Category: Policy and Policy Development

Universal Design Policy: Where to start?

Front cover of the Norwegian Action Plan
Front cover of the Norwegian action plan

The real value of taking a universal design approach is the way it draws everything together. But usually different parts of an organisation have different inclusion policies. These are often treated as an add-on for a special “inclusion department”. But inclusion is everyone’s business. That means one policy across the board. So, where to start when trying to bring a cohesive approach? What about a universal design policy that overarches other policies?

Norway was the first to devise such a policy more than twenty years ago. It has evolved to include all aspects of life. It drives all other policies. Here are three documents to help you get going.

Norway Universally Designed 2025is an action plan for implementing universal design throughout the built environment as a start. The document is evolving and now includes just about everything including communications technology. They key was to look at policies first and make everyone responsible. This one is good for planners. 

Hobson’s Bay City Council has a short policy statement which is a great model for local government. 

The European Union devised a document that has as a useful framework with action points for 15 domains. It was devised some years ago, but the concept of universal design hasn’t changed much since then. A page from an earlier European Union document encapsulates the key points in one page. 

For a more comprehensive approach, the Sustainable Development Goals are also useful. This is because they include social sustainability and the need to be inclusive. 

 

 

Stella Young and Inspiration Porn

In this entertaining video The Late Stella Young explains why disability isn't your inspiration porn. She is wearing black with red shoes and is sitting in a power chair.the late Stella Young talks about “inspiration porn”. She says we have been sold a lie about people with disability being ‘inspirational’ for just being themselves.

She says that people with disability are objectified in this process as being ‘special’ in some way. They are discounted as normal everyday people doing everyday jobs in an everyday world.

On the topic of a positive attitude Stella says, “No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp.”

 

The economics of assistive technology

Chart showing return on investment for individuals, families and society.Why is some technology called “assistive” technology?  After all, isn’t all technology assistive? It seems that any technology developed for people with disability is assistive, while other technology is just, well, technology. A report on the economics of assistive technology outlines the benefits of investment.  Technologies specific to disability used to be called “aids and equipment”, but we have moved on. Smart phones are  everyday technology for most people. For people with disability they can also be an important part of a suite of technologies.  In Australia and other countries, access to assistive technology (AT) is not automatic. It has to be applied for and justified and then a budget assigned to it. Some people have to resort to charities for help. Imagine if you had to do this for cancer treatment. Denying and delaying access to AT comes at a cost. It’s a quality of life cost and an economic cost to the wider community. Instead of talking “cost” we should be talking “investment”. The value of providing AT is documented in a global report. The research focused on four devices, hearing aids, prostheses, eyeglasses, and wheelchairs. They found that for every one dollar invested, nine dollars are gained. That’s a return on investment of 9:1.

What about the built environment?

If we include home modifications in the suite of technologies to enhance functioning and independence, we would no doubt find similar a return on investment. It would be a better investment if homes were universally designed in the first place. This is one study that recognises the benefits to the whole family, not just the individual. This is an important point. Most people with disability do not live alone.  The title of this document is, The case for Investing in Assistive Technology. Replace the words “assistive technology” with built environment and housing and the report still makes sense. AT requires the rest of the world to be accessible and universally designed. That way, we can all benefit from people getting the AT they need when they need it. 

Easy English and Bumpy Road

Home Page of Bumpy Road website showing nine coloured sections, each with a separate document.Everything seems more difficult when life is spiralling out of control. And when you can’t understand the forms and documents people are asking you to read, it gets so much harder. Going to court to sort things out is very stressful and even more so if you don’t understand what’s going on.  A new website called The Bumpy Road was developed with and for parents with intellectual disability. There are 32 fact sheets on interacting with NSW Community Services and the court system. They cover child protection, going to court, meeting with a lawyer, the role of an advocate and tips from other parents. Information is in Easy English and video format. Child Protection is a companion document. Much of the content will apply to other states.  Women With Disability Australia website hosts many Easy English publications.  If you scroll down you will find Auslan videos among others. Scroll further and there are documents in Kriol, Torres Straight Islander Creole, and Warumungu. Your Human Rights Toolkit is a bundle of four documents in Easy English. Easy Read UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is also a good resource for getting a grasp of this long complicated document. Editor’s comment: I’d like to see Easy Read and Easy English standard for all organisations . Universally designed documents make so much sense for everyone. It gives an opportunity to get the key points and before looking at a more complex document.

