Online Information on Employment and Training Opportunities for Disabled People Project Reference Group Meetings

Minutes from the Meeting Tuesday 22th September 1998

St Thomas’s Centre, Ardwick Green North, Manchester

1. Present

Nicola Teece - MCIN
Tish Dockerty - MTMC
Bob Lee - Tameside College
Mary Moss - ISaware/WEA
Ruth Gould - Full Circle Arts
Dave Ellis - Toucan
Alex McDonald - Toucan

Apologies

Diane Topping - CAB
Colin Floyd - Manchester Youth Service, Disability Project
Eve Davidson - ISaware
John Clark - Project Evaluator
Ian Harford - WEA
Rowan Purdy - MIND in Manchester
Linda Doyle - MCIN
Peter Fell - IRISI
Annika Ireland - Voluntary Action Manchester (VAM)
Jenny Craven - REVEIL project, CERLIM
Erica Stross - Workable

2. Minutes of the last Meeting

Agreed, matters arising will be covered through the agenda items.

3. Project Update

Training Programme

The project trained 9 people last July, at Tameside College, in the NVQ Certificate of Telematics. The organisations involved included MIND in Manchester, MAP and Disabled Living. These trainees under went 2 sessions per week in order to complete the NVQ Level 1 quickly.

There are currently 19 people undergoing the course, being held at the MTMC, they are timetabled to finish on the 22nd October. The groups involved include Full Circle Arts, Oldham Disability Alliance and Ethnic Disabled Group Emerging.

We are also looking to start other groups independantly of the general sessions due to their difficulties in releasing workers, staffing issues and the use of appropriate training materials etc. These include Breakthrough UK, Newbridge Centre (Stockport) and hopefully a group of BSL users.

The next stage of the training programme is to get the skills 'multiplied' out to disabled people who are the real target audience for the project. This will be done in conjunction with the organisations we have already linked with, by supporting the training, costs of hiring computer centres and travel costs for the individuals involved etc.

We are also looking to organise groups ourselves to look at the project's Information Service and the issues around access.

There have been difficulties for the organisations undergoing the training generally due to them being short staffed or have few staff, lack of access to equipment and problems of resourcing the use of the Internet within their own organisations.

There is a more general problem of a lack of accessible training facilities, most computer centres (either colleges or EVH's), public access points are designed for the user accessing information using two hands and receiving information visually.

This issue also includes the lack of accessible hardware and software that is available in these centres and also a lack of training awareness, for example, few trainers are able to immediately teach a visually impaired student on browsing the Internet using pwwebspeak.

The project has developed two sets of guidelines:

• Web Accessibility - this is a working document about accessible web pages and is taken from the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This document is a summary that can be easily used to make changes relatively easily.
• Accessible Computing Facilities - this contains a 'check' list for accessible centres, presently this is only the first draft and relatively basic in the questions it asks. We have circulated it to access/support centres for their comments as to whether it makes sense, initial feedback is that it is a good starting point.

Feedback and comments for both these documents, which are attached, are welcomed.

Information Service

The Information Service is now available from the project's web site.

The current links that are available are 'cold' that is only one word or the title of a project. We are working on expanding the text links to at least one sentence to give the user an idea of where/what the link goes to.

Also the information from the Regional Employment Service PACT team will shortly be place on the site. We have had to create this information for a web based information service since they are not currently on-line.

Obviously, the size and nature of the site will continue to grow as more information is added and as people give feedback. As mentioned before, under the training report, we are setting up groups to test the site etc. For instance, the naming of the sections may seem straightforward to ourselves but is that the case for other users?

Any feedback or comments from the group and from other parties is welcome and encouraged.

Networking Activities

The project is looking to disseminate its activities throughout projects working in this area and in the 'mainstream'.

We are currently developing links with the REVEIL project (based in CERLIM, Manchester Metropolitan University), which is assessing the access issues for students with visual impairments and library services both in the University sector and the library service as a whole.

Other links that are being developed include with the Access Summit centre around disabled students' access to Higher Education, the WEA with a group of Deaf and Hard of Hearing people, and the RNID's Guidance Project.

We have been working with ISaware for the AccessibilITy '98 event, Friday 25th September at Manchester Town Hall. The event is to raise the issues of access to the information society for disabled people, how information is used, and how it is provided. The event developed out of our meetings with the ISaware project team and the importance of addressing those issues mentioned above.

