Leanna Byrne | Editor
Trinity College Dublin’s Careers Advisory Service (CAS) have employed a special adviser to cope with a demand for support for undergraduate and postgraduate students with disabilities across all the schools in the college. The role will support students with disabilities to enable them to transition into employment.
“A lot of students were not coming forward and if they were they were not always comfortable disclosing their disability.”
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The new role which was created last month has already seen a spike in the amount of students who wish to avail of an adviser specifically catered to students with disabilities. In less than three weeks there has been a total number of sixteen requests for appointments and eleven meetings with students.
Eileen Daly, who has taken up the position, voiced concerns over students with disabilities who felt they were unable to come forward and disclose their disability with CAS.
“A lot of students were not coming forward and if they were they were not always comfortable disclosing their disability,” said Daly.
Furthermore, Daly said that based on the positive numbers that are beginning to come forward from all schools and faculties she hopes the service could be extended from three to four or five days a week.
Many of the issues surrounding students with disabilities seeking employment are related to disclosure of a disability, confidence and reassurance of their skills.
Similarly, Daly pointed out that students with mental health issues would face many of the same issues when applying for jobs as statistics show that many of these graduates find it very difficult to sustain employment.
To combat this, College has received a grant from Genio, a body that works with philanthropy and government to generate project funding, to support Junior and Senior Sophisters through application processes and employment in January 2014. After the first year this project is set to expand out to other Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) such as Dublin City University (DCU).
College has received a grant from Genio to support Junior and Senior Sophisters through application processes and employment in January 2014.
When asked whether or not she felt that there was still stigma among employers in relation to hiring students with a disability, Daly admitted that there is “still a lot of fear of the unknown among employers”, but that it is part of her job to dispel these myths.
Daly also feels that students should be provided with more internships so they can get used to a working environment to give them more confidence. “That will give them reassurance so they can sell themselves as people with skills and as a valuable contribution to the workplace”.
