Chapter 23. Modifying Access, Barriers, and Opportunities | Community Tool Box

• What do we mean by modifying access, barriers, and opportunities?
• What constitutes access to community services?
• What are the barriers to access to community services?
• What do we mean by opportunities for access to services... and by opportunities to reduce exposure to harmful products, practices, or conditions?
• What tactics might be useful in modifying access, barriers, and opportunities?

When you begin an initiative or intervention, you usually have particular participants or communities in mind. They may be connected by geography, language, identity, shared interests, economic circumstances, experiences, or priorities, or your initiative may be intended for the community as a whole. In either case, your effort is unlikely to succeed if the people it is intended to benefit cannot or do not participate.

In other words, people need meaningful access to what you're offering. Access is more than being able to enter a building. It can include physical accessibility, affordability, transportation, language and communication access, information, technology, scheduling, trust, cultural responsiveness, eligibility requirements, and whether people see the service as relevant and useful to them.

Improving access means understanding and reducing the barriers people experience while creating conditions that make participation realistic and welcoming. It also means involving community members in identifying what access looks like from their perspective rather than assuming that providers already know what people need.

Chapter 23 is about ways to improve access -- for particular communities or for everyone -- to resources and opportunities that contribute to quality of life. These may include services, products, healthy practices, libraries and parks, information, educational opportunities, employment, and public institutions. In this section, we'll discuss these ideas broadly; the following sections will examine several strategies for improving access in greater detail.

The following video illustrates how community conditions and access to resources can shape health behaviors and outcomes:

 

What do we mean by modifying access, barriers, and opportunities?

Access to what? Barriers to what? Opportunities for what? What exactly are we talking about here?

Access

In general terms, this chapter is about making sure people can benefit from the full range of community resources and opportunities -- health care, education, human services, recreation, the arts, transportation, employment, civic participation, and others.

Access also includes the conditions that contribute to a good quality of life: safe and stable housing, meaningful employment, a healthy environment, opportunities to participate in community decisions, reliable information, and responsive institutions.

Meaningful access is not achieved simply because a service or resource technically exists. People must be able to find it, reach it, afford it, understand it, use it, and feel that they will be treated with dignity and respect when they do.

Barriers

Barriers are conditions, policies, practices, systems, or attitudes that make it harder for people to use or benefit from services, resources, opportunities, products, or information. Barriers may be physical, economic, informational, technological, social, cultural, organizational, or related to public policy.

Barriers should not automatically be understood as problems within individuals. What may appear to be a person's difficulty accessing a service may actually reflect transportation gaps, cost, inaccessible communication, discrimination, inflexible schedules, complicated procedures, lack of childcare, or other conditions that organizations and communities can address.

Opportunities

"Opportunities" is not simply another word for "access." Increasing access and reducing barriers can create more realistic opportunities for people to use community resources or pursue their goals.

An opportunity means that a meaningful option is available. People still decide for themselves whether and how to use it. Communities can create opportunities for education, employment, healthy activities, civic participation, homeownership, or other goals, but those opportunities should respect people's choices, priorities, and circumstances.

Modifying access, barriers, and opportunities

To modify something is to change some aspect of it. In most of this chapter, we'll be talking about increasing access and opportunity while reducing barriers.

In some situations, however, communities may also seek to reduce access to products or circumstances associated with significant health or safety risks. Examples might include limiting young people's access to tobacco and nicotine products or alcohol, improving safe storage of firearms and medications, or changing environments in ways that reduce opportunities for violence or injury.

A community health initiative might also work with stores, schools, workplaces, or other organizations to make nutritious food and beverage options easier to find and afford rather than focusing primarily on restricting individual choices.

Similarly, a community violence prevention initiative might improve street lighting, create safe and welcoming public spaces, expand transportation options, support youth activities, or strengthen neighborhood relationships. The goal is to change the conditions that influence safety rather than placing responsibility only on individuals.

In all of these cases, the goal is to shape environments and systems in ways that support health, safety, participation, and quality of life.

In this section, we'll look at access, barriers, and opportunities and then discuss how communities can modify them in ways that are responsive to local strengths, priorities, and circumstances.

What constitutes access to community services?

There are several different ways to look at access, all of them relevant here.

• Availability of services, amenities, or products. If a needed service doesn't exist, people cannot use it. The same is true when capacity is too limited, hours do not fit people's schedules, eligibility rules exclude people who could benefit, or information about the service never reaches the community. Availability also includes whether people can obtain useful community resources such as recreation, cultural programs, libraries, nutritious food, clean water, transportation, and reliable information.
• Physical, transportation, and communication access. A service or facility should be designed so people with disabilities can enter, move through, communicate, and participate. Access can include ramps, elevators, accessible restrooms, seating, signage, captioning, interpretation, assistive technology, accessible websites and documents, and other accommodations. Transportation also matters: a resource may technically exist but still be inaccessible if people cannot reasonably get there.
• Access to information. Information should be understandable, accessible, available in relevant languages and formats, and shared through channels community members actually use. Written materials alone may not reach everyone, so organizations might also use audio, video, plain-language materials, visual communication, community educators, accessible digital formats, or other approaches.
• Quality and effectiveness. Access also involves whether a service is useful, respectful, evidence-informed when appropriate, and responsive to the people it is intended to serve. A service that exists but consistently fails to meet participants' needs may not provide meaningful access.
• Affordability. Fees, transportation costs, lost work time, childcare expenses, technology costs, and other financial demands may prevent people from participating even when a service is otherwise available.
• Trust and experience. People may be less willing to use a service if they have experienced discrimination, disrespect, poor treatment, breaches of confidentiality, or exclusion from the institution providing it. Building access may therefore require rebuilding trust and accountability as well as changing logistics.

What are the barriers to access to services, amenities, practices, products, and information?

Barriers to access take many forms. They may arise from broader social and economic conditions, institutional practices, public policies, community circumstances, or the way services are designed and delivered.

Structural and societal barriers

These are barriers produced by broader systems, policies, patterns of investment, and longstanding social conditions. They can affect different communities in different ways.

• Education. Unequal access to well-resourced schools, experienced educators, technology, advanced coursework, disability supports, safe learning environments, and other educational opportunities can shape people's options later in life. Students and families facing economic barriers and people from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups may be disproportionately affected by these inequities.
• Employment. Access to employment can be affected by discrimination, transportation, childcare, education and training opportunities, professional networks, disability access, criminal-record policies, geographic location, and the availability of jobs that provide adequate wages and working conditions.
• Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. People may experience unequal treatment because of race, ethnicity, disability, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration experience, language, socioeconomic circumstances, or other characteristics.
• Limited recognition of community needs and priorities. Services may be unavailable or underfunded when decision-makers do not understand community conditions, do not have adequate information, or do not meaningfully involve the people most affected.
• Public policy and investment decisions. Decisions about transportation, housing, education, health care, public space, social services, infrastructure, and other community resources can expand opportunities for some people while creating or reinforcing barriers for others.

Institutional and organizational barriers

Schools, colleges, health systems, government agencies, workplaces, businesses, nonprofits, and other institutions may intentionally or unintentionally create barriers through their policies, practices, facilities, schedules, communication, or organizational culture.

• Location and transportation. Organizations may assume that everyone can reach their facilities. Transportation costs, limited public transit, long travel distances, unsafe routes, or unreliable transportation may make participation difficult, particularly in rural communities and areas with limited transportation options.
• Physical and communication accessibility. People with permanent, temporary, visible, or non-visible disabilities may encounter barriers if buildings, services, websites, communications, or activities are not designed accessibly or do not provide appropriate accommodations.
• Administrative barriers. Long forms, complicated eligibility requirements, repeated documentation requests, long waits, difficult phone or online systems, limited office hours, and confusing procedures can make services unnecessarily difficult to use. These barriers may be especially challenging for people balancing work, caregiving, disability, transportation, language, technology, or other responsibilities.
• Communication barriers. Organizations may use technical or bureaucratic language, fail to provide interpretation or translation, rely on inaccessible digital systems, or communicate in ways that make people feel unwelcome or disrespected. Plain language, multiple communication formats, and responsive staff can improve access.
• Lack of cultural humility and responsiveness. Organizations may unintentionally design services around the experiences and expectations of only some groups. Cultural humility involves recognizing those assumptions, listening to community members, adapting practices when appropriate, and avoiding the expectation that everyone should communicate, participate, or seek help in the same way.

Individual and household circumstances that can affect access

People may also experience circumstances in their daily lives that make participation difficult. These should not automatically be understood as personal shortcomings; many are closely connected to broader economic, social, and institutional conditions.

• Stigma, fear, or concerns about privacy. People may hesitate to seek services related to sexual health, substance use, mental health, literacy, housing, legal concerns, or other sensitive issues if they fear judgment, discrimination, loss of privacy, or negative consequences.
• Economic instability and competing demands. Families facing economic barriers may also be managing unpredictable work schedules, transportation challenges, housing instability, caregiving responsibilities, health expenses, limited internet access, or other demands. These conditions can make participation difficult even when people value the service.
• Cultural, religious, or community considerations. Beliefs, traditions, family expectations, or community practices may shape how people view particular services or activities. Avoid making broad assumptions about any cultural or religious group. Instead, ask community members what matters to them and look for respectful ways to respond.
• Family and caregiving responsibilities. Childcare, elder care, household responsibilities, family schedules, or concerns about how participation will affect family routines can influence whether someone can use a service. Flexible schedules, childcare, transportation, and family-inclusive approaches may help.
• Language, literacy, numeracy, or digital-access barriers. People may have difficulty using services when information depends on advanced reading, writing, math, technology, or proficiency in a particular language. Plain language, interpretation, accessible formats, and staff assistance can reduce these barriers.
• Limited access to training, professional networks, or employment opportunities. People may have valuable skills and experience but lack access to credentials, training, transportation, technology, professional networks, or other resources that employers expect. Programs can help address these gaps without defining participants by what they lack.

