The Learning Trust, the body responsible for schools and nurseries in London Borough of Hackney commissioned Disability Hackney to conduct Disability Access Audit of 95 playgroups and nurseries in Hackney. The Trust commissioned this project to check whether the services and facilities of their contractors for playgroups and nurseries are in compliance with access requirements of Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995.
This is because according to the DDA 1995, it is illegal for public service providers to treat disabled people less favourably for reasons related to their impairments. Less favourable treatment partly implies providing a service of poor quality to a disabled person for reason related to his/her disability.
All the 95 nurseries and playgroups were audited separately by a qualified auditor registered with National Register of Access Consultant (NRAC). The NRAC is a UK wide independent register of accredited Access Auditors and Consultants who meet professional standards and criteria established by peer review system.
An access report with recommendations on how to improve disabled children s access to each of the 95 centres was prepared for both the Learning Trust and the centres audited.
One major issue identified during the audit of the 95 centres was that unlike for adults with disabilities, there is no good published manual on good access standard for children with disabilities. This means if public service providers want to assess the accessibility of their services for children with disability, they would have to rely on their own imaginations to determine the access standard. This finding was reported to Learning Trust with a request for further funding to develop a manual of good access practices for children with disabilities.
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