Government works only when it works for everyone. The more inclusive a community is the more stable and prosperous. Increased participation in all aspects of civic life creates vibrant healthy communities. People with disabilities offer unique insights into improving the community environment.
More than nine hundred thousand Washington State residents with disabilities continue to face barriers to full participation that can easily be eliminated.
The Accessible Communities Act was promoted by the Legislature to help communities be more welcoming and inclusive for persons with disabilities and to promote and provide equal access to the opportunities available to others. Their participation enriches communities, enhances the strength of the diversity of a community and contributes toward the economic vitality of a community.
The Governor’s Committee on Disability Issues and Employment (GCDE) was given the task to develop the Accessible Community Advisory Committee (ACAC) website to provide the following information: guidance, technical assistance, reference materials, and resource identification for local governments, accessible community advisory committees and public accommodations; examples of best practices for local initiatives and activities to promote greater awareness of disability issues and access for persons with disabilities within the community; and a searchable listing of local public accommodations that have taken steps to be more disability friendly, including information on the specific access features provided.
The GCDE will solicit proposals from active ACACs for projects to improve disability awareness and access for persons with disabilities, and will select projects for funding.
Why Include Disability Specific Advisors in Your Accessible Community Advisory Committee (ACAC)?
Counties can be improved by utilizing external qualified advisors with disabilities. Qualified disability specific advisors are those who understand and can think through issues from a disability perspective. These advisors can help an organization take advantage of the wealth, depth and breadth of information available from the disability community. Including people with disabilities in the planning process of activities (e.g. plans for new buildings or renovations, curb cuts, roundabouts, county fair access, etc.), can prevent making a variety of sometimes costly mistakes.
People with disabilities add another dimension to diversity efforts, contributing to the development of unique and creative community efforts. These advisors come from all backgrounds and ages, and have varied skills and perspectives, adding value to your community.
**The benefits of having an ACAC are to improve disability access to employment, education, places of public accommodation, legal proceedings, health settings, etc.
Experience repeatedly demonstrates that given the proper tools, people with many different types of disabilities can devise creative approaches to eradicate barriers that have stumped the so-called experts. Including people with disabilities can result in recommendations that serve the mutual interest of a community, businesses, organizations and customers. People with disabilities can be excellent problem solvers.
A process that includes qualified people with disabilities in significant and powerful ways can result in exceptional improvements in an organization’s understanding and responsiveness to very diverse communities of people with disabilities.
Benefits include:
Listening and learning directly about the issues facing the disability community;
Utilizing expertise to develop accessible, inclusive and appropriate programs;
Allowing for free and frank discussion between an organization and knowledgeable advocates;
Providing respectful and targeted critiquing to help an organization be more successful;
Allowing for identification and resolution of issues in a cooperative manner as opposed to confrontation and/or litigation;
Creating a forum for thoughtful people to discuss needs, concerns and obstacles to achieving mutual goals;
Allowing for the growth of disability advocates in understanding how an organization operates and continues to evolve. Knowledgeable and qualified people with disabilities and activity limitations can be one of an organization’s best and most articulate allies;
Strengthening an organization’s ability to include disability specific issues and to better plan, set priorities regarding existing and emerging policy issues, and how best to effectively deliver services;
Evaluating all levels of communications between an organization and people with disabilities;
Providing insightful input on strategies, policies and practices helps to improve and strengthen public policy initiatives; and
Enhancing an organization’s credibility and accountability with the disability and senior communities.
Who Are Qualified People with Disabilities?
Qualified people with disabilities include those who:
Identify as people with disabilities;
Have a user’s perspective;
Have personal experience with disability and disability advocacy;
Can speak broadly on disability issues as opposed to only addressing their own needs; and
Knowledgeable about a variety of physical, communication, and program access issues (hearing, vision, mobility, speech, and cognitive limitations, etc.).
Qualified people should:
Be connected to and involved in the disability community on a state, local or national level; with active involvement in broad-based disability organizations (for blind, deaf, hard of hearing, learning disability, developmental disability, independent living, etc.).
Have in place and use two-way communication methods to facilitate communication with the disability community they are representing.
In addition, other types of experience may be needed. For example, advisors, trainers, contractors and consultants with disabilities may need to have:
Disaster-Related Technical Expertise; and
Advocacy Experience, Management Experience, and Training Skills.
How to recruit qualified people with disabilities for your accessible community advisory committee?
Avoid Haphazard Random Recruitment
Selecting community members to serve on an Accessible Community Advisory Committee can be a haphazard and random process where planners do not take the time to think through the type of representation desired. It is common for people responsible for recruiting representatives from the disability communities to automatically think of and choose a co-worker, colleague, neighbor, friend, or acquaintance that happens to have a disability or activity limitation. These individuals may or may not be qualified representatives.
Announcing, Recruiting and Selection Process:
Establish a selection criteria for the type and diversity of representation you are seeking from qualified people, you can also create more targeted recruiting.
Create a description of the goals and objectives of the group;
Qualities of the representatives you are looking for;
Projected time commitments needed from participants (projected number of meetings, length of meetings, preparation time, over what number of months, years);
Policies regarding expense reimbursement; and
Create an application for disability specific organizations and people known in the community to nominate as representatives.
The applicant organizations should document:
Qualifications of the representatives they are nominating; and organizational skills of the representatives.
Send the recruiting announcement and application to disability organizations, local newspapers, community newsletters, etc. If you do not know where to send recruiting materials, ask well-established disability specific organizations to assist you. These organizations can also assist you with your representative selection process. (The Governor’s Committee on Disability Issues and Employment is a resource with information on disability organizations.)
Be Prepared to Offer Accommodations:
All meetings should offer both communication and physical access. Communication access involves providing content in methods that are understandable and usable by people with reduced or no ability to speak, see, or hear.
Physical access means individuals with disabilities can get to, enter, and use meeting facilities (accessible paths from public transportation drop off points and parking (curb cuts, ramps), restrooms, hotels and meeting facilities, etc).
In advance of the first meeting inquire if any committee member may need an accommodation in order to fully participate. Such accommodations may include:
Materials in alternative formats (Braille, large print, internet/email, audio formats);
Assistive listening systems;
Qualified interpreters;
Computer-aided transcription services;
Audio visual materials which are captioned and audio described; and
Accessible websites.