What do we mean by opportunities for access to services…and for reducing exposure to harmful products, practices, or conditions?

Communities, organizations, and individuals can modify services, amenities, products, information, and environments to create more meaningful opportunities for participation. They can also unintentionally create conditions that make harmful products, practices, or situations easier to encounter.

Increasing opportunities for access may involve affordability, availability, effectiveness, transportation, accessibility, language, or trust. Sometimes relatively small changes -- clearer information, different hours, a more accessible location, interpretation, or a different outreach strategy -- can make a significant difference.

Reducing exposure to harmful products, practices, or conditions also requires careful analysis. Consider what is contributing to the concern, which factors can realistically be changed, and whether the proposed response addresses underlying conditions rather than simply placing responsibility on individuals.

What tactics might be useful in modifying access, barriers, and opportunities?

This chapter examines five broad tactics for modifying access, barriers, and opportunities:

1. Reducing access or exposure to products, practices, and conditions associated with health or safety risks
2. Enhancing access to services, healthy practices and products, community resources, and information
3. Expanding access and opportunity for people and families facing economic barriers
4. Increasing accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities
5. Using outreach to increase awareness, connection, and access

Each of these tactics will be treated in detail in its own section in this chapter. We'll introduce them briefly here and discuss how each can be part of a larger strategy for long-term change.

1. Reducing access or exposure to harmful products, practices, and conditions

Communities can sometimes improve health and safety by changing environments, policies, or systems so that harmful products or situations are less accessible while healthier and safer options become easier to choose.

Examples may include:

• Improving street lighting and the design of public spaces to support visibility and safety
• Creating smoke-free and tobacco-free public environments
• Using appropriate laws, policies, storage practices, and safety measures to reduce access to dangerous weapons
• Enforcing age requirements for alcohol, tobacco, nicotine, and other regulated products
• Working with food vendors, schools, employers, and other organizations to make nutritious and affordable options more available
• Rehabilitating vacant or neglected properties for housing, community use, or other purposes identified by residents
• Using pricing, incentives, or other policy tools to influence access to products associated with significant health or environmental risks

A broader health strategy may combine these approaches with education, accessible services, community engagement, and efforts to make healthier options affordable and realistic for people to use.

2. Enhancing access to services, amenities, healthy practices and products, and information

This usually means addressing one or more of the issues described earlier as elements of access.

Some ways to increase access include:

• Adjusting schedules, locations, eligibility requirements, and service structures based on the needs and preferences of the people the program is intended to serve
• Expanding transportation options
• Providing physical, digital, communication, and language access for people with disabilities and people who use languages other than English
• Using cultural humility and community knowledge to make services more relevant, respectful, and responsive
• Offering peer support, navigation, coaching, or other forms of assistance for people pursuing health or behavior changes
• Working with community members to identify what products, services, environments, or resources would make healthy choices easier and more realistic

These approaches can stand alone or be combined with other strategies as part of a larger effort to improve access.

3. Expanding access and opportunity for people and families facing economic barriers

Many of the same strategies used to improve access generally are also important for people and families facing economic barriers. Additional approaches may include:

• Programs and services that use income-based eligibility or sliding-scale costs to make education, health care, childcare, housing, transportation, workforce development, and other resources more affordable
• Community and economic development strategies that invest in neighborhoods with limited economic resources and support employment, locally owned businesses, housing, transportation, and other community priorities
• Policies and organizational practices designed to address documented patterns of exclusion and expand opportunity for groups that have been historically underrepresented
• Entrepreneurship, cooperative development, financial education, grants, low-cost lending, and other strategies that expand people's access to capital and opportunities to build economic security

These strategies can be especially effective when people affected by economic barriers have meaningful roles in deciding which investments, services, and opportunities will be most useful in their communities.

4. Increasing accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities

Accessibility involves much more than installing a ramp. It means designing facilities, communication, technology, programs, and organizational practices so that people with disabilities can participate fully and equitably.

Important areas include:

• Respect and inclusion. People with disabilities should be treated as full participants, community members, employees, leaders, customers, students, and partners. Avoid defining people primarily by disability or making assumptions about what someone can or cannot do.
• Communication access. Depending on individual needs, access may include sign-language interpretation, captioning, assistive listening systems, screen-reader-compatible digital content, Braille, large print, accessible electronic documents, plain language, augmentative and alternative communication, or other supports.
• Physical access. Accessible environments may require appropriate entrances, doors, elevators, restrooms, pathways, parking, seating, counters, emergency exits, signage, and room layouts. Accessibility should be considered throughout a facility rather than limited to one entrance or feature.
• Program and digital accessibility. Websites, registration systems, virtual meetings, events, activities, policies, and communication practices should also be designed to allow people with disabilities to participate meaningfully.

Accessibility requirements vary by setting and jurisdiction. Organizations should follow applicable disability-rights laws and current accessibility standards and, whenever possible, include people with disabilities directly in planning and evaluating accessibility.

5. Using outreach to increase access

The term "outreach" covers many different activities. It can include sharing information through community networks, providing services in neighborhood locations, using mobile programs, working with trusted community members, conducting home visits when appropriate, or taking services directly to people who face barriers to reaching traditional sites.

Effective outreach begins by listening. Organizations should understand how community members prefer to receive information, which people and organizations they trust, what barriers they experience, and what would make services more useful and accessible.

• Outreach to increase awareness. People cannot use services they don't know about. Community media, public events, neighborhood organizations, schools, faith communities, social media, home visits, and trusted community messengers can all help share information. Community members who have relevant relationships and lived experience can be especially valuable partners in designing and carrying out outreach.
• Outreach to strengthen relevance and trust. If people are reluctant to use a service, find out why. Concerns may involve location, privacy, past experiences, cultural fit, language, eligibility rules, cost, or how the service is presented. Work with community members to address these concerns rather than assuming that reluctance is simply resistance.
• Outreach to reduce barriers. Services can sometimes be offered through mobile units, neighborhood-based sites, schools, community centers, shelters, libraries, homes, or other locations people can reach more easily. Outreach may be especially useful for people experiencing homelessness, young people disconnected from traditional services, people affected by substance use, people with limited transportation, or others who face barriers to conventional service settings.

In Summary

For an intervention or initiative to have an impact, people must be able to participate in it. The same is true for community resources such as libraries, parks, cultural facilities, transportation, information, educational opportunities, and public institutions.

Access depends on more than whether something exists. It is shaped by affordability, physical and digital accessibility, transportation, language, communication, organizational practices, cultural responsiveness, trust, public policy, and many other conditions.

Improving access therefore requires more than encouraging individuals to make different choices. It requires communities and organizations to examine the systems and environments that shape people's options, remove unnecessary barriers, build on community strengths, and involve the people most affected in designing solutions.

By improving access, reducing barriers, expanding meaningful opportunities, and addressing conditions associated with health and safety risks, communities can create environments in which more people are able to participate, contribute, and thrive.

What do we mean by modifying access, barriers, and opportunities?

___You understand that access refers to access to positive and healthy services, products, practices, amenities, information, and institutions.

___You understand that, in order to enhance access, barriers to it have to be removed or changed.

___You understand that creating opportunities for access doesn’t guarantee that people will take advantage of them.

What constitutes access to community services, amenities, practices, products, and information?

___You’re concerned with physical access, not only for the disabled, but for those with transportation or other issues that prevent them from using services and amenities.

___You work toward access to information for everyone.

___You understand that access is denied if services are unavailable, whether because they don’t exist, because they are limited in scope by funding, because they are limited to certain groups, because people don’t know about them, or because they are unresponsive to the time and place needs of their intended users.

___You know that people also are denied access when services exist, but are ineffective.

What are the barriers to access to services, amenities, practices, products, and information?

___You recognize the societal barriers to access:

• Lack of education
• Lack of decent employment
• Stereotyping and prejudice
• Lack of services for particular issues
• Choices the society makes

___You recognize the institutional barriers to access:

• Location
• Lack of physical access
• Administrative roadblocks
• Poor communication
• Lack of cultural sensitivity

___You recognize the personal barriers to access:

• Psychological
• Lack of organizational skills
• The uncertainty of life in poverty
• Cultural or religious issues
• Family concerns
• Peer pressure
• Lack of job and personal skills

___You understand that barriers can be positive when they’re erected to keep people from using unhealthy or dangerous practices and products. These kinds of barriers include smoking bans in public buildings, regulation of handgun sales, and laws against selling alcohol to minors.

What do we mean by opportunities for access to services, amenities, practices, products, and information…and for access to or use of unsafe or unhealthy behaviors or circumstances?

___You understand that improving opportunities for access to positive services, practices, and products, as well as limiting opportunities for access to unhealthy practices and products, requires careful analysis of both what you can affect and how and where to apply your efforts in order to reach potential users.

What tactics might be useful in modifying access, barriers, and opportunities?
You’re aware of the following tactics:

___Reducing access to unhealthy products and practices, through such actions as encouraging food stores to eliminate some unhealthy snacks and replace them with healthier alternatives.

___Enhancing access to healthy products and practices through such actions as forming support groups for those trying to adopt healthier behaviors.

