The Universal Parks and Trails Toolkit is done (or as done as it will ever be). Inside you’ll find a guide to help parks agencies and disability organizations assess the accessibility and inclusiveness of parks and trails in our communities. Standards based on established best practices complement the toolkit. The toolkit is currently being piloted with Parks Canada, BC Parks, Metro Vancouver and the Vancouver Parks and Recreation Board.
If you’ve read Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (http://www.bowlingalone.com/)or Ron Burt’s Structural Holes (http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/ronald.burt/research/SHNC.pdf), you will be very familiar with bonding and bridging capital. Bonds are those close knit ties between like actors in a network. Bridges are distant ties to actors with different attributes and access to unique resources. A strong community has a solid core of bonds along with strategic bridges to culturally diverse networks and power structures. This mix balances internal coherence with external opportunities.
To these ties I add banding capital. These are distant ties to those with similar attributes and interests and remain somewhat flexible over time. For people with disabilities this might be a formal organization like the Canadian Paraplegic Society or a less formal facebook group like people who have family and friends with cancer.
Social capital emerges as networks emerge. Networks are simply the structure formed by the connections between actors over time. Some networks are fleeting and may come and go as an issue emerges. Flash mobs are examples of a temporary network of people coming together in an instance and then disappearing in a flash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U_kp1saG-g). Most community action is opposition to development and results in a hastily assembled action group. I would argue that more enduring structures (formal and informal) working together, across disabilities and embedded into socio-political structures would lead to more successful and sustainable solutions than we can achieve today in our disability specific silos that take advocacy-only stances.
The National Center on Accessibility in the U.S. highlighted a number of best practices for parks and recreation organizations:
One idea I had for the first best practice that can go beyond parks and recreation is the use of podcasts or vidcasts to provide “virtual tours” of a variety of experiences that your business offers. For a restaurant this could be a feasible way to market and communicate your menu or for a museum an opportunity to provide information about the latest collection.
In my recent research I stumbled across this article from 2004:
The vast majority of Americans with disabilities are not obtaining the recommended amount of physical activity needed to confer health benefits and prevent secondary conditions associated with a sedentary lifestyle (e.g., heart disease, obesity, osteoporosis). The risk to this population from secondary conditions associated with inactivity is particularly acute, as persons with disabilities are far more likely to have significantly lower levels of overall activity. The current version of the Healthy People 2010 report notes that significantly more people with disabilities reported having no leisure-time physical activity, 56% vs. 36%, compared to people who did not indicate they had any disability.
The HP 2010 Chapter 6, Disability and Secondary Conditions, suggests that the significantly lower rate of participation among people with disabilities may be
related to environmental barriers, including architectural barriers, organizational policies and practices, discrimination, and social attitudes, and recommends that
public health agencies begin to evaluate which environmental factors enhance or impede participation..
This article, Development and validation of AIMFREE: Accessibility Instruments Measuring Fitness and Recreation Environments from Disability and Rehabilitation, 2004; Vol. 26, No. 18, 1087–1095 highlights the challenge faced by schools, recreation centres, governments and private industry to better meet the needs of people with disabilities sooner, rather than later. Considering the focus on infrastructure during this economic downturn, improving facilities and programs for people with disabilities and seniors would seem to provide short, medium and long term benefits to society.
I thought it might be useful to dedicate a site that had information and resources for people with disabilities and the businesses and communities that want to serve them. As a person with a disability and someone who has worked to engage organizations across North America, I have seen a gap in supply and demand when it comes to serving people with disabilities. Some of this is because of a lack of awareness, some of it is because providers aren’t sure what they can do and some of it is because demand isn’t effectively communicated.
I don’t take a traditional advocacy approach (not that there isn’t a place for that). My goal is to make it easy and attractive for businesses and communities to serve everyone. When it comes down to it, people with disabilities want pretty much the same opportunities as everyone else. Considering most people will have a disability of some kind – this includes everyone (hence everyoneincluded.com).
I am starting to build the (resource section) and would be more than happy to take suggestions as to content to include. I’m going to start with the things I know best for no other reason than I can get something on the site quickly. I will add community tools later on once I figure out what might work best.
In the meantime, this blog will serve as the place to highlight updates or comment on activities and events in the world that have implications for people with disabilities.