Why are Accommodation Requests Not Providing Access to Meaningful Participation?

“Why are Accommodation Requests Not Providing Access to Meaningful Participation?” on a pink background. White swiggly lines at the top and bottom with “meaningful” in cursive white font with a connection of the swiggly line through “participation” to the question mark.

When you are ready to promote an event or program, how do you approach accessibility/accommodation requests?

• Do you have a process for it?

• Is it there because it is considered a best practice?

• Is someone reviewing them to implement them into the process?

• Does the person who made the request be informed if it is possible or not?

These are some of the questions that appear when I am making a request to ensure that people understand what I need to participate. However, the approach of accommodation requests is not consistent across organizations making every request an anxiety-inducing process.

Some people do not even try to go through the process in activities that are not urgent or required of them because it is tiresome. The “best practice” of accommodation requests is now missing two crucial elements needed for accessibility. A process and commitment that someone is reviewing the requests to allow people to participate and the initiative to make the event and program accessible from the start.

I have discussed some key issues previously in my blogS by highlighting the need to communicate when dealing with accommodations in “Establish Communication: How to Handle Accommodation Requests” and the importance of designing from the start in “Time to Start Designing With Access in Mind: Designing from the Start.” For this, it is further diving in on why it is important to stop waiting until the requests come in.

Why is waiting an issue?

When you are designing the event and program, there are many moving parts and elements that need to be considered, many at the last minute. If you do not acknowledge the amount of time you need to obtain services, redesign plans, and communicate with the person, taking in those requests becomes more difficult.

Let's take my typical accommodations request and apply it to the situation where accessibility may have not been considered when designing and making decisions about the event and program. You started promoting two weeks before the event and your registration has a box to fill out accessibility needs. I came across the event a week before it starts and made the request for ASL Interpreters and CART (captioning). Here are the issues you are going to come across.

• It takes at least 2 weeks to book services the majority of the time. Interpreters and CART are in high demand. You may be able to find someone, but not easily and it will take more of your time.

• Knowing the typical timeframe for services, you only started promoting the event two weeks before, not giving enough time to look, let alone confirm and communicate with the person submitting the request.

• That does not include the time if you run into problems which adds more stress to both the team and the person who submitted the request

• This is also under the assumption that you are communicating with me with updates on how it is going, whether it can be fulfilled, and the confirmation that it is secured.

Stressful right? These are only some of the issues that can come up, all which could have been mitigated if access was considered as part of the design and decision-making process.

How can doing some of the work before the requests can help you out?

Making it part of the design and decision-making process will help with the resources, capacity, and budgetary restraints that may not be considered because it does not happen every time.

• What resources you have and resources that may be requested and obtained all need to be evaluated. From buildings to technology, there are many criteria that can be looked at to find options that best fit your needs and the accessibility of the event and program.

  • For example, in my opinion, Google Meets has the best auto-captioning feature but if you are utilizing CART, Zoom will be your best choice because they have the option to put in third-party captioning.

• Capacity is also important. How you should make decisions when it is one person doing all the work behind the scenes compared to a few people.

  • A few weeks may not be that bad if you have multiple people running the show, but one person, you would have to give them time to not only deal with the requests process, but their regular work.

• Not every organization has the financial resources to afford services or the most upgrade access possible.

  • Knowing the limitations before the requests means that you are able to make decisions and find alternatives instead of figuring it out at the last second. Or, give time to find the financial resources so that you don’t have to make those decisions.

What to do if you only have requests as the option?

You may have not designed from the start or been able to put in the extra effort in the beginning to help with the entire process yet. How can you use the requests effectively?

• Give enough time for requests to come in. You don’t want to find ASL Interpreters at the last minute because there was not sufficient time for people to know about the event or program.

• Read the requests. I have been in situations when it was obvious that the accommodation request section was there to look like they were trying to be inclusive and accessible. No one actually read them. If you provided the space to request, please take the time to look at them.

  • If you made a section but you actually want an email, just provide the email, do not make the person submit the request multiple times, it is exhausting.

• Communicate with the person. Like I mentioned, it is exhausting to request accommodations and not know if it is going to be fulfilled or not. Establish communication with the person so that the person feels like they are being listened to and prepared for what they are going to get into.

  • The people submitting requests are THE knowledge holders and sharers. If you are stuck, feel free to ask them and discuss options so that accommodations can be made.

• Use the knowledge you gain from requests to improve future events and programming. Improving little by little is better than doing nothing at all. Use this as a learning process to build a more accessible society.

Requests are meant to help improve access and give you a way to give the person assurance that they access the event. While it has typically been used as a first point of giving access for people who ask for it (does not mean that there are people who show up and did not ask for it but still benefit from it), it is not an effective way of ensuring access if it was not considered from the beginning.

There are many checklists, guidelines, and advice on the internet that can get you started and continue to improve on accessibility. You don’t want the extra stress when all of the tasks from the event and program are piling on you. The people submitting requests do not want the extra stress and have their time wasted (especially if they are there by choice). I highly advise you to take the initiative to look into the accessibility and inclusiveness of the event and program process. Until then, please read the requests and communicate with the person.

Amanda