___Extending opportunities for the poor through, for instance, development zones and social entrepreneurship programs.

___Increasing access for people with physical disabilities.

___Using outreach to increase access, perhaps by bringing services to where users are.

Example #1: The Brandywine Center: In Pennsylvania, Wealthy County’s Poorer Residents Get A Healthy Place To Live

Although Chester County, Pennsylvania, has been considered one of the richest counties in the country, seven percent of its half-million residents live in poverty. Coatesville, a city of 13,000 people, is one such low-income pocket. To combat this problem, the Brandywine Health Foundation (BHF) constructed the Brandywine Center, a community hub. The four-story building houses health and dental services on the first floor, behavioral care on the fourth, and 24 units of affordable senior housing on the two middle floors. The BHF is committed to working toward both improved neighborhood conditions and improved health in this low-income community.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #2: Community Health And Literacy Center: A Health, Literacy & Recreation Hub

The Community Health and Literacy Center, formed out of a collaboration between the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the City as unexpected partners, worked together to bring a neglected neighborhood both improved access to health care and health, promoting recreation and literacy opportunities.

The center, which opened in the spring of 2016, is a first-of-its-kind hospital-city partnership. The project includes a CHOP pediatric clinic; a full-service community health center run by the city’s department of public health; a branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia; and a modern recreation center with a playground and green space, run by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. It offers welcoming outdoor space for the neighborhood and an indoor community meeting space. The location has excellent public transit access, with a subway stop on site. CHOP and the city are working to integrate services and programming as a way to have more of an impact on improving population health.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #3: Under One Roof: Health Care and Social Services in the Same Place

The Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC) is the largest community development corporation based in Arizona. CPLC is committed to building stronger, healthier communities as a lead advocate, coalition builder, and direct service provider. CPLC helps more than 200,000 people through programs in four areas–housing, economic development, education, and health and human services. CPLC recognizes that the needs of the families it serves are complex as a family rarely approaches the CDC with only one need. As a result, CPLC sought to establish cross-sector partnerships that would more effectively and holistically meet the needs of families.

Read more about CPLC on Rooflines - The Shelterforce Blog, from the National Housing Institute.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

example #4: building belonging through multilingual wayfinding

Finney County, Kansas, is home to many migrants and refugees. LiveWell Finney County aims to make the community more welcoming and connected. They have partnered with local agencies, including the hospital and nonprofits, to install wayfinding signage in multiple languages, helping all residents feel included and navigate community spaces more easily.
 

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

A Story of Change

Raymond had been involved with the justice system since adolescence. Jessie regularly faced difficult choices between paying rent, buying food, and covering other household expenses. Maureen had experienced homelessness and was working toward greater stability while in recovery from alcohol use. Felix immigrated from Guatemala as a teenager and had spent years working in low-wage jobs with limited opportunities for advancement.

When they stood together in their graduation robes, they shared something important: each had worked toward goals they had set for themselves, and each had built new relationships, skills, and opportunities along the way.

They had completed a comprehensive program designed to help participants strengthen economic stability and pursue education and employment goals. The program offered job-search and interview preparation, workplace skills, financial education, high school equivalency preparation, English-language learning, and connections to community resources. Jessie and Maureen earned high school equivalency credentials, Raymond strengthened skills that helped him pursue employment, and Felix expanded his English-language skills while exploring additional education and career opportunities.

Just as important, participants built relationships with one another. They shared meals, childcare, information, encouragement, and connections. Raymond learned about a job opportunity through Maureen's family network. Jessie found a school program that supported her daughter's interest in art through a recommendation from another participant. Felix's volunteer mentor helped him explore college and training options.

There is no single path toward economic security. For some people, access to stable employment may make the greatest difference. Others may benefit from education, training, affordable housing, childcare, health care, transportation, financial resources, or supportive relationships. Often, several of these things are needed at the same time. Strong communities help expand people's choices and create conditions in which individuals and families can build on their strengths and pursue their goals.

Understanding Poverty Today

This section explores how communities can expand economic opportunity and reduce barriers experienced by people living in poverty. Poverty can affect many areas of life, including housing stability, food security, health, education, transportation, employment, family well-being, and opportunities to participate fully in community life.

Language about poverty has changed over time. Terms such as people experiencing poverty, people with lower incomes, and people facing economic barriers generally describe circumstances without defining people by them. In this section, we'll primarily use people experiencing poverty when referring to people whose available resources are not sufficient to meet basic needs or participate fully in the economic and social life of their communities.

Poverty also looks different across communities and countries. The resources needed for housing, food, transportation, health care, education, and participation vary greatly depending on where someone lives. For that reason, understanding poverty requires looking not only at income, but also at cost of living, access to services and opportunities, household resources, and the broader economic and social conditions people experience.

Who Experiences Poverty and Why?

People experience poverty for many interconnected reasons. Some households experience economic hardship after job loss, illness, disability, divorce, displacement, or another major change. Others face longer-term barriers related to wages, housing costs, education, discrimination, health care, transportation, childcare, public policy, or access to wealth and economic opportunity.

These factors often interact. Poverty is therefore rarely explained by one decision, characteristic, or circumstance. Understanding the broader conditions affecting people's choices and opportunities is essential when communities develop strategies to increase economic security.

Access to education, training, and skills

Education and training can expand employment and economic opportunities, but people do not have equal access to them. Cost, transportation, childcare, disability access, language, technology, school quality, work schedules, and previous educational opportunities can all affect participation.

Some adults may want additional support with literacy, numeracy, English-language learning, digital skills, professional credentials, or job-specific training. Programs can help by making these opportunities affordable, accessible, relevant to participants' goals, and connected to realistic education and employment pathways.

Low-wage or unstable employment

Employment does not always provide economic security. People may work full time or hold multiple jobs while still having difficulty covering housing, food, transportation, childcare, health care, and other basic expenses.

Low wages, unpredictable schedules, limited benefits, seasonal or temporary work, lack of paid leave, and few opportunities for advancement can make it difficult for workers and families to build savings or withstand an unexpected expense. Strategies for increasing economic security may therefore need to address the quality and stability of employment as well as whether jobs are available.

Health, disability, and access to care

Health conditions and disabilities can affect employment, income, expenses, transportation, or caregiving responsibilities. At the same time, people with disabilities bring skills, knowledge, and experience to workplaces and communities and may thrive when environments are accessible and appropriate accommodations are available.

Barriers such as inadequate health coverage, inaccessible workplaces, discrimination, limited transportation, high medical costs, or difficulty obtaining needed supports can contribute to economic hardship. Accessible health care, disability supports, accommodations, income supports, and inclusive employment practices can expand opportunity and stability.

Substance use and recovery

Substance use disorders and economic hardship can interact in complex ways. Financial stress, trauma, unstable housing, limited access to care, and other difficult circumstances may affect substance use and recovery. Substance use disorders can also affect health, employment, relationships, housing, and financial stability.

Effective responses avoid blaming or stigmatizing people. They may include evidence-informed treatment, harm-reduction services, peer support, recovery services, stable housing, health care, employment support, and long-term community connection.

Mental health, trauma, and well-being

Mental health conditions and experiences of trauma can affect many areas of life, including work, education, relationships, housing, and physical health. Economic insecurity can also contribute to chronic stress and make it harder to obtain consistent care.

People who have experienced violence, displacement, discrimination, military service, community trauma, or other difficult circumstances may benefit from accessible, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive support. Mental health care works best as one part of a broader system of support rather than as an explanation for poverty itself.

Economic shocks and instability

People across income levels can experience financial hardship after a major setback such as job loss, a medical emergency, family separation, natural disaster, caregiving responsibility, or sudden increase in housing costs. Households with limited savings or access to affordable credit may have fewer resources for absorbing these shocks.

Emergency assistance, income supports, affordable health care, stable housing, paid leave, unemployment protections, and opportunities to build savings and assets can help families remain stable during periods of change.

Structural barriers and unequal access to opportunity

Economic opportunities are also shaped by broader systems and institutions. Discrimination, neighborhood disinvestment, unequal educational opportunities, limited transportation, housing barriers, inaccessible services, and unequal access to credit, professional networks, and other resources can influence people's opportunities over time.

Communities can address these barriers by examining policies and practices, investing in areas where resources have been limited, listening to people most affected, and creating more equitable access to education, employment, housing, health care, transportation, and economic opportunity.

Intergenerational economic barriers

Economic hardship can extend across generations when families have had fewer opportunities to build savings, property, education, professional networks, or other assets that can be passed from one generation to the next. Long-term disinvestment, discrimination, housing conditions, school resources, health disparities, and limited access to credit or employment opportunities can also accumulate over time.

These circumstances do not determine a person's future. Expanding access to quality education, stable employment, affordable housing, health care, childcare, financial resources, community networks, and opportunities to build assets can increase economic mobility for individuals and families.

Poverty Among Children and Families

Children can be especially affected by economic hardship because their health, education, housing, nutrition, and development depend partly on the resources and environments available to their families. In 2025, 13.4% of children in the United States lived below the official poverty threshold.

Poverty rates and experiences are not distributed evenly across communities. Differences reflect a range of historical and current economic and social conditions, including access to employment, housing, education, health care, wealth, and other resources.

Children in families experiencing poverty may be more likely to encounter food insecurity, housing instability, limited access to health care, fewer educational resources, or chronic financial stress. These circumstances can affect health and learning, but they do not define children's abilities or potential.

Supports such as stable housing, nutritious food, affordable childcare, high-quality schools, health care, transportation, family income supports, safe recreation, and strong relationships with family and community members can help children and families thrive.

Expanding Economic Security and Opportunity

Reducing poverty requires attention to both the immediate needs of individuals and families and the broader conditions that shape economic opportunity. No single strategy will work for every community or household.

Effective approaches may include:

• Education and training: Expanding access to strong K–12 education, high school equivalency programs, apprenticeships, vocational and technical training, adult education, and college opportunities.
• Stable employment and economic opportunity: Expanding access to jobs with adequate pay, predictable schedules, benefits when possible, safe working conditions, and opportunities for advancement.
• Affordable housing, childcare, and transportation: Reducing major household costs and logistical barriers that can make it difficult to work, pursue education, or build financial stability.
• Health care and behavioral health access: Providing affordable and accessible physical health, mental health, disability, substance use treatment, and recovery services.
• Income and asset-building supports: Helping households respond to immediate needs while also creating opportunities to build savings, access affordable financial services, develop credit, own assets, and increase long-term financial security.
• Social connection: Strengthening networks through which people share information, provide mutual support, connect one another with employment and services, and respond to challenges together.
• Community leadership and shared decision-making: Ensuring that people with lived experience of poverty have meaningful roles in designing, leading, and evaluating programs, services, and community change efforts.

