Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Accessibility Website UK
Emma Tracey, BBC - July 7, 2014
Euan’s Guide - Disabled Access Reviews is a new accessibility review website and app combination similar to AXSMap and AbleRoad. It is based in the United Kingdom, but includes site accessibility reviews in Australia, Denmark, France, Iceland, Ireland, Philippines, Poland, Switzerland, and the United States. The site announced today that it had reached 1,000 site reviews.
I think Euan’s Guide looks absolutely terrific. I love the graphics, and even though the title font looks a bit juvenile, somehow it works to make the site look fun, but not unserious. The rating system is more complicated and harder to get used to if you want to contribute your own reviews. However, the results are more detailed, easier to understand reviews for users who want to check reviews of places they would like to visit. I hope the site can draw enough reviewers to fill out the database, at least for the UK. The real challenge of these sites is to get enough accessibility reviews added in every community to make the reference meaningful. It seems like that would be easy to do, but I don’t sense a groundswell of interest among disabled people and their families in participating with these kinds of sites. I have been negligent myself.
So, once again … for all of you who care about accessibility, wherever you are … three sites you can join and post accessibility reviews of the places you visit:
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
ADA Anniversary
Ability Chicago / Disability.gov - July 11, 2014
We are coming up on the 24th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This Ability Chicago article includes a good summary of the ADA itself, as well as some related information on more recent disability developments and trends.
Meanwhile, I am working on a blog post on the ADA, to contribute to the Disability Visibility Project, a year-long initiative by StoryCorps, culminating next year with the 25th anniversary of the ADA. I think I'll cave to the listing trend, and try something like, "5 Best Things About the ADA", or "5 Ways the ADA Helped People with Disabilities." Maybe instead I'll go negative, and list some of the disappointments of the ADA.
I am interested to read what others think about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Do you think it has "worked"? How has it helped you? Do you think things would be a lot different if it had never passed? Share your thoughts in the comments.
I am interested to read what others think about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Do you think it has "worked"? How has it helped you? Do you think things would be a lot different if it had never passed? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Fundraising Announcement
Blogging isn’t expensive, but it has a cost, and some day soon I hope to add some features that definitely carry a higher price tag. I would greatly appreciate any purchases you make through Disability Thinking!
"Shared Abilities" Blog Post
"Freakshow" Trailer
I'm looking forward to the next American Horror Story … Freakshow, because I am anxious to find out whether Ryan Murphy and his excellent troupe of actors manage to mix some humanity in with what I am sure will be plenty of gaping at freaks. I’m not optimistic, but you never know ...
Sunday, July 13, 2014
The Thing About Social Security Disability ...
I wrote about this last fall when both 60 Minutes and NPR did stories about how Social Security’s Disability rolls are, supposedly, out of control, stuffed with hard-luck cases turning to Disability for want of anything else to do. Aside from the fact that there are a dozen complex reasons why more people are on Disability than there were a few years ago … still only a fraction of Americans who have disabilities … these stories and the more recent “concerns” assume things about employment and Social Security Disability that don’t stand up to deeper thought:
- The idea that there is a job out there for everyone, and that if you don’t have a job, it’s because you aren’t trying hard enough.
- That if we could somehow drastically narrow the entry gate for Social Security Disability so that only the “really" disabled could get it, all the people cut out would just get jobs or, somehow, find other benefits.
- The notion that there is some common sense, obvious difference between “truly” disabled people … who are sympathetic, honest, and deserving of help, and the sad-sack, inadequate, possibly lazy, and not really disabled losers who use Disability, cynically, because the system allows them to.
There are other issues involved, some of them legitimate and worth careful, thoughtful study. For instance, there are still disincentives to working for people with disabilities on benefits who want to work and have the potential, and not enough people know about the work incentives that are already available.
I’m afraid that instead we will get hysteria and shaming, plus a noxious dose of “divide and conquer”, as “real” disabled people are encouraged to resent the “fake” disabled … people with chronic pain and fatigue, learning disabilities, psychiatric conditions, workplace injuries that won’t heal but aren’t immediately visible, and of course older people with any number of chronic conditions who also happen to have lost their jobs and can’t find new ones.
Meanwhile, only a very few brave advocates and politicians are willing to propose the novel idea that maybe the rise in need means we should be spending more on Disability. Maybe … just a thought.
Weekly Wrap-Up
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Monday, June 30, 2014
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Friday, July 4, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
A Revealing Chart
I’ll have more to say about this chart tomorrow, but for now, let’s just ponder for a moment how many Americans have a disability of some kind, and how many actually collect Social Security Disability benefits.
From Media Matters, via Wheelie Wifee.
The Thing About Sheltered Workshops ...
I’d love to see sheltered workshops banned, phased out, or just plain abandoned. I think they might have been a good idea once, but at this point their weaknesses are plain to see, and they are based on ideas about disability that are no longer valid, if they ever were.
It looks like a renewed version of the federal laws shaping vocational services for people with disabilities is going to be signed soon, and it will include some steps to curb and discourage use of sheltered workshops. It doesn’t ban them, nor does it end the practice of paying below minimum wage. My simple, only moderately informed take is pretty much in line with that of the National Council on Independent Living … that it’s better than nothing.
I also have another thought on sheltered workshop that doesn’t seem to be talked about much. What bothers me most about sheltered workshops is that they are dishonest; they systematically lie to the people they are intended to serve. The tell and / or imply to the people with disabilities who “work” in them that they are “workers” doing a “job”, when in reality, they would be better described as students, clients, or even patients receiving services, or in the worst cases, warehoused and monitored. So, if Congress isn’t ready to ban sheltered workshops yet, I have another idea:
Stop calling what disabled people do in sheltered workshops “jobs”. Call them day programs. Call it work readiness training. Just don’t lie to disabled people and tell them they have a job when it really isn’t one.
If, on the other hand, these organizations want to contend that they are real workplaces … that the disabled people are employees doing jobs, then they should pay them minimum wage or above. The workers should be subject to the same responsibilities and rights that workers have in other non-sheltered jobs. They should be treated like employees, not students, clients, or patients. And if you’re going to do that, why not just ditch the whole “sheltered” part and provide the extra coaching and closer supervision they need individually, in real workplaces. Oh, wait, that’s already being done. It’s called Job Coaching or Supported Employment, and lots of organizations that used to run sheltered workshops gave that up and shifted to Supported Employment. So it can be done.
But again, if we’re not prepared to make that shift, let’s at least be honest about what they are really doing, which, at best, is providing training and structured day activities.
I might have different priorities if I actually worked in a sheltered workshop, but as a disabled person who has met and spoken to a fair number of sheltered workshop “workers”, what bothers me most is implication that sheltered workshop workers are too “simple” to know the difference, or mind. News flash, most of them know what they’re doing isn’t normal, and they do mind.
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