You are here: home>

Addressing Accessibility

Understanding Disability describes a new way of thinking about disability that views disability as something that occurs outside of the person based on the interaction of the person, his or her functional abilities, and the environment. If the way we think about disability is new, the approaches we take for designing welcoming and accessible services are too. The new approach involves these four actions:

• Understand and meet your responsibilities to provide equal opportunity. This is a necessary and important starting point. These responsibilities are established by the Americans with Disability Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Fair Housing Act. These responsibilities serve as the “floor” or minimum of what you have to do. Creating an environment and a program that is welcoming to women with disabilities and Deaf women requires solutions that exceed legal requirements.
• Design welcoming and supportive environments for the widest range of potential users and circumstances in mind. Through this process, using the principles of universal design, you will develop a good general set of solutions. It’s likely that most people with functional limitations will experience substantially reduced barriers, a better fit with any needed assistive technology (e.g., screen readers, wheelchairs, canes). In addition, others, without functional limitations, will have an enhanced experience that reduces stress and builds confidence, comfort and a sense of control.
• Provide individualized solutions to address individual needs. There is no solution that is guaranteed to solve every need. Some people and some circumstances inevitably will require individualized solutions that may involve you taking additional steps and, possibly, providing individualized assistive technology. If steps have been taken to design environments that anticipate diverse users, then individualizing solutions is simpler (e.g., if all materials are designed for low literacy readers, survivors with limited English proficiency will also benefit).
• Identify community supports specifically for people with disabilities. A core area of community supports are the variety of federal, state, and local supports available specifically to people with disabilities. Providers are already familiar with the systems - housing, transportation, employment and TANF (welfare) - but may not be familiar with special provisions for people with disabilities. These supports can provide additional resources for the survivors that you serve.

The use of this approach underlies the entire approach to access to services and support for survivors. The new paradigm of disability coupled with a universal design approach builds from the critically important progress catalyzed by the passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This more holistic approach also aligns with the vision of the ADA to establish a more inclusive society in which everyone, regardless of ability, has an equal opportunity to participate.

This new strategy is a more holistic and creative approach for providers. It is also inherently interactive between providers and survivors. Your role is not limited to knowing what you have to do but becoming an expert in a process of problem-solving and providing a sense of comfort, confidence and control for each woman you serve. Over time, your solutions will serve everyone without creating separate or costly additions to existing services. When you need to provide an individual accommodation, it will be a more manageable step in keeping with the culture you’ve created.

As you become comfortable with the idea that you have the power to minimize disabling experiences for everyone, it will become another facet of the core vision of services to address domestic violence and sexual assault - eliminating barriers for women and helping them to rebuild their lives. Many of the women you already serve are women with functional limitations outside of the most familiar disability categories. The barriers you identify and remove, the facilitators you create and offer will also give survivors a new set of insights for recognizing that the disability does not reside within them but in the intersection between themselves and the environments with which they interact. It is a deeply empowering notion that survivors and staff together can develop awareness of the impact of all aspects of their environment, build skills to evaluate its disabling aspects and transform what is into programs that minimize disability and help women toward confidence, strength and safety.

In This Section

This section is designed to provide you with the tools you need to follow the four pronged approach to addressing accessibility and creating welcoming and supportive environments for survivors who experience disability and those who are Deaf:

• meeting your responsibilities;
• designing environments for all;
• addressing individual needs; and
• identifying community supports

print this page email this page

back to previous page

• community profiles
• resources
• news & events