Thursday 28th June
How do we ensure compliance with
the Equality Act
through the design of our
education buildings?
Venue: RICS, Great George Street, London, SW1P 3AD
Time; 7.45 - 10.15am
The Equality Act was introduced in 2010 and requires reasonable adjustments to be made in relation to accessibility. Education establishments need to carry out accessibility planning for disabled pupils yet there are still issues in relation to inadequate information for project teams to ensure that clients meet their obligations.
Come and join our expert panel as we discuss:
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What are the key aspects of the act in relation to how we should be designing?
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What key information should project teams be receiving from the client?
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Is enough thought given in a student’s ECHP in assessing the suitability of their proposed learning environment?
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How should establishments manage the pathway of transition for new students?
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Who ultimately is making the assessment of what is reasonable?
Speakers
ALLFIE
Simone Aspis
Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE)
Simone is the Policy and Campaigns Coordinator for the Alliance for Inclusive Education, an organisation that campaigns for disabled pupils and students rights to inclusive education. She oversaw the campaign to retain the presumption of mainstream education within the Children and Families Act and was successful in securing changes in the Apprenticeships and Enterprise Acts that enabled regulated apprenticeships to be more inclusive of disabled pupils.
Simone undertook the research and drafting of ALLFIE’s submission on the Government (lack of) implementation of Article 24, disabled pupils human rights to inclusive education to the UNCRPD monitoring committee during their scrutiny of Government’s performance of the implementation of UNCRPD that took place during 2017. Besides policy work, Simone provides disabled peoples organisations and disabled students training around the principles and law around inclusive education practice as part of the organisation’s inclusion champions capacity building project work.
Haverstock
Kate McGechan
Haverstock
Kate is a senior architect with over 12 years experience. Currently, she is the project architect of Linden Farm Supported Living Setting for young adults with autism in Surrey. The design provides residents with an exemplar home environment, whilst enabling the assistance of supported living care.
Kate is passionate about how architects can and should be actively involved in addressing issues of equality and inclusion in the built environment. She is an active member of the London and South East region of the Access Association and is working towards NRAC (Access) Consultant accreditation.
Haverstock
Jane Simpson
Jane Simpson Access
Jane is an Architect and NRAC registered Access Consultant. Throughout her career she has developed a broad range of expertise working within a local authority background, private practice and planning department with over two decades of experience in inclusion.
She provides advice on a broad range of issues, often clarifying complex aspects of the Equality Act 2010, the Special Education Needs and Disability Act 2001 and other statutory and legislative information. Her work encompasses, policy, strategy, operational planning, and working with design and contractor teams on a variety of projects, from infrastructure, through detailed design to handover.
She sits on the Civic Trust Selwyn Goldsmith Awards Panel, is the RIBA’s Specialist Practice Advisor on inclusion, representing them on Design Council, Regulations & Standards, CPD, UIA Architecture for All Western Europe and BSI committees, including involvement in the recent BS8300 revision.