The Bigger Picture

Expanding economic opportunity involves more than providing short-term assistance. It also means examining the conditions that influence whether people can obtain stable housing, education, health care, transportation, employment, financial resources, and meaningful opportunities to participate in community life.

Communities can combine direct support with efforts to reduce structural and institutional barriers. The strongest approaches recognize people's existing strengths and knowledge, respond to immediate needs without stigma, and involve people experiencing poverty in deciding what changes would be most useful.

Progress is possible when people have meaningful choices, supportive relationships, accessible resources, and opportunities to build economic stability over time. Rather than defining people by poverty, effective community efforts focus on expanding the conditions in which individuals, families, and communities can participate, contribute, and thrive.

Use this checklist to assess how your community, organization, or partnership is helping individuals and families build pathways out of poverty.

Understand the context
    ___ Learn about poverty in your community—who is most affected, and why.
    ___ Examine local data on income, education, housing, health, and employment.
    ___ Listen to people with lived experience to understand barriers and assets from their perspective.
    ___ Recognize how racism, discrimination, and policy decisions contribute to persistent poverty.
Build comprehensive supports
    ___ Offer education and skills training programs that align with real employment opportunities.
    ___ Partner with local employers to create paid apprenticeships and living-wage jobs.
    ___ Connect participants to affordable housing, childcare, transportation, and healthcare.
    ___ Include mental health and recovery supports as core program elements.
    ___ Provide access to financial literacy training and credit-building opportunities.
Strengthen community and relationships
    ___ Foster peer networks that provide encouragement, childcare exchange, and resource sharing.
    ___ Build partnerships among nonprofits, government agencies, businesses, and schools.
    ___ Create mentorship programs linking participants with professionals or community leaders.
    ___ Celebrate milestones (graduations, new jobs, certifications) to reinforce progress and pride.
Empower and involve participants
    ___ Engage people with lived experience of poverty as leaders, advisors, and co-designers.
    ___ Use trauma-informed approaches that emphasize dignity, trust, and choice.
    ___ Encourage civic engagement—such as voting, advocacy, and community leadership.
    ___ Focus on strengths and assets, not deficits or “fixing” individuals.
    ___ Measure success not only by income but also by increased stability, confidence, and connection.
 

Example #1: A Tour of Mariposa: Equitable Transit-Oriented Development

The Mariposa Project led by the Denver Housing Authority is an affordable and transit-oriented housing development in which health outcomes and community-level improvements are evaluated. The new mixed-income community has revitalized the surrounding areas, breaking down physical barriers between the public housing units and the rest of the community and infusing the area with community-informed retail and services. The Denver Housing Authority has transformed 10th Street into a promenade that connects the rail station to the nearby Art District on Santa Fe, drawing visitors from across the city to an area that was once overlooked.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #2: The Brandywine Center: In Pennsylvania, Wealthy County’s Poorer Residents Get A Healthy Place To Live

Although Chester County, Pennsylvania, has been considered one of the richest counties in the country, seven percent of its half-million residents live in poverty. Coatesville, a city of 13,000 people, is one such low-income pocket. To combat this problem, the Brandywine Health Foundation (BHF) constructed the Brandywine Center, a community hub. The four-story building houses health and dental services on the first floor, behavioral care on the fourth, and 24 units of affordable senior housing on the two middle floors. The BHF is committed to working toward both improved neighborhood conditions and improved health in this low-income community.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #3: Community Health And Literacy Center: A Health, Literacy & Recreation Hub

The Community Health and Literacy Center, formed out of a collaboration between the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the City as unexpected partners, worked together to bring a neglected neighborhood both improved access to health care and health, promoting recreation and literacy opportunities.

The center, which opened in the spring of 2016, is a first-of-its-kind hospital-city partnership. The project includes a CHOP pediatric clinic; a full-service community health center run by the city’s department of public health; a branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia; and a modern recreation center with a playground and green space, run by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation. It offers welcoming outdoor space for the neighborhood and an indoor community meeting space. The location has excellent public transit access, with a subway stop on site. CHOP and the city are working to integrate services and programming as a way to have more of an impact on improving population health.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #4: Vita Health & Wellness District: Health at the Center of a Neighborhood Transformation

The Vita Health & Wellness District project was established through a partnership between the Stamford housing authority and Stamford hospital to revitalize an impoverished inner city area, in Stamford Connecticut, into a mixed-income community with expanded neighborhood services centered around a sustainable urban farm. Addressing the social determinants of health provide a framework for managing the neighborhood transformation in ways that would support and strengthen the existing community.

The Vita project is a great example of how a hospital can fulfill the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to engage its community by partnering to address the social determinants of health. The project also demonstrates how a forward-thinking community development organization can effectively partner with the health sector to pursue comprehensive community revitalization that could not have been achieved otherwise. These are still early days in what promises to be a fruitful and long-lasting partnership.

Read more about the Vita Health & Wellness District project on the Building Healthy Places Network blog.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #5: Rolling Hills Apartments: Weaving Together Opportunities for Healthier Lives for a Diverse Immigrant Community

Twin Cities LISC, a local community development financial institution, has partnered with local organizations and city agencies to create quality affordable housing with improved healthcare access, including constructing a Federally Qualified Health Center. LISC also employed community health advocates to weave together the isolated health-related efforts in the neighborhood of focus into a cohesive health agenda. More specifically, they connect and help support existing efforts, identify and help address gaps, and facilitate the conversations and activities that sustain collaboration.

Learn how social determinants of health are being addressed to build healthier lives for immigrants in St. Paul, Minnesota in this Community Close-Up from the Building Healthy Places Network.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #6: Community Development 2.0—Collective Impact Focuses a Neighborhood Strategy for Health

The East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) has built health into its strategic plan, and in the neighborhood revitalization work of The San Pablo Collaborative (SPARC), convened by EBALDC, health is the first priority. The San Pablo Area Revitalization Corridor neighborhood that stretches between downtown Oakland and Emeryville is considered to be one of the poorest and most disadvantaged areas of Oakland, California. Life expectancy in this area is up to 20 years lower than the neighboring area, Oakland Hills. SPARC works tirelessly to address the physical, social and economic factors-“social determinants”- that shape residents’ health in the San Pablo Avenue Corridor. SPARC partners work collectively in order to create an overall healthier environment for residents throughout the neighborhood. The California Hotel has been successfully preserved as affordable housing and a grocery store has been brought to this long abandoned neighborhood.

Learn how social determinants of health are being addressed to build healthier lives for the most disadvantaged areas of Oakland, California in this Community Close-Up from the Building Healthy Places Network.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #7: Revitalizing People and Place with a Healthy Food Hub Origin

Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the founders of what became Broad Community Connections (BCC) began to attend community meetings, and investigate with their fellow community members how to rebuild a city in disarray. These discussions highlighted many of the problems that many central New Orleans resident had faced even before the storm, including but not limited to economic disadvantage, community disinvestment, health disparities, and lack of access to many needed goods and services. BCC was designed to revitalize Broad Street, a commercial thoroughfare running through the heart of the city and to connect several of the central city neighborhoods.

Founded in 2008, BCC set its sights on improving health and improving economic vitality in the area. Ultimately, the ReFresh project provided a high-quality grocery store to a low-income food desert and created a multi-faceted hub to improve healthy food access and local food systems, foster community connectivity, support youth development, and anchor economic development.

Read more about the ReFresh project in New Orleans on the Building Healthy Places Network blog.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #8: Supporting Childhood Wellness Through Healthy, Affordable Housing

In a low-income Philadelphia community, for-profit and non-profit developers have partnered to create Paseo Verde, a high-quality housing development highlighting resident and community health. The development prides itself on making healthy housing accessible even for families in poverty. This one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartment complex, Paseo Verde, supports children’s health through its environmentally sustainable design, on-site health center and pharmacy, resident service programs, and social service programs.

Read more in the profile from How Housing Matters.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #9: Building Strong Neighborhoods with Affordable Housing

The New Settlement Apartments project began in 1990 with the acquisition and restoration of fifteen abandoned buildings, the construction of a new building, in addition to the acquisition of a seventeenth building to provide over 1,022 affordable homes for a community of more than 3,500 people, in which thirty percent are formerly homeless. Presently, the eighteenth building is under construction to provide sixty additional affordable apartments. This project has played a monumental role in transforming one of the worst areas of New York City into a vibrant mixed-income neighborhood.

Read more from the Settlement Housing Fund.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #10: Scholarships for Every Student

In 2005, Baldwin community leaders learned about a plan that had been implemented in the Michigan City of Kalamazoo to provide every high school graduate a full scholarship to attend any public college in the state. The program, called the Kalamazoo Promise, was made possible by a group of anonymous donors. Unlike Kalamazoo, Baldwin didn’t have any local prospective big businesses or deep-pocketed philanthropists. As written, “Rick Simonson, a Baldwin native who chaired President Gerald Ford’s election campaign in Michigan and later served as a legislative staffer and lobbyist in Michigan, told them about a law that the legislature had just passed aimed at creating 10 “promise zones” in the state to offer Kalamazoo-like scholarships.” If communities raised sufficient seed money, they would be allowed to support the scholarships by keeping a portion of annual property tax revenues that they would otherwise have to pass on to the state. Astonishingly, within a year, Baldwin had raised enough money to initiate the scholarship program. The Baldwin Promise is an extraordinary representation of a small town’s aspiration to provide a better opportunity for its youth. While there are promise scholarships in various communities across the nation, Baldwin was the first place to raise the seed funds through grassroots contributions.

