Purpose
In order to facilitate the provision of granted accommodations for a student with a documented disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) who is participating in a clinical experience as a part of a course, the ADA Coordinator will create a Clinical Accommodation Letter for a student specifying which accommodations apply to clinical locations and providing any additional information needed to ensure compliance with the ADA.
Recipients
The ADA Coordinator will provide a copy of the Clinical Accommodation Letter to the student and to each core faculty member of courses with clinical components for which the student is registered. Faculty members will forward the Clinical Accommodation Letter to the courses’ clinical faculty members. Additionally, if the student will have a clinical placement where a faculty member is not present, the faculty member will forward the Clinical Accommodation Letter to the individual or individuals on the unit who are best placed to ensure the student’s accommodations are honored while maintaining maximal privacy for the student (e.g. a nurse manager, a clinical resource nurse, the student’s individual preceptor, and/or other clinical leaders who have oversight/training responsibility for the unit in question). Questions about the appropriate recipient of a letter should be directed to the ADA Coordinator.
Content
The Clinical Accommodation Letter will include information about only those accommodations which are relevant to the student’s clinical experiences; accommodations applying solely to classroom or testing settings will not be included. The following information will also be included:
- That the information in the letter is protected under the Federal Education Rights Privacy Act (FERPA), and the circumstances under which that information may be disclosed
- Best practices for responding to a student with accommodations needs
- What to do if a question or concern about a student’s accommodations arises
- Contact information for the ADA Coordinator
- Other information as deemed necessary by the ADA Coordinator
Right to Decline
A student may request that a Clinical Accommodation Letter not be sent to sites when they fill out their Request for Accommodations form. In doing so, the student assumes full responsibility for communicating their own needs to the clinical site, and accepts that their accommodation, or a suitable alternative, may not be available to them at that site.