Disabilities
Activities:
Psychology Disability Committee
Student committee that organises a range of activities and initiatives aimed at building community and support for disabled students in the psychology department this can include but is not limited to:
- Body Doubling study support group
- Accessible department tours
- Inclusive social events fo disabled students to connect
- Workshops to help highlight support (e.g. IT software) and navigate systems (e.g. VLE, Student Support Plans)
- Psych Help Hub - A repository of useful links, tools and strategies to help support disabled (or any) students through their studies.
Ways to get involved:
- Become part of the committee to help initiate and run events.
- Visit our Psychology Disability Committee website, or look out for emails and adverts about upcoming events, workshops etc that you can come along to.
Distractibles Group
The Distractibles is a University-wide group aimed at neurodiverse staff and students, meet monthly to chat through challenges and successes.
Ways to get involved:
- Come along to one of our online monthly meet-ups
- Join one of our weekly in-person meet-ups
- Join our Discord channel
- Take a look through our huge collection of grassroots-grown tips, tricks and strategies on our collaborative Google Doc or toolkit website.
The Disability Community (DISCO) Project
The Disability Community (DISCO) Project is a collaborative project between staff and students across academic departments at the University of York. The aim of the project is to foster and grow community amongst students (and staff) with disabilities, long term health conditions and/or neurodivergence to help build their sense of belonging within their departments and the University.
Visit the DISCO Project Website to find out what we're up to, our latest research findings and how to get involved.
PhD Disability Network
We meet monthly on the last Tuesday of every month. Doing a PhD is hard for anyone, but there can be additional challenges and barriers if you're disabled. As such this group's main aim is to provide a space for disabled PhD students to connect, share and support. This group has and continues to also help to enact real change in the department to help make the PhD journey more accessible where possible.
Q&A and information events
Run by either the PhD Disability Network or the Psychology Disability Committee or both. Events aimed at raising awareness and understanding of disabilities as well as providing those with disabilities with more information and support. For example, the Psychology PhD Network recently run an online padlet based Q&A event answering questions from undergraduates and postgraduates about doing a PhD with a disability.
Research Projects
Research project: Role of community and sense of belonging for disabled students at uni
To find out more about our past, current and future research in this area, visit the Research Page of the DISCO (Disability Community) Project website.
Champion bio:
I'm currently a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology. My research interests are in typical and atypical language development and processing with recent interests considering the role of community and a sense of belonging in the disabled student experience. Before joining the Psychology department at the University of York, I was a primary school teacher where I worked in both mainstream and special educational needs settings, the latter experience having a particularly big impact on my current work within the department. I also identify as being disabled myself as I am dyslexic and have hip issues which affects my mobility.