Read more about Scholarships for Every Student.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #11: The Hunger Hack

After a storm led to the cancellation of a church event in the Washington, D.C., suburbs last year, Tierney Screen found herself in a room filled with 3,600 unclaimed paper lunch bags, each containing a sandwich, fruit, chips, and cookies. Unable to distribute them by herself and the thought of having to toss them in the garbage pained her. A few months earlier she met a student who spoke about a website she and some other students created in which restaurants and community establishments could donate excess food to organizations that feed the hungry. Screen decided to call the student, Maria Rose Belding, who explained how to post the lunches on the site and within four hours, a nearby food pantry claimed them. The bags would be handed out to homeless people in Washington D.C.

Read more about The Hunger Hack.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

 

• What do we mean by increasing access?

• Why should you make your organization or initiative more accessible?

• When should you make your organization or initiative more accessible?

• Who can help you increase access?

• How do you go about increasing access?

Disability is a common part of human experience. In the United States, more than one in four adults reports having a disability, and worldwide an estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability.

People with disabilities are a diverse group. Disabilities may be physical, sensory, cognitive, intellectual, developmental, neurological, or related to mental health or chronic health conditions. Some disabilities are apparent, while others are not. A person's experience of disability is also shaped by the accessibility of the environments, systems, services, technologies, and communities around them.

Despite progress in disability rights and accessibility, people with disabilities continue to encounter barriers to education, employment, health care, transportation, communication, civic participation, recreation, and other aspects of community life. Increasing access means identifying and removing those barriers and designing organizations and communities in ways that support full and equitable participation.

Accessibility issues can take many forms. For example:

• Jamahl had long been interested in volunteer work and was excited to attend a community lecture on volunteerism. Jamahl uses American Sign Language, but no interpreter or other effective communication support was available. Because he could not fully access the presentation, he left before information about volunteer opportunities was distributed.
• Katrina wanted her son Ricky to participate in a citywide afterschool tutoring program. Transportation was provided for students, but the vehicles were not wheelchair accessible. Ricky wanted additional support with math, but the transportation barrier prevented him from participating.
• After Emilio's wife died, he began attending a local grief support group. The facilitator regularly distributed articles that participants found useful, but the materials were not available in a format Emilio could read with his low vision. After repeatedly being unable to access the same information as other participants, he stopped attending.

These examples illustrate an important point: people are often excluded not because of disability itself, but because services, environments, transportation, information, or communication were not designed to include them.

Some accessibility improvements are simple, while others require more planning, expertise, or resources. Accessibility is most effective when it is built into an organization's regular planning and decision-making rather than addressed only after someone encounters a barrier.

What do we mean by increasing access?

Increasing access means creating environments, programs, services, information, and opportunities that people with disabilities can use and participate in equitably.

Accessibility is often associated only with physical features such as ramps, elevators, or accessible restrooms. Physical access is essential, but true accessibility is broader. It also includes communication, digital technology, information, transportation, organizational policies, attitudes, program design, and opportunities to participate in decision-making.

Increasing access may involve:

• Building disability inclusion into the attitudes, practices, and culture of your organization or initiative
• Providing effective and accessible communication
• Making physical spaces accessible
• Making websites, documents, registration systems, social media, videos, and other digital information accessible
• Reviewing policies and procedures that may unnecessarily limit participation
• Providing reasonable accommodations and other supports when individual access needs arise
• Including people with disabilities in planning, leadership, implementation, and evaluation

Accessibility and accommodation are related but not identical. Accessible or universal design tries to reduce barriers for as many people as possible from the beginning. Individual accommodations address access needs that remain. Strong organizations plan for both.

Why should you make your organization or initiative more accessible?

Accessibility supports equity, participation, and community inclusion. It allows more people to use services, attend events, volunteer, work, lead, contribute ideas, and take part in community life.

In the United States, organizations may also have legal responsibilities under disability-rights laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and, in some settings, other federal, state, or local requirements. The specific requirements depend on the type of organization, program, facility, and activity involved.

Accessibility also strengthens organizations. When people with disabilities can participate fully, organizations benefit from a broader range of experiences, knowledge, skills, perspectives, and leadership.

When should you make your organization or initiative more accessible?

Accessibility should be considered from the beginning and throughout the life of an organization, initiative, program, or event. It should not depend on whether you already know that a person with a disability will participate.

Accessibility is especially important to consider:

• When developing a new program, service, or initiative
• When choosing, building, renovating, or moving into a physical space
• When planning a conference, meeting, training, retreat, public event, or other gathering
• When creating or redesigning a website, app, online registration system, document, video, or other digital resource
• When developing organizational policies and procedures
• When recruiting staff, volunteers, board members, participants, or community partners
• When participants identify barriers or request accommodations

An organization may have few known participants with disabilities precisely because barriers have prevented people from participating. A lack of visible participation should not be interpreted as evidence that accessibility is unnecessary.

Imagine that a public building can be reached only by climbing a long flight of stairs. Staff members might say that they rarely see wheelchair users there. But the stairs themselves may be the reason wheelchair users have not been able to enter. Accessibility should be evaluated by looking at barriers, not simply at who has managed to participate despite them.

Who can help you increase access?

Accessibility can involve many different areas -- physical design, communication, technology, policy, transportation, accommodations, and organizational practices. You do not have to figure everything out by yourself.

One of the most important resources is people with disabilities themselves. People who experience barriers have firsthand knowledge of what works, what does not, and what organizations often overlook. Include people with disabilities meaningfully in planning, decision-making, evaluation, and leadership rather than asking for input only after decisions have already been made.

Useful sources of assistance can include:

• Centers for Independent Living (CILs) -- community-based organizations led by people with disabilities that provide advocacy, information and referral, peer support, independent living services, and expertise on disability access
• The ADA National Network -- regional centers that provide information, training, and technical assistance related to the Americans with Disabilities Act
• The U.S. Access Board -- a federal resource for accessibility standards and guidance related to the built environment, transportation, and information and communication technology
• The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) -- a resource for workplace accommodations and disability employment questions
• Disability-led community organizations and advocacy groups
• Accessibility consultants, architects, web accessibility specialists, interpreters, captioners, and other professionals with relevant expertise
• Attorneys or other qualified professionals when you need guidance about specific legal requirements

When possible, compensate people with disabilities for substantial consultation, training, accessibility review, or other professional contributions rather than assuming they should provide this expertise without compensation.

How do you go about increasing access?

Build disability inclusion into your organizational culture and practices.

Accessibility begins with recognizing people with disabilities as full members, leaders, employees, volunteers, participants, customers, and partners in community life.

Examine whether assumptions about disability affect who is invited to participate, whose input is taken seriously, who is considered for leadership, or how your organization defines competence and independence.

Reach out to people with disabilities who are already involved in your organization and to disability-led organizations in the community. Ask where barriers exist and what changes would make participation more equitable.

Representation matters, but meaningful inclusion goes beyond representation. A person with a disability should not be expected to represent every disabled person or serve as the organization's unpaid accessibility expert simply because of their identity. People with disabilities should have real influence over decisions that affect them.

Staff, board members, volunteers, and leaders may also benefit from training on disability inclusion, ableism, accessibility, accommodations, and respectful communication. Whenever possible, involve trainers with lived experience and relevant expertise.

Use respectful and responsive communication.

Respectful disability language changes over time and preferences differ among individuals and communities. Rather than relying on one universal rule, listen to how people describe themselves and use the language they prefer.

• Treat adults as adults and communicate directly with the person rather than automatically speaking to a companion, interpreter, aide, or support person.
• Don't make assumptions about what assistance someone needs. Ask before helping and respect the person's answer.
• Remember that two people with the same disability may have very different experiences and access needs.
• Remember that many disabilities are non-apparent. Do not assume that someone does or does not have a disability based on appearance.
• Hold staff members and volunteers to relevant performance expectations while also providing reasonable accommodations and avoiding assumptions about what people with disabilities can or cannot do.
• Respect mobility devices, communication devices, service animals, and other disability-related equipment as part of a person's personal space. Do not move or handle them without permission.

Use language that respects people's preferences and identities.

Person-first language, such as "person with a disability," is preferred by many people. Others prefer identity-first language, such as "disabled person," "autistic person," or "Deaf person." Preferences can vary by person, community, and context.

When writing about a specific person, use the terminology that person prefers whenever possible. When communicating with a broader audience, use respectful contemporary terminology and recognize that no single style is universally preferred.

Avoid outdated or stigmatizing expressions such as "the handicapped," "crippled," "wheelchair-bound," or describing someone as a "victim" of or as "suffering from" a disability unless the person uses that language for themselves. Avoid using "normal" as the opposite of disabled; terms such as "nondisabled" may be more appropriate when the distinction is relevant.

Disability does not always need to be mentioned. Include it when it is relevant to the topic or when the person identifies it as important, rather than treating disability as either something that must always be emphasized or something that should never be discussed.

Provide effective communication.

People communicate in many different ways. The most effective approach is to ask what communication method or support works for the individual and consider the nature, length, complexity, and context of the communication.

Depending on the situation, effective communication may include:

• Qualified sign language interpreters
• Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or other real-time captioning
• Captioned video
• Assistive listening systems or devices
• Large-print or Braille materials
• Accessible electronic documents that work with screen readers and magnification software
• Audio versions of written information
• Augmentative and alternative communication
• Plain-language or Easy Read materials when appropriate
• Additional time for communication

Do not assume that every Deaf or hard-of-hearing person uses sign language, every blind person reads Braille, or every person with the same disability communicates in the same way.

