Ooops, uni being a bit silly!

[LollipopVioletsExplodingRocket]

I would post this over in teens, but it seems quite lonely in there so thought I'd get more response here!

Anyway, it seems my uni are being a tad silly at the minute. I'm in my 2nd year of a film production course, and only now am I having a meeting about a "personal evacuation plan" (anyone got experience of these?). So all last year it was OK if I got lost in a smokey building and burned???

I dunno. Then today, I'm doing a risk assessment for my current film, and on there, there's a box to tick if you'll be working with "persons with a disability". So I'm sat in the library, and I suddenly think "Oh, am I supposed to write about myself here?".

Went into the media centre at uni and asked one of the technicians, and YES, I am supposed to, as is everyone whose films I work on.

Again, all of last year, none of us bothered! Well, we did risk assessments but we never put me on them, IYSWIM.

Hmm, gotta love uni sometimes!

Having worked in TV I can tell you that detailed risk assessments are part and parcel of the job. If your disability means that you might have trouble evacuating a building with no lifts working or similar, and there would be a higher than usual risk of evacuation being likely, then I'm afraid you would be included.

Basically, it sounds like they let you off lightly last year, and this year they are getting more realistic.

OTOH, if you feel they are treating your disability as an issue when it isn't, then you must speak out. But think first - risk assessment is about focusing the mind on risks, not about picking on people. It may be that this is quite sensible. I don't know, but I guess you do.

I've got an ASD child in my class who flips and freezes when the fire alarm goes. He's on my class fire/emergency plan so that anyone involved knows that out of the 32, he needs particular support. H&S is getting tighter and tighter, but it's about the person responsible being accountable rather than the 'persons with disabilities' being judged. And yes, they should have thought about you last year.

Lindsaygii, I know they're not singling me out Maybe it just shows how I see myself really, I never thought I needed to fill in that box! It just never occurred to me that there might be risks associated with me being on a shoot. It's a good job I did go and ask though, they are really cracking down on risk assessments this year- if they don't think it's up to scratch they won't release kit to us.

If I'm 100% honest, I assumed (wrongly it seems!) that "persons with disabilities" just applied to your cast! Still, we learn something new every day! And today I'm off to go and be a cameraperson at an ice hockey game!

Sounds excellent, have a good one!

Ah, thank you for the thoughts, think I'm going to post in chat because what I had last night was the hardest game I've ever crewed on! I shall update you all about uni after my meeting tomorrow, meanwhile, I'm off to rant!