The NW Disability Technology Forum (DTF) is continuing, the next meeting is on the 2nd October in Liverpool. We are currently writing the 'aims & objectives' for the group, to make clear its role etc. The DTF is supporting the use of the web accessibility guidelines and the draft accessible computing facilities guidelines (as mentioned before).

The project is disseminating information at the following conferences:

• European Digital Cities - Salzburg, Austria 29th and 30th October '98
• Employment Week - Brussels, 3rd - 5th November '98

Toucan is also hosting a NW Employment - Horizon/Youthstart Conference, 3rd and 4th December '98 at the St. Thomas Centre. The aim is for the NW projects under these two funding strands to come together and share good practice, problems and barriers, and continue the dissemination of project information. This event has the full support of the ESF National Co-ordinating organisation in the UK, ECOTEC.

4. Telematics and Disabilities (TAD) - Transnational Work

The next meeting with our partners is on the 28th and 29th September in Sardinia. Currently there the TAD web site, written by Toucan, is now available, through the project's web site, this is only a 'draft' site containing project information. We aim to use this site as a tool for the transnational management group, sharing documents etc.

We have the agreed outcomes of:

• Transnational web page
• proceedings of the meetings
• 'Guide to Good Practice for Telematics and Disabilities'

The content etc will be further discussed at the meeting, and a plan on how to proceed and produce the required outcomes will be established.

During our meeting, RP Sardinia (the local partners), will be promoting and publicly launching their project, including the recruitment of people for training.

5. Project Evaluation

John Clark, the external evaluator for the project, has produced a proposal for an Evaluation Strategy. This has been developed from questionnaires that have been returned by people interested in the project, including members of the Reference Group.

Comments on the proposal are welcome, as well as any other ideas or considerations. The role of evaluation is to see whether the project achieved its stated objectives, how it has been managed, who has been involved etc. The final evaluation report will also be used in the planning of further European projects in an attempt to improve the management of further activities.

John has asked members who have not completed an initial questionnaire if they could and return it directly to him (questionnaire is attached).

Any other comments can be sent to:
John Clark, 110 Whirlowdale Road, Sheffield, S7 2NJ. Tel/Fax: 0114 235 1423.

6. Public Access Points

There is now the concept of the public having access to the Information Society through public access points but there is a need to raise the profile of these facilities.

Toucan has been talking to the library services about creating a campaign to raise awareness and in-build the issue of accessibility. There are also the issues of adequate training to staff who support these facilities etc. Schools are now going on-line as part of the National Grid for Learning etc, but in general they have been 'left to themselves' in how the public are going to access these new facilities.

Other members of the Reference group shared the above view, for example the WEA have already highlighted the need of support services to the Voluntary sector, who tend to receive 'taster' days to interest them but there seems to be little strategy for follow-up work. From the numerous projects that are working in this area there will be a way to increase the publics perception of the 'Information Society'.

7. MCIN new project

MCIN has received funding, through the National Lottery Charity Board, to support Community groups accessing and using the Internet.

MCIN has already provided the 'front-end' for charity groups on the internet but this project is to extend its work within this sector.

The project will provide consultancy; printing and an 'one to one' assisitance (telephone line).

The initial stages of the project is to establish who needs support and the organisations the project can work with. It will be important that projects/people share information in order to reduce any duplication of work and provide a more planned strategy for the voluntary and community sector.

8. Any other Business

1. ECOTEC and the Dfee have given the project an option to extend the project, by six months, until June 2000.
2. Tameside College have formed a partnership with to provide an IT Bus, the idea that this 'technology' bus will visit communities providing taster sessions and access to the Internet etc. It is also able to provide accredited courses and takes up to 15 people. The biggest problem has been finding a generator that is powerful enough to meet the power demands.
3. Tameside are also proposing to bid for a Telecentre and Training centre.
4. Hyde Clarendon College are thinking of building a disabled access centre.
5. There is a need for advice/help in the appropriate use of hardware and software, also which is the most suitable for particular situations. There is information available through the Information Service, but this need has been mentioned before by other groups/projects including the NW Disability Technology Forum.
6. Full Circle Arts' project - multimedia arts magazine - has found difficulties with web designers when confronted with the access issues, primarily because they are unaware of it.

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