Making meetings fully accessible for disabled people with fluctuating conditions.

Iggy Patel

Branston, England, United Kingdom

I do a lot of volunteering work, and often get invited to various meetings. A number of times the meetings have become inaccessible for me due to my disabilities. I also often hear from people organising the meetings that they find it difficult to engage with those who are disabled.

Now I’m not talking about issues at the venue or facilities at the place the meetings are held, the majority of times these can be easily catered for with a little advanced thinking and planning.

No my issues and having spoken to a number of disabled colleagues who I have the pleasure of working with, issues for other disabled people stem from just not knowing how I or they are going to feel on the day of the meeting. The meeting may start first thing at 9 - 10am in which case, I just won’t be able to attend, as by the time my carers have got me up and dressed it’s gone past 10. Getting up too early and I’ll be tired at the end of the day which will have a knock-on effect the rest of the week.

This isn’t insurmountable and usually requests for meetings to start later in the morning say bout 11ish or better still after lunch can and will be accommodated, but it is something for organisers to think about when organising accessible meetings.

This isn’t insurmountable and usually requests for meetings to start later in the morning say bout 11ish or better still after lunch can and will be accommodated, but it is something for organisers to think about when organising accessible meetings.

Even then there is still no guarantee that I can make it on the day. I may just feel to unwell! So what to do? Well I may not have all the answers but I can suggest a couple of ideas;

Firstly consider making meetings virtual with technology and a number of different free packages Which are available such as skype, google hangouts it’s not to difficult to allow access to the meetings via the use of these programs. Now I know not everyone may have access to these. So as an alternative, if the agenda with a one or two-line explanation of the subject matters could be sent out say a week or so before the meeting. This allows those who might not be able to participate ( this includes able-bodied participants) a chance to get a brief idea. If they have comments on the subject area this can be emailed back to the chair or the secretary. This then, when the item In question is open to the meeting as a whole if relevant the chair or secretary can make the others aware of the disabled persons' views on the subject. These are then included in to the minutes and distributed, ensuring the disabled person still has his say.

After the meeting, a further grace of a week should be given so that the disabled non-attendee can add anything else that may be relevant that can be added.

A full copy of the minutes then gets sent out and recorded as such.

It’s only an idea, but for me it’s worked a number of times I’ve used it when I’ve wanted to participate and haven’t been physically able to. I’ve still managed to have my say or ensured others at least both disabled and non-disabled get to participate and contribute.

I’d be happy to hear from others who may have any other ideas on ensuring inclusion for disabled people.