COVID-19 Screens and hearing augmentation

A man wearing a striped apron passes is behind an acrylic screen. A woman on the other side of the screen is paying for her goods.Acrylic screens have appeared at almost every reception desk in response to covid-safe requirements. But without related hearing augmentation installed, it makes it harder to hear each other.  If people are wearing masks as well, this makes it worse. 

We are familiar with screens at ticket offices, such as train stations, where hearing augmentation systems are mandatory. An article by Bruce Bromley explains how these new reception desk screens contravene the building code if they don’t have hearing augmentation. When businesses installed new screen, few, if any, thought about the communication problems they would cause. And if they did, they perhaps thought we could all live with it.  We need respond to this issue because being covid-safe looks like being a new normal. 

Any service or business that recently installed an acrylic screen at reception should look at finding a hearing augmentation system. It will benefit the receptionist and the customer. Plug and play solutions are available where there is a microphone and speaker on both sides of the screen. I suspect that these screens will not disappear even if and when covid does. It’s all part of adjusting to the “new normal”.

Editor’s comment: Sometimes I find myself or the receptionist ducking around the screen to hear and to be heard. So the screens only work some of the time.

Walking Space Guide: Ease and Comfort

A large arched walkway at night with purple bougainvillea flowers overhead. The pathway is well lit but has the line shadows of the arches across it.Getting out and about is good for our health. We know that. But the environment has to be conducive to encourage walking and wheeling. That means streets and paths have to be designed for ease of access and walking comfort. The Walking Space Guide sets out standards to ensure sufficient walking space is provided for everyone. That includes people with disability, people with mobility limitations, families with young children and prams, and people walking dogs.  A graphic from the walking space guide showing the distance needed for footpaths.The Guide sets standards for designing, planning and implementing footpaths. It sets targets for five levels of footpaths: local with low and medium activity, and main streets with low, medium and high activity. There is no standard less than 2 metres wide.  There is a quick overview in a summary of the Guide. Transport interchanges or where walking is highly managed is not covered. Work on a space guide for crossings is underway. Included in the guide is a method for carrying out a Walking Space assessment and guidance on how to understand the results. There is an accompanying Excel spreadsheet for recording data and calculating results. The Guide was developed by the NSW Roads and Maritime Authority.   

Easy Read UNCRPD

Front cover of Enable Easy Read version of the UN ConventionWe hear people talk about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), but how many of us have read it? It’s a big document and not easy to read. It covers every aspect of life and every person of every age. The CRPD matters to all of us. Eventually disability will touch each of us and our family members and friends. So disability rights are everyone’s rights, but not everyone can understand the way it is written. The Easy Read CRPD captures the key content in less words.

The Easy Read version of the CRPD is a great way for most people to get a grasp of the issues. This version by Enable is complete with illustrations. 

These documents make for handy ready reference for everyone without having to work through the UN document itself. You can access all documents through the UN website.

There’s also a great two-minute video from the Disability Advocacy Resource Unit – see below. This is very useful for anyone wanting to get the disability rights message across, say, in a training session or group meeting. Different people with disability each list a right that is within the CRPD. Nicely put together and easy to watch. 

Beginning of the video. A man is standing in a large empty room that looks like a performance space.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has an overview of human rights on their website. 

UN Strategy for disability inclusion

Front cover of the UN report with icons for the four areas of action.In the context of “leave no-one behind” the United Nations is keen to live the message of disability inclusion in its own operations. The UN can better support member states with their own challenges if they are practicing inclusion in their own operations. The United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy spells out what to do. 

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) is no longer a side event to everything else. Disability inclusion is written into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN Strategy was launched in 2019, and the 2020 report provides a first baseline of disability inclusion across the system. The report lays down concrete steps for improvement and to support Member States to implement the CRPD and the SDGs.

Mainstreaming is the key strategy for inclusion and empowerment. It’s about seeing people with disability as agents of change and not a vulnerable population.

There are 15 common indicators against which all UN entities will report annually. It covers leadership, strategic planning and management, inclusiveness, programming and organisational culture. Time to get real about disability inclusion.

The full strategy document is available on the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy website. A short video from the Secretary General is below. 

