KEYFORT Group provide Education Services to students across the whole of the North of England.
In this series, we will be sharing our Education team's day to day work and how they make a real difference to the people that they support.
We start by speaking with Leanne W, who has shared with us the Band 1 and Band 2 support types which some students we support can access. She tells us the process of the support and gives a case study to bring the support to life.
What are the different types of Band 1 and Band 2 support that you offer students?
“We offer loads of different types of support at this level! It all depends on what the student needs to access. For example, we help students with;
- Sighted Guide
- Study Assistant
- Proof Reader
- Exam Support
- Workshop/Lab Assistant
- Manual Note Taker
- Practical Support Assistant
- Social Mentoring
- Library Support
- Scribe
- Reader
These support types are mostly carried out on campus with the students but some such as note taking and study assistance can be provided online too. “
If a student wanted to access Education support, how do they do this?
“We receive the referral for support from the university where the student is attending."
"We then ask our coordinator to contact the student to introduce themselves. We try to match up the students with a coordinator who is the best fit to help.”
How do you help the student at the start?
“Our initial email contains lots of useful information for the student on how their support will work and what the next steps are. We make sure we always ask the student first to tell us their preferences on how they would like to be supported, what types of support worker they would like and how they prefer communication.”
So, what’s next when you get a referral?
“We can then then make sure we select the support worker which can make that real difference to the student. The remit of our support is identified by an assessment of what the student may need support with in a university environment.”
“Our support worker will then contact the student to introduce themselves and arrange a place and time to meet for their first session.”
How do you know the support is making a real difference?
“Our support staff are encouraged to ask for feedback from their students on how support is going so adjustments can be made. This is really important always, but especially if the student hasn’t received support before, it can take time to adjust to something new like this. It allows our students also to request changes to their support”
Example of Support in Practice – Visually Impaired (Blind) Student
“Academic support can be hugely beneficial for students, for example a visually impaired student would not be able to safely navigate campus without support (especially in the event of an emergency evacuation).”
“Sighted guide support enables them to access all areas of campus safely, get to lectures on time and access resources in the library. Note Taking can provide them with summary notes of the lecture content in electronic format (typed up) which they can load up to specialist software on their laptop to be able to revise for exams etc. Without this support this student would be unable to continue with their studies.”
Thank you to Leanne for sharing this with us. We will be exploring the Band 3 and Band 4 support in our second part of the blogging series!
If you want to learn more about our education team, please feel free to give us a ring on 0191 491 1735 and select the 'Education' option. If you feel you could benefit from the support our education team offer, speak with your universities Disability Advisor who will be able to provide you with further information on what might be available for you.
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