Qualified interpreters or other appropriate communication supports may be necessary for complex communication. Organizations covered by disability-rights laws should understand their responsibilities for providing effective communication rather than expecting participants to supply their own interpreters or other supports.

Make physical spaces accessible.

Inclusive attitudes and communication matter, but they cannot substitute for physical access. If people cannot enter, navigate, or use a space safely and independently, they cannot participate equitably.

Accessibility should be included in budgets and planning from the beginning whenever possible. Retrofitting inaccessible environments later can be more difficult and expensive than incorporating accessibility during initial design or renovation.

When building or renovating facilities, use current accessibility standards and qualified professionals. Consider universal design approaches that make spaces usable by people with a wide range of abilities, ages, and circumstances.

Consider universal and inclusive design.

Universal design is an approach to creating environments and products that can be used by as many people as possible without requiring specialized adaptation. Its traditional principles include:

• Equitable use: The design is useful to people with diverse abilities
• Flexibility in use: The design accommodates a wide range of preferences and abilities
• Simple and intuitive use: The design is understandable regardless of the user's experience, knowledge, or concentration
• Perceptible information: Important information is communicated effectively in more than one way when appropriate
• Tolerance for error: The design reduces hazards and the consequences of accidental actions
• Low physical effort: The design can be used comfortably and efficiently
• Size and space for approach and use: People have sufficient space to approach, reach, use, and move through the environment

Universal design can reduce many barriers, but it does not eliminate the need for individual accommodations. Continue providing ways for people to identify access needs that have not been addressed through general design.

Evaluate the accessibility of meeting and event spaces.

When holding meetings, trainings, conferences, retreats, or public events away from your own facility, evaluate accessibility before committing to the location. Do not rely only on a venue's statement that it is "ADA accessible" or "wheelchair accessible."

Ask specific questions and, when possible, review the space using a current accessibility checklist and input from people with disabilities. Consider:

• Accessible parking and routes from parking or public transportation
• Entrances, doorways, elevators, ramps, and interior routes
• Accessible restrooms
• Seating and table arrangements
• Accessible stages, podiums, microphones, and presentation areas
• Emergency evacuation procedures
• Lighting and acoustics
• Service-animal access
• Availability of assistive listening systems, captioning, or interpretation
• Accessible virtual participation when hybrid options are offered

Event announcements and registration materials should explain available accessibility features and provide a clear way for participants to request accommodations or ask accessibility questions. Avoid requiring people to disclose more medical or personal information than is necessary to arrange the accommodation.

Basic Logistics:

• Make presentation materials available in advance when possible, particularly for participants who use screen readers, interpreters, captioners, assistive technology, or other communication supports.
• Integrate accessible seating throughout the room rather than limiting wheelchair users to one area.
• Keep aisles, routes, doorways, and access to seating wide enough and free of obstacles.
• Make sure doors and entrances can be used independently whenever possible. If a temporary barrier cannot immediately be removed, provide appropriate assistance while working toward a more permanent accessible solution.
• Caption prerecorded videos and provide appropriate access for live audiovisual content.
• Make microphones, tables, podiums, stages, and the routes to them accessible to speakers and participants with disabilities.
• Prepare accessible versions of materials far enough in advance to allow participants to use them at the same time as everyone else.
• Provide interpreters and captioners with presentation materials, names, technical terminology, and other relevant information in advance whenever possible.
• Confirm assistive listening systems, microphones, captioning equipment, internet connections, and other accessibility technology before the event begins.
• Check all accessibility arrangements before participants arrive rather than assuming they have been put in place correctly.
• Make sure staff and volunteers know how participants can request assistance or report an access problem during the event.

Fragrance and chemical sensitivities

Some people experience health effects from fragrances, cleaning products, smoke, or other environmental exposures. When relevant to participants' access needs, organizations can reduce barriers by avoiding unnecessary scented products, choosing lower-fragrance cleaning practices, maintaining appropriate ventilation, and asking attendees to limit fragrances when an accommodation has been requested.

Avoid promising a completely "scent-free" environment unless you can actually control all possible exposures. A fragrance-reduced environment and clear communication about what the organization can reasonably provide may be more accurate.

Accessible formats for information

Accessible communication does not mean creating one alternative format for everyone. Different people use different formats and technologies, so ask what will provide effective access.

Sign language interpretation can provide communication access for people who use sign language. Use qualified interpreters who can interpret accurately, effectively, and impartially. Depending on the situation, interpreters may participate in person or through video remote interpreting when that method provides effective communication.

Sign languages are complete languages with their own grammar and structure. American Sign Language (ASL), for example, is distinct from English and from sign languages used in many other countries. Do not assume that every Deaf or hard-of-hearing person uses ASL or any sign language.

Accessible electronic documents can be used with screen readers, screen magnification, refreshable Braille displays, text-to-speech software, and other assistive technologies. Websites, forms, presentations, PDFs, and other electronic materials should be created with accessibility in mind rather than relying on older physical media or inaccessible scanned documents.

Audio versions of written materials may be useful for some people with vision, reading, cognitive, or other disabilities. Whenever possible, provide accessible electronic text as well, since it allows people to use their own preferred assistive technology.

Large-print materials may be useful for people with low vision and others who benefit from larger text. Ask participants about their preferred text size and format. Use readable fonts, good contrast, uncluttered layouts, and sufficient spacing.

Braille may be requested by people who read Braille. Do not assume that all people who are blind use Braille; accessible electronic text, audio, or another format may be preferred.

Assistive listening systems and devices can improve access to spoken information for some people with hearing loss. The appropriate system depends on the venue, communication needs, and equipment being used.

Captioning makes spoken information and other meaningful audio available as text. Prerecorded video should include accurate captions, and live events may use real-time captioning such as CART. Captions should identify speakers and include meaningful non-speech audio when relevant.

Relay, text, and video communication can provide telephone access for people who are Deaf, hard of hearing, DeafBlind, or have speech disabilities. Telecommunications relay services, video relay services, captioned telephone services, text communication, and other technologies may be used depending on the person's preferences.

Don't forget digital accessibility.

Organizations increasingly communicate and provide services through websites, social media, online forms, mobile apps, virtual meetings, videos, electronic documents, and other digital tools. These resources can create barriers just as physical buildings can.

Digital accessibility may include:

• Providing text alternatives for meaningful images
• Captioning video and providing transcripts when useful
• Ensuring websites and forms can be navigated by keyboard
• Using clear headings, labels, and form instructions
• Creating documents that work with screen readers
• Using sufficient contrast and avoiding communication that depends on color alone
• Making virtual meetings accessible to people using interpreters, captioning, screen readers, and other assistive technology

Use current accessibility standards and guidance when creating or purchasing digital systems. Accessibility should be considered during design and procurement rather than added only after problems are reported.

In Summary

Accessibility is an essential part of meaningful community participation. People with disabilities should be able to use community services, attend events, obtain information, work, volunteer, lead, and participate in organizations on an equitable basis.

Increasing access requires more than modifying buildings. Organizations should also examine communication, digital technology, transportation, policies, organizational culture, program design, and decision-making. Universal and inclusive design can prevent many barriers, while individual accommodations help address access needs that remain.

Most importantly, involve people with disabilities in the process. People who experience barriers bring essential knowledge about what accessibility looks like in practice. By identifying barriers, planning proactively, providing effective communication, and sharing decision-making with people with disabilities, organizations can build communities in which more people are able to participate, contribute, and lead.

What do we mean by increasing access?

___Changing attitudes within our organization or initiative

___Changing the way we communicate with others

___Changing physical things, such as the structure of the spaces we use and the formats in which we present information

Why should you make your organization or initiative more accessible?

___It's simply the right thing to do

___Makes for a larger pool of potential volunteers, members, and staff

___Increase diversity in your initiative or organization

___Makes it possible for more people to make use of any services or programs you provide

When should you make your organization or initiative more accessible?

___With the advent of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it's also the law

___When you are looking to increase your numbers of volunteers, members, or staff.

___When you are thinking about new spaces

___When you're planning a conference, retreat, or some other special gathering

Who can help you increase access?

___Local Independent Living Centers (ILC's)

___Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers (DBTAC)

___Attorneys

___People with disabilities in your community

How do you go about increasing access?

___Change attitudes within your organization or initiative

___Change the way you communicate with regard to disabilities

___Change the physical structure of the spaces we use and make information available in alternative formats

Example #1: Interview with Brigid Schwilling

Brigid Schwilling is a graduate student at the University of Kansas who has extensive volunteer experience. She spoke with the Community Tool Box about her experiences as a person with a disability volunteering with a variety of nonprofit organizations and community health agencies. To learn more about the agencies at which she volunteers, just follow the links within the interview.

CTB: Can you tell me about your experience with organizations that do community health and development work, either as a volunteer or a staff member or as a recipient of services?

Schwilling: Well, I do a lot of volunteer work. Most of the places where I have volunteered are accessible. Some organizations, due to lack of funding, haven't been able to make it accessible. And I'd say in a case like that I'm pretty understanding, but I've also been in situations where other organizations have not been willing to do things just because they're being jerks.

I do think it's important to consider accessibility for your staff as well as your clients. I volunteer for places like the Kansas Audio-Reader Network and Independence, Inc. and they're accessible. But I remember when I first started volunteering for Audio-Reader the doors weren't constructed so that a person with a wheelchair could go over. And they had to fix that, mainly because I complained about it.

One thing I have found in terms of accessibility is that people that are designing these things often just don't think. When people are thinking about accessibility issues, if they don't have employees (who are disabled), they need to get themselves a wheelchair and get in it and try navigating around the facility in that wheelchair. Can they make it through the door? Can they get into the bathroom? Are they able to use the toilet? Are they able to get behind their desk? Or if they want to transfer to a chair, do they have room to do that?

