What does it mean?

Under the Equality Act (2010), services must make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for autistic people and people with learning disabilities.

Reasonable adjustments mean making changes to services and the way we work with individuals so that this is accessible.

Checklist

• Establish if this is a method of communication the individual prefers, and what this looks like.
• What day and time of day would the individual prefer to call?
• Agree if professional is calling individual or vice versa.
• Individual to be offered the opportunity to agree a set frequency of phone calls from professionals, e.g. weekly or fortnightly.
• Individual to be asked if they would like reminders of upcoming phone calls or Microsoft Team meetings, and if so, how would they like to be reminded.
• Individual to be asked if they would like to set how long calls should last for e.g. 15 minutes.
• To agree with individual how much advance notice they require to attend a meeting / appointment.
• Individual to be asked if it’s helpful to be given an agenda of what the call will entail, to be provided with questions you are likely going to ask in advance, this will give them time to process and prepare ahead of the appointment. Individual to be asked how soon in advance she would like the agenda.
• If the professional is running late, individual should be notified via their preferred method of communication. If possible, indicate how late you are going to be.
• Phone call to go ahead on an agreed day and time, or ‘window’ e.g. individual can expect a call to start Tuesday between 14:00-14:15.
• If an urgent, unarranged call is required, to explore if e.g. a text 5 minutes beforehand to inform them of this would be helpful.
• If the call starts late, to give the individual the opportunity to finish at the agreed time, or to take the agreed duration of the call.
• After phone calls, individual should be sent a follow up of what was discussed and the outcomes, via their preferred method of communication.

About this leaflet

Developed by Robyn Darby (RNLD) and Simon Tarrant (RNLD). Updated January 2022.