The OU Careers Advisory Service is running an online forum on 'Employment issues for disabled students' between May 3 - 27, 2011, with two careers advisers on hand to answer questions and moderate.
This is the Careers Advisory Service’s first forum specifically for disabled students, giving an opportunity to share advice, thoughts and experiences about any employment-related issues of particular concern, at any stage of study.
Participants can post a question, add a helpful comment to support others or just come in and browse. The forum will provide an excellent chance to ask about and discuss a whole range of topics such as:
- Disclosing a disability to an employer
- Supportive work-experience opportunities for disabled students
- Reasonable adjustments in the workplace
- Alternative work styles
- Disability-related organisations
Please note: An OU username and password is required to acces this online forum, which is specifically about career and employment-related queries. Students who have a general question about support for disabled students in the OU should go to www.open.ac.uk/disability in the first instance.
From May 27 the forum will become read-only, and remain a useful resource for a further 12 months.
Comments
i had to give up f/t job last dec2010 due to illness"s 1 of them being chronic fatigue ,i can no longer do manual work but hopeing i can study at OU and retrain my brain to do work in another field,bcos i have severe back disabilities it is difficult to meet new ou people at venues,the fatigue demands so much out of me so im hopeing to self manage my time i cant take meds of any kind as i have steven johnstone syndrome which is life threatning so must be carefull and very aware of do"s/don"ts
Hi Margaret, it's great to hear from you and are sorry to hear about your illness. It's great to hear that you wish to study with The Open University, really inspirational. Have you signed up to a course yet?
As you will see from this post, The OU Careers Advisory Service were running an online forum on "Employment issues for disabled students". This forum is read-only now, however you can still access it: www.open.ac.uk/disability you will need an OU username and password.
To speak to a careers adviser you need to contact your region or nation and can email your request from the "Contact page" on the Careers Advisory Service website www.open.ac.uk/careers/contact-the-ou-careers-advisory-service.php.
Good luck with whatever you choose to do.
Jackie