Disability support at events (summary from 10th May hangout)

Hi,

We had two lengthy discussions at our hangout this week, so I'm breaking
the summaries out into separate threads. The first half of the discussion
was around how we describe whether an opportunity offers supports for
people with disabilities.

Its clear that is a complex issue. A participant looking for opportunities
will be interested in a whole range of information that may be relevant to
them making a decision, for example:

* accessibility of venue (e.g. wheelchair access)
* availability of specific equipment
* whether a physical activity or sport is specifically designs for disabled
participants, or could be tailored if there were support from a session
leader. See, e.g. paralympic/deloitte classifications
* whether a session leader or organiser has experience in supporting people
with specific disabilities or impairments
* whether there is scope to tailor an individual session to needs of
participants
* their understanding of their own needs and capabilities

The discussion on list and on the call highlighted that:

* There is currently a reasonably consistent list of terms used to
categorise disability support at events. Summarised at [1]

* There would be value in there better advice for event organisers around
what it means to run inclusive sessions for different types of disability
and impairment

* There is potential for some innovation around the discovery and
description of inclusive events, to better support people with
disabilities, including more user testing of terminology which is currently
driven by reporting requirements

This covers a lot of ground and not all of it is within scope of this
standards group (e.g. general advice for event organisers).

On the call I proposed some revisions to the specification and primer:

* Creating a small controlled vocabulary of terms for describing disability
support, based on the current commonly used terms, e.g. Physical
Impairment, Hearing Impairment, etc. These will have clear descriptions, to
encourage consistent use

* Add a new property that will allow one or more values from this
vocabulary to be used to "tag" an Event

* Add a new description property for events to specifically capture notes
about disability support available at a session, this could include
experience of leaders, notes on relevant equipment, etc

* Revise primer to include examples of using the above

I still think this provides the simplest way forward that will allow
current platforms to publish their current data under an open licence. It's
consistent with our existing approach of encouraging platforms to start
sharing data they currently have, before looking at improving practices
across the sector.

I think this gives a better starting point for improving categorisation
across the sector. For example innovators can test new discovery interfaces
that might drive improvements to the standards/vocabulary and the
underlying platforms. We can revise the terminology and specification in
line with implementation feedback which will give us some strong
requirements.

The alternative is to develop a new set of terminology and approach, and
then work with platforms to implement this. The downside here is that will
delay publishing of existing data, even if those descriptions may be
sub-optimal.

If anyone has any strong objections to this then please do comment.
Otherwise I'll proceed with revising the specification based on the above.

Cheers,

L.


[1].
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ubFqCqmrbwBFOVtYKQ_OCY2NGtMn5ZguuSAyjxehifI/edit?usp=sharing


-- 
Leigh Dodds, Senior Consultant, theODI.org
@ldodds
The ODI, 65 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4JE