An SSP-D provides specialist one-to-one academic support for deaf and hard of hearing students, focusing on the parts of university study that depend on hearing and on written academic English.
Lectures, seminar debate, group projects and viva examinations are all built around hearing. An SSP-D helps you plan around that: preparing for discussion-heavy sessions, structuring group work so you are not excluded from decisions, and making sure the access support around you — interpreters, STTR, notetaking — is actually working together.
For students whose first language is BSL, sessions also address academic written English: structure, register, discipline-specific conventions and the gap between how an argument is signed and how it must be written for assessment.
Sessions are individual and shaped around your assessment calendar, with more intensive work in the weeks before deadlines and quieter maintenance sessions between them.
Your SSP-D is not marking your work or writing it for you. They help you develop the strategies to produce it yourself, which is both the funding requirement and the point.
Where you also receive notetaking or STTR, we coordinate the whole package so the roles complement each other rather than duplicating hours.
SSP-D is a DfE Band 3 role, delivered in person or remotely, across all the regions we cover.
No. We support deaf and hard of hearing students whatever their preferred communication method.
Yes, and it is a common combination. Your Needs Assessment sets the hours for each role.