Each of you, and each of your students, can benefit from free and anonymous psychological support, available in Polish and English both inside and outside the University. Information about this is available on the Department of Accessibility and Support for People with Disabilities (DDO) website. Please, remind students about it if you perceive such difficulties. We also organize psychological workshops for students. You can also invite students and encourage them to participate. The easiest way to book a counseling session is to use the website.

Currently, at Wroclaw Tech, there are about 316 students and PhD students with a disability certificate, and it is more difficult to estimate the number of students with so-called special needs. Currently, there are more than 115 people with special needs registered with the Department of Accessibility and Support for People with Disabilities (DDO). Still, they are certainly not all the people in our community. These students are often reluctant to request to consider their needs in the learning process. Special needs may be related to the way classes are conducted, credit organizing, or the preparation of teaching materials.

On the DDO website, there are manuals developed for you on various aspects of working with people with special needs at the University. We would also like to invite you to watch the videos dedicated to the accessibility of Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, which deal with the support of people with special needs and were created at our University. The videos featured people working at Wroclaw Tech, our students, and the alumni, and two of them are available with English subtitles.

W ponad 20 jednostkach PWr, w tym na wszystkich Wydziałach, powołani zostali Liderki i Liderzy Dostępności – osoby, które mogą służyć wsparciem w problemach studentek i studentów a także wszystkich osób ze szczególnymi potrzebami na uczelni. Są to przeszkolone osoby, do których można zwrócić się z każdą trudną sprawą. Do nich można kierować osoby, które potrzebują pomocy.

More than 20 units at Wroclaw Tech, including all Faculties, have appointed Accessibility Leaders – persons who can provide support in dealing with the problems of students and all those with special needs at the university. These are trained individuals to go with any difficult issue.

Accessibility Leaders at our Faculty

Supporting students with special needs and promoting the idea of accessibility at out Faculty are Agnieszka Gawryszuk, Anna Grytsko, and Ula Małecka. You can contact the faculty’s leaders with questions regarding support, requests for educational assistance for students with special needs, or consultations on accessibility.

You can find the Accessibility Leaders on our website in the Students section.

Information for Teachers

It is important to inform students during the first classes of the semester or in your first message to students about your openness to considering their special needs and ask them to inform you about this. This information could be: „Those who, due to a health condition, disability or other objective reasons, may have special needs in relation to the way the class is delivered, the credit or the preparation of the materials, are asked to contact me during the consultation or after the class or email me about it. I will try to ensure that in my classes everyone has an equal right to gain knowledge and to be evaluated fairly.”

IMPORTANT: Accommodating special needs is not about lowering requirements, but compensation of educational prospects in relation to other students.

Detailed Information

Adapting classes for people with special needs is often easy, but it requires openness and flexibility on the part of teachers, as well as information from students – We asked them to do this as well. According to the current Study Regulations, teachers should receive such information within the first four weeks of classes. Individuals who are particularly likely to report such needs are people with various disabilities, people with chronic illnesses, people on the autism spectrum, and people in mental health crisis.

Statistically, a mental health crisis happens to almost everyone during their lifetime. According to the WHO, about 15% of young adults experience this condition. It is very important that such people receive professional psychological, psychotherapeutic or psychiatric help. The help available at the University is short-term and intervention support, but it can be used repeatedly.

Our psychologists and psychotherapists can recognize when stronger support is needed and refer those who need it to appropriate specialists and centers. On the other hand, any and all of us can help by seeing around us a person in whom we recognize signs of a mental health crisis. Our interest, a brief conversation and sometimes just our presence can be of great support. You can read how to talk to people in mental health crisis at the University, as well as other aspects of psychological support at the Technical University of Wroclaw in the handbook (available in Polish).