CTB: In terms of the places you volunteer, can you tell me a little bit more about what kind of accommodations they'd need to make in order to make it more possible to volunteer there?

Schwilling: Taking Headquarters [a telephone and walk-in crisis counseling center where Schwilling volunteers] for example, if they were going to make their present location more accessible, they would need to have a ramp, either at the front door or the back door. If they did it in the back door, they'd have to widen the back door. I don't have to take my scooter, but if I did, that's what I'd need. Even if I didn't want to take my scooter, a ramp would be a lot more convenient, because those steps in the back are really narrow, and in bad weather both the steps in the front and the back can be slick.

And I know that there is an upstairs area and they don't have an elevator, but what they do is they make an effort to accommodate their staff downstairs, so that works. And the downstairs bathroom is really nice and roomy, but if you were going to accommodate a person in a wheelchair, you would want to widen its door and get rid of things being stored in there that block parts of the floor.

CTB: So it's not just a matter of having it built the right way--you also have to maintain it.

Schwilling: I want to make it clear, I know they're doing the best they can, and I'm really appreciative of how they accommodate me in what ways they can.

CTB: Well that's actually the other thing I thought maybe you could talk about--that accessibility is more than physical stuff, it's also attitude and language. Could you tell me what kind of attitude you look for when you're thinking about volunteering some place, and if you have any anecdotes about things that have been said to you or the way people have dealt with you?

Schwilling: Well, as a volunteer or a paid employee, one of the things I do look for is whether they're willing to work with my needs. And to be honest with you, sometimes as a person with a disability it's really tempting for me to want to say, "I don't have any special needs!" because I feel like some people do look at being disabled as a disadvantage. But I just have to find those people that don't see it that way, that see I have some unique needs, but I also can offer a lot. And I feel like Headquarters has been good about that. In terms of their attitude, on occasions when I couldn't get there because of transportation, they've been great about getting somebody else to work for me. That's not an ideal thing, but it has happened, and they do understand that. And in terms of scheduling, I have to schedule my rides literally a week in advance, so I've worked out something with the scheduler where I can just say, "Okay, on this particular week, I'd like to work this shift." And they schedule me for that shift. If it doesn't work for them, they tell me with plenty of advance notice. But that's something they don't do for everyone. So that's an example of taking my needs into account, because I can't just jump in car and be there in 15 minutes. I have to plan it out so that I have a ride.

So they're very accommodating to what I need. That allows me to give them what they need. Beyond the whole ride thing, I have a service dog, and he has blankets that he lays on when he's there, and they let me keep his blankets there under the desk. And I know that he sheds, and they tolerate that too. And also, I notice that when I am there, if I need help with something or if I look like I need help with something, the staff and other volunteers are great about offering to help - like getting a file for me or if it's faster for them to jump and answer the door. I find that to be a very accommodating environment.

I've been in environments that were not accommodating, and ended up being a failure for me. For example, my undergrad degree is in elementary ed, and when I got to my student teaching, I got placed with a teacher who was very negative and she didn't want me there and she wasn't helpful at all.

CTB: What kinds of things happened?

Schwilling: Well, I was having a lot of physical problems, and when you're having physical problems it's hard to concentrate on what you need to do. And so I was having problems, and she didn't try to make anything easier or in any way ask what she could do to help me make it a successful experience. I don't expect people to do things for me because that's just real life--you have to be able to be an asset to whatever organization you're working for--but she was unwilling to do absolutely anything, and her attitude made it harder for me.

CTB: It sounds like her attitude was the real roadblock to accessibility there.

Schwilling: The school itself had maybe one accessible door, but I didn't have my scooter at the time. So to me the issue wasn't accessibility in terms of the physical, but it wasn't accessible in terms of attitude. I ended up from actually withdrawing from the program. That was my choice, but like I said it was such a negative experience, and she had told me at one point that the only reason she accepted me as a student teacher was because she wanted my dog in her classroom.

CTB: That's so demeaning!

Schwilling: Yeah, my confidence took a shot, and I really questioned who I was and what I was doing, and it's really scary as a person with a disability when I think about employment because I never want to be in that position again. I'm studying social welfare right now, and I'm going to be doing practica in a year, and that's one thing I have to keep in mind; not only is the facility accessible, but what are their attitudes? Are they going to believe in me? Are they going to encourage me?

CTB: What would be a few tips you'd give people about their attitudes?

Schwilling: A tip I would give to employers would be to keep an open mind. So many people see people with disabilities and they automatically assume that they can't do something. Don't assume that. Keep an open mind, sit down and talk with the person, and talk to them about their capabilities. Most people with disabilities are not going to be offended by talking about their disability or what their needs are or what their capabilities are. And assure them that if they have any needs that need to be addressed that you're willing to talk with them about it and try to make accommodations. Just like with any person, there are people with disabilities that take advantage  - some people, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. But most people with disabilities will just ask for what they need because they want to succeed just like somebody who doesn't have a disability. They want to have a job or volunteer and feel good about what they're doing. Don't just have that talk once, go up to them every so often and say, "How are things going?"

One thing that really has bothered me in employment settings is when I have not done something right, my employers almost always don't say anything. I wonder if because I have a disability they think they're going to just shatter me if they say, "We need to work on this." So I think that another tip would be that if you have an employee with a disability and there's something they need to improve on, you should go to them and say nicely, "You know, I've noticed you're having a problem with this. Let's talk about it." Get their perspective, and maybe then you can figure out ways to help them do their job better.

It's just like anybody else's working environment -you want to make it pleasant, and it's pleasant if you communicate, and it's not pleasant if you don't. It's the same thing with people with disabilities, except there might be some unique issues to them that need to be addressed.

CTB: Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Schwilling: I wish in general that people could get over their own discomfort and talk to people with disabilities. I've had friends that have told me, "Oh, you know, when I first met you I was really nervous. I could see your disability and now I know you so well I don't even see it." I'm just like everybody else; I have dreams, desires, goals, and people with disabilities just want other people to talk to them, to treat them like normal human beings instead of assuming that they can't do things. Even if you're feeling uncomfortable, take a chance and talk to them, and you're going to find that you're talking with somebody that you have a lot in common with. And I think that if employers did that, it would be so much better.

I do have an anecdote I want to share with you... I had a friend with cerebral palsy, very smart, who's studying to be a lawyer. He was applying for this job, and they set up an interview with him. So he gets ready for his interview, and before he goes to his interview he checks his mail. In the mail there was a letter from this place he was going to go interview at that said, "Thank you for your interview, but we've decided to accept somebody else."

CTB: Before he'd even gone?

 

Example #2: A Warrior’s Workout

Dave Vobora challenges wounded vets to push themselves beyond what they believe could ever be possible. He separates himself from other trainers, as he doesn’t use sophisticated equipment specifically designed for rehabilitation programs. Many workouts are improvised activities involving balancing pipes filled with water, flipping giant truck tires, standing on modified surfboards, and hauling a sled stacked with weights – all to the deafening bass of rock and rap music. Vobora who is in fact not a certified trainer possesses two important traits that enable him to train disabled veterans: a strong desire to help, and the ability to put a smile on his client’s faces as they perform feats that most four-limbed people would find impossible.

Read more about A Warrior's Workout.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

Example #3: Employing the Full Spectrum

John, a businessman who had developed a successful document-management technology used by several large New York City law firms, had saved money to pay for, his Autistic son, Andrew’s ongoing care. But he decided he needed to do more. One day, while at a car wash John said, “I’m watching this zoo, a disorganized array of nonsense, where one car’s moving, one car’s not, three guys on this car, one guy on that car, everybody getting antsy waiting for their car,” he recalls. “But I’m thinking to myself, ‘Andrew can do this.’” John thought that if Andrew was to thrive at such a job, it would be a good idea for him to work with a few other young people with autism, and in order to make that happen, he thought it best to own the car wash. His goal went beyond employment, as he desired to also profit from this business. He wanted to set up a moneymaking operation that would prove that autistic individuals could be efficient employees.

Read more about Employing the Full Spectrum.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

 

Tool #1: Disability Quiz for the Non-Disabled

This quiz can be distributed as part of a staff development exercise on disability issues, or you can just take it yourself to get an idea about how much you do and don't know about disability issues. It's a good exercise to do at the beginning of training on disability issues, as it gets people's misconceptions out in the open and can stimulate dialogue.

True or false (circle one)

1. Using a wheelchair limits one's capacity for having a fulfilling life.

 T     F

2. Slow speech is a sign of a slower-than-average mental process.

 T    F

3. When you are introduced to someone who has an artificial arm, you should not offer to shake hands.

 T    F

4. Most people who are deaf read lips.

T     F

5. Being blind means a person lives in total darkness.

T     F

6. Deaf people can have excellent speech.

T    F

7. People who have a visual disability make up for it in part with more highly sensitive senses of smell, taste, hearing, or touch.

T    F

8. People paralyzed from the waist down cannot have children.

T    F

9. Someone who has a disability may be mistaken for a person who is drunk.

T   F

10. Most blind people read Braille.

T   F

Answers:

1. False. Using a wheelchair means that person gets around in some way besides walking, but people who use wheelchairs can and do have lives just as fulfilling as anyone else's.

2. False. Slow speech can be caused by a variety of disabilities, such as cerebral palsy or other neurological disorders, and does not mean that a person has any sort of slowed mental process.

3. False. Use the same social courtesies with people with disabilities as you would with anyone else. If that person is unable to shake hands, he or she will let you know.

4. False. Research has shown that less than 30% of spoken English sounds are visible , and 50% of spoken English sounds look like another sound and can therefore easily be mistaken. Therefore, lip reading cannot be relied upon as the only method of translation for people who are deaf or hearing impaired.

5. False. Many blind people have limited sight capability and can make out shapes , light, and colors. Some may have only peripheral vision, while others may only be able to see things directly in front of them. The term blind refers to a variety of severe visual impairments.

