Tips to Improve Accessibility During a Busy Time
“Tips to Improve Accessibility During a Busy Time” on a blue gradient background with a hourglass icon next to the blog title.
Including accessibility as part of your process when engaging with the community does not just benefit the disability community, but allows anyone in the community who may need access temporarily or permanently for a variety of different reasons. In many environments, persons with disabilities have the right to participate and live in the community like everyone. There are environments that are more of a want than a need but if an abled person can participate without barriers, then persons with disabilities should be able to participate. There are quite a portion of the population that experience barriers when participating in the community, whether or not it is visible or invisible.
The best approach is to consider accessibility needs and removing barriers from the beginning of your process. The most ideal that everyone would love to see is each organization having the capacity and resources to make it super easy but it is not always realistic. In this blog, we will go through some of the situations to best do accessibility in activities in the community when you are already moving further along in the process or needing to find the best way to utilize the current resources and capacity that exists for you.
Here are the two main realities you may be faced with.
Your audience is prominently persons with disabilities or the disability community is an audience you are trying to engage with. In this situation, accessibility must be part of your process if you would like to engage and maintain their attention and participation.
If persons with disabilities are not part (or consistently part) of your audience, you have either lost persons with disabilities due to your lack of accessibility and/or you do not recognize them as their disability could be invisible and not reported to you. It may not be obvious to you if the ability to ask about accessibility and request accommodations is limited leaving them in the dark about your activity. The could have given up and not participate or decided to still show up but cannot fully participate or accommodate themselves with less than ideal accommodations.
So, how can you still include accessibility when you have not considered it from the start?
Well, you will need to recognize that perfection is not the goal but progress. In order to maintain progress without losing the disability community is ensuring that you are maintaining communication. An honest, open conversation is better than leaving a person wondering.
First, the results of creating an accessible and inclusive experience requires a strong understanding of what logistics, resources, and capacity you have for the activity. If you did not start considering accessibility from the beginning, then you will have to work with what you have. This means knowing
The timeline and how much time you have left
What capacity your organization has (personnel)
The flexibility of your activity
and some knowledge of accessibility and accommodations needs
Examples of situations to consider are
How long you need to book services such as interpretation, translation, sighted guide, Communication Access in Realtime Translation (CART) and so much more. This includes what options you have, how to book them, and the cost information.
Knowing that some accessibility needs require services or logistics changes to accommodation, do registration and promotion earlier than usual. Persons with disabilities need time to request, confirm, and make arrangements to participate in your activity more than those without disabilities. Keep the extra time use in mind.
Since you need to be aware of the information, make sure there is a place to request accommodations (usually during registration) or ask questions about accessibility and ability to participate. You do need someone to look through those requests to make arrangements when needed.
Speaking of the person, it will be much easier for that person who has knowledge of the logistics of the activity to accommodate. If that is not possible, then there needs to be extra time to allow the selected person to reach out, research, and communicate with the person who requests access needs to be accommodated.
Lastly, an important piece of advice to remember. If you know you cannot provide or accommodate someone’s access needs, be honest and communicate that information to the person who submitted a request. It will suck but it is better to not waste someone’s time and energy than to set them up thinking that they will be able to participate in your activity.
By including accessibility in your process, you are actively participating in the inclusion of persons with disabilities in community activities. There are ways to adjust accordingly if you are already far along in your process for the activity but, it is an opportunity to recognize where your process needs improvements to best provide an accessible and inclusive experience to persons with disabilities along with everyone in your community. The adjustments are part of removing barriers to open doors to community engagement and higher quality of life for everyone.
Amanda