UBC will open a Centre for Workplace Accessibility (CWA) to provide support for disabled staff and faculty members.
In an email broadcast sent out to all staff and faculty on March 9, VP HR Marcia Buchholz announced that, effective April 2022, the CWA will function in a centralized location to improve accessibility resources in the workplace, in accordance with UBC’s Inclusion Action Plan (IAP).
These resources include providing equipment and services for disabled staff; minimizing the “medicalization of disability,” where support can be provided to staff without requiring medical documentation to prove their disabled status; and utilizing a new Workplace Accommodation Fund to provide financial support to departments that may require it to accommodate disabled members.
Buchholz stressed that the CWA will build upon the existing Workplace Health Services available to faculty and staff.
“The CWA does not replace these programs, but rather is intended to enhance these resources by creating a central hub for faculty and staff to receive information, resources, and tools, and to support accommodations in order to promote meaningful participation in the workplace,” she wrote in the broadcast.
In a statement to The Ubyssey, Associate VP HR Jerry Chen said that while the centre does not yet have a permanent physical location — it’s will operate out Brock Hall temporarily — it will continue to offer both virtual and in-person services. He added that Kelly McIntosh, senior manager of Workplace Health Services would lead the new centre.
Chen added that the CWA will work with other departments and units to increase equity and accessibility in workplaces.
“Our goals are to build disability inclusion literacy and skills across faculties and departments, improve disability inclusion in the recruitment, interview, and onboarding process, and increase visibility and understanding of disabled faculty and staff working at UBC.”
The CWA was created based on consultations from a number of groups including the Disability Affinity Group, a group that represents disabled faculty and staff,. Founder and Chair Dr. Jennifer Gagnon spoke to The Ubyssey about how the group was involved in the creation of the new centre.
“The centre began [with] us consulting with and sharing many of the barriers that disabled folks were facing at UBC,” she said. “And throughout the process, we've been involved with working with UBC Human Resources on what are some ways that UBC can not only better recognize, but address the challenges that disabled faculty and staff are encountering, towards being fully included at UBC.”
Gagnon said that while the Centre for Accessibility primarily provides support to students, there is a “gap in the supports that were available to support people who were employees.''
She said that according to UBC’s 2022 Workplace Experience Survey, four per cent of all staff, and less than two per cent of those in senior leadership, currently self-identify as disabled.
Gagnon said that she and the Disability Affinity Group were “excited and optimistic” about the opening of the CWA and hoped that it would help lay the foundation for a disability task force.
“A disability task force is very much needed to be able to examine systemic ableism at UBC campus, and to surface the stories of disabled people at UBC for the barriers that they face towards full inclusion and participation at UBC campus.”
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