehe. But I will say this some of the frustration of the referendum is the fact that students on the ground do not know what NUS does for them. We need to make our wins and what we actually do more public. I enjoy referendums because it gives us a chance to speak to students and let them know what we do for them and the impact that NUS has had on their everyday lives. I firmly believe that you would miss NUS if it was gone. Now NUS isn’t perfect- I know this after being involved for a while- but it is changing- so people need to stay engaged and help change it and make it relevant. We are all NUS and we all need to be involved to make sure that we deliver a NUS that changes the lives of students. We do have an impact, we do campaign and lobby and we do make a difference- we just need to acknowledge more what we do.

Handover

My time in NUS is drawing to a close and I wanted to ensure that I give Alex Kemp the new Disabled Students Officer (you can contact him on alex.kemp@nus.org.uk) a good handover so I have been planning that and making sure that he met all the relevant people and had all the relevant information. I wish him all the luck in the world.

And jobs

And finally onto jobs- lots of people have been asking me what I am off to do. Well strangely enough on the Wednesday of annual conference (about 2 hours after the president election) someone told me I should go and take a peek at The Guardian as there was the perfect job for me. I read it, loved it, applied, got an interview and got the job!!! So what is it? Well I am off to Unison to be there Disability Equality Organiser. UNISON together with NATFHE had been successful in obtaining DfES funding to develop a project to deliver the new duties in the DDA in colleges and I am heading up the national project. It is about arranging training, empowering disabled members in FE, campaigning for disabled members in FE, setting up disabled workers networks and ensuring disability equality in FE. Basically combining my 2 passions- Disability and FE. I am thrilled to pieces and in hindsight I sometimes wonder is it fate that on the day I lost my election this job came up. So whilst I might be moving on from NUS I will still carry on campaigning in education and fighting for equality. If you would like to get in touch email me on sian.davies@unison.co.uk

So that’s it- activities that I have been up since annual conference. If you are still reading this have you not got any work to do???? It’s been a hectic 2 months but there again it’s been a hectic 2 years- but its great to know that we are still out there, representing and campaigning students. It’s what we do best.

If you have any questions about this blog then please do get in touch.

Thanks

Sian xx

PS Now get back to work!!!

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