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities sets out the obligations of signatories to the Convention. Australia is a signatory and the obligations are detailed in separate sections called Articles. The General Principles of the Convention align with the Principles of Universal Design.

Article 3 – General principles

The principles of the present Convention shall be:

    1. Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons;
    2. Non-discrimination;
    3. Full and effective participation and inclusion in society;
    4. Respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity;
    5. Equality of opportunity;
    6. Accessibility;
    7. Equality between men and women;
    8. Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities.

Inclusive art, tourism, sport and recreation report

An assistance dog leans down towards a swimmer in the water at the side of the pool. Inclusive art, sport and recreation.
Assistance animals are a strategy for inclusion.
What’s involved in making arts, tourism, sport and recreation more inclusive? It’s more than just creating accessible venues and destinations. It requires a broad view of the issues and ways to implement inclusive practice. Policies with action plans to overcome attitudinal and systemic barriers are a start. A report for the Victorian Government identifies the issues and provides recommendations in relation to these areas of activity. Three principles underpinned the report. Inclusive policy:
      1. occurs within an inclusive model framework
      2. works best if implemented as a whole-of-government initiative
      3. seeks to build healthy communities by providing opportunities for arts, tourism, sport and recreation being provided for all people. 
Among the conclusions, this model can be an agent of social change. That is, they can show the way for other sectors to be inclusive. Barriers to inclusion were identified as institutional, physical, economic and attitudinal. Being inclusive at the planning stage of any project, activity or service is also a way forward. Recommendations include the need for institutional policies on inclusion, accurate information for people with disability, and targeted intervention strategies to address barriers to inclusion. There’s more in the report. A comprehensive report with key recommendations linked to conclusions. Although published in 2012, many recommendations are still pending across Australia. The title of the report is, Inclusive Arts, Tourism, Sport and Recreation for People with a Disability: Ways Forward Report. Deakin University carried out the research.   A related publication by Simon Darcy looks at barriers to participation in sport. It can be downloaded from ResearchGate.

Complete Streets: Health agencies play a role

Pedestrians are walking towards the camera. They are on a wide walkway. Some people are looking at their phones. They are dressed for warm weather. There are buildings on each side of the walkwayThe Complete Streets concept is about creating a safe place for all road users regardless of their age or ability. Transport and planning agencies usually have control over road and street plans. But public health agencies also have a role to play. Along with other stakeholders, health agencies can evaluate initiatives from a health, physical activity and inclusion point of view. A report from the US gives an overview of strategies and examples of how public health agencies, advocates and practitioners were involved in planning processes.

The report, published by University of Illinois, is titled, “Public Health Engagement in Complete Streets Initiatives: Examples and Lessons Learned”, is 18 pages plus appendices. 

Complete streets should also mean good footpaths. Parking on and across footpaths in Australia is illegal. For people who are pushing strollers or wheeling anything it means going out on the roadway. And not good for people who are blind or have low vision for the same reason. An article on the BBC News website explains some of the difficulties about this issue, especially now that the UK are providing designated places where it is OK now to Two cars parked with one wheel mounting the kerb of the footpathpark on the footpath. A backward step (excuse the pun). The article includes videos showing the problems. 

Ambient Technology: Assistive or Intrusive?

A graphic of a blue body with different labels around it. For example, telehealth, patient monitoring, assisted living.Designing and creating electronic devices for older people so they can stay home in their later years is a good thing. But are they actually what older people want? It’s a balancing act between assistance for independence versus privacy intrusions. Where do you draw the line? And will the older person have a say in where that line is drawn? These are tricky questions and the answers are likely to be individual. And what happens to any data that are collected both deliberately and as a by-product?

A conference paper from Germany discusses some of these issues as we are increasingly looking to technology to solve our problems. The issues raised in could benefit from a universal design perspective. Taking this view, one would ask, “How can we make ambient technology more universal and general and less specialised so that people don’t feel stigmatised? As Eva-Maria Schomakers and Martina Ziefle say, privacy concerns include the feeling of constant surveillance, misuse of personal information by third parties, as well as the invasion of personal space, obtrusiveness and stigmatising design of these technologies.

The title of the article is Privacy Perceptions in Ambient Assisted Living 

Ambient Assisted Living is a growing field of research. A related paper on ResearchGate “Enabling Technologies for the Internet of Health Things”, might be a place to start. It contains some useful diagrams.