6. True. Many deaf people are able to speak, either through being taught or because they became deaf at some point in life after learning how to talk.

7. False. They learn how to make better use of their other senses, but those other senses are no more sensitive than anyone else?s. People who are blind do not, for example, have super-sensitive hearing.

8. False. Spinal cord injuries that cause lower body paralysis impact the feeling and mobility of those parts of the body, but they do not stop the reproductive system from working. Many people who are paralyzed from the waist down go on to have children after their injuries.

9. True. Communication disabilities may cause speech to become slurred or difficult to understand, and some disabilities can cause people to walk in an unsteady way that makes it look as if they are drunk.

10. False. The use of Braille has declined considerably in the past few years, mainly due to the increased use of computers for the communication needs of blind people . According to the American Foundation for the Blind, only 85,000 out of 1 million legally blind people in the United States use Braille. This means that your organization or initiative should consider using more alternative formats than just Braille to get information out to people who are blind.

Tool #2: Disability Etiquette Tips

Meeting someone	When you meet someone with a disability, offer your hand for a handshake. If someone is unable to shake hands, he or she will let you know, but people with limited hand use or who wear an artificial limb can usually shake hands. Shaking hands with the left hand is perfectly acceptable. When first encountering a person who is blind, identify    yourself and anyone with you before launching into a conversation: "Hi, it's Judy from the coordinating committee . My boyfriend Bob is to my right. How have you been?" You may have to offer a little information to jog his or her memory, since he or she isn't able to rely on visual cues.
Helping	It's okay to offer assistance to someone with a disability, but wait for a response before doing it. Then listen to, or ask for, instructions. When you do offer assistance to a person with a disability, offer your arm. This lets you guide without pushing or pulling the person around awkwardly. If you are helping to orient a person with a visual impairment, be very descriptive and be sure to tell him or her what's coming up: "Okay, step up onto the curb here," or "There's a garbage can partially blocking us on the left," for example. Be specific when giving instructions to a person who has a visual disability: "Then you will turn right and go about a hundred yards," for example. You might offer to read printed information for a person with a visual impairment : "There is a bus schedule posted here. Would you like me to read it to you? " If asked to carry, fold, or store a wheelchair or other assistive device, treat it with respect and care. These types of equipment are expensive, difficult to get repaired, and cause real inconvenience to their users when they aren't working properly . Try to store mobility equipment as close to its user as possible, in case it's needed in an emergency.
Conversation	When you are talking to a person with a disability, address that person, not his or her companion or assistant or sign language interpreter. Listen attentively when you're talking with a person who has difficulty speaking . Be patient and wait for the person to finish. If necessary, ask short questions that require short answers, a nod or a shake of the head. Never pretend to understand if you don't--instead, repeat what you understand and allow the person to respond to you. Ask the person to write down a word if you're not sure what he or she is saying. When talking to someone who is blind or has a visual impairment, be clear about who you are addressing if there is a third person present, when the conversation is over, or if you've moved from one spot to another. When talking to someone who uses a working dog (either a seeing-eye dog or any other type of service dog), keep in mind that if the dog is on its leash or harness , that animal is working and should not be distracted with whistling or petting. You shouldn't approach a working dog as you would a regular pet. If the dog is off-leash , ask the owner first for permission to pet the dog. Don't feel sorry for working dogs--they love what they do, and they get plenty of time off-leash to play and just be a pet! When talking to someone who is deaf or has a hearing impairment, you may have to get their attention first with a wave or a tap on the shoulder. Look directly at the person and speak clearly and not too quickly. Use written notes or gestures if necessary, but don't resort to shouting. Talking with your mouth full isn't just something your mother said was rude! When talking to someone who lip-reads, don't smoke, chew gum, or eat while speaking, because it makes your speech harder to understand. Don't stand with a window, the sun, or any other source of bright light behind you--the glare can make it difficult to see your face. If you talk to a person who uses a wheelchair for more than a couple of minutes , put yourself at eye level with that person. For people with hearing impairment or learning disabilities, one-on-one conversation is usually easier than talking with two or more others at once. If you are taking part in a group conversation, lots of interjections and interruptions can be make the discussion hard to follow. If someone asks, "What did you say?" don't answer , "Nothing," or "It's not important" --that is insulting and belittling. Make the effort to fully include the person in the conversation, even if that means taking the time to repeat or explain things.
Socializing	Don't feel awkward using common figures of speech like "See you next week" or "I've got to run" --folks with disabilities use the same expressions. Don't touch or lean on someone's wheelchair--that's a lot like leaning on someone's shoulder without asking. The chair is part of the personal body space of the person who uses it. Relax. Just as in any new situation, everyone will feel more comfortable if you just be yourself.

 Tool #3: Accessibility Checklist

If parking is provided, are there reserved parking places that are clearly marked with the access symbol on a raised sign?	Y	N
Is there an unobstructed path of travel from the parking space to the curb cut to the building entrance or the event area?	Y	N
Is the entrance to the building at least 32" wide in order to accommodate a wheelchair user?	Y	N
Is the doorway threshold no higher than 1/2"?	Y	N
Do entrance doors open easily (with automatic doors, a door opener button, or levered handles and a minimum of force needed)?	Y	N
Are directional signs in large print and/or Braille present?	Y	N
Are building corridors at least 36" wide and free of obstructions?	Y	N
Is the meeting room or event area on the building entry floor or accessible by elevator?	Y	N
If the event is an open-air event, is it being held on a flat outside surface?	Y	N
Are any ramped or steep areas sloped 1:10-1:12, with handrails on either side?	Y	N
Are there Brailled numbers on the elevator control panels?	Y	N
Are drinking fountains no higher than 48" from the floor? (If higher, then drinking cups should be provided).	Y	N
Are telephones no higher than 48" from the floor and equipped with sound amplifiers?	Y	N
Is there an accessible outdoor area set aside where service animals can relieve themselves?	Y	N
Are TDD's available?	Y	N
Are there accessible restroom facilities near the meeting or event? In order to be accessible, a restroom facility should have the following factors: Signs that indicate accessibility Entries free from obstructions Doorways with 32" minimum clearance width Doorway threshold no higher than 1/2" Easily opened door(s) Restroom stall doors that swing outward; at least 32" clearance width. Stall at least 56" wide, 60" deep Grab bars in stall Raised commode 17-19" from floor Faucets with lever type handles Basin with 30" clearance underneath and wrapped pipes Towel dispensers and mirrors no higher than 40" from floor	Y	N

 Tool #4: Information to include on meeting and event notices

• These are suggested ways of wording information on accessibility in notices, invitations , press releases, etc.:
• Sign language interpreters will be present.
• A sound enhancement system will be available at the meeting/event.
• Minutes of the meeting will be available in large print/audio form and/or readers upon request. If you require the use of a reader, please contact ___________________ at ________________, at least 72 hours in advance of need.
• To allow individuals with environmental illness to attend the meeting/event, individuals are requested to refrain from wearing perfume or other scented products.
• The meeting/event will be held at ______________________. The closest accessible bus station is located at ___________________. Accessible subway lines serving this location are ______________________.
• There is accessible parking available at the following location: _____________________.
• Accessible integrated seating for persons with disabilities (including those using wheelchairs)will be available.
• For additional information about the meeting/event prior to the meeting, people who are deaf or hard of hearing can contact the office on the following TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf) phone line at _____________ or by using the local relay service at ____________.

Tool #5: SOAP Assessment

Periodically reviewing your accessibility efforts can really help you see how well you're doing. The SOAP model (which stands for "Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan") is a strategy that has been used for a long time by medical professionals to record an individual patient's history, present situation, and future possibilities .The Youth Volunteer Training Corps Training Manual for Working with Youth Volunteers Who Have Disabilities suggest using SOAP as follows:

Subjective: What people who receive your services, staff, volunteers, board members, funding partners , and other involved parties say about your efforts in their own words. For example : Kyoko is a volunteer who has a disability. She really likes volunteering for our project but sometimes feels left out. She says, "I hate that I can't attend the annual planning retreat. I'd like to go but it's an all-day thing and the restrooms at the campground where we have the retreat aren't accessible. That really makes me angry!"

Objective: What these folks think are the positive and negative elements of the program. They may assess the program's quality, size, longevity, inclusivity, diversity, etc. For example: Kyoko is a smart and committed volunteer who uses a wheelchair. She is unable to attend the annual planning retreat because the retreat facility doesn't have accessible restrooms.

Assessment: What the leadership of the organization sees to be as the strengths and weaknesses of the program, based on the above observations. For example: Knowing that Kyoko's absence from the annual retreat is contrary to the organization's goals of diversity , inclusivity, and team spirit, team leader Calvin measures Kyoko's wheelchair and then goes to the campground and measures the restrooms, doorways, and halls to get an idea of what might be done to remedy the problem.

Plan: What plan of action will be taken to address weaknesses or enhance strengths, and how this will be evaluated. For example: Calvin plans to talk to his local ILC to find out what sort of change the campground would need to make to become ADA compliant, meet with the campground management to request that they make their facilities more accessible , set a date by which such changes should be completed, follow up to see if they have made those changes, and decides what should be done if the facility hasn't made the requested changes (such as finding a different location that is accessible). He also plans to meet with Kyoko and other volunteers with disabilities to find out if they're satisfied with these actions.

Using the above model and example as a reference, you can use the worksheet below to map out solutions to accessibility problems using the SOAP method:

SOAP Component	Brief description of your strength or weakness
Subjective
Objective
Assessment
Plan
Additional Comments

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.

• What is outreach?

• When is outreach needed?

• What are some common methods of outreach?

• How do you implement outreach?

Creating a useful program or service does not guarantee that the people who could benefit from it will be able to find, access, trust, or use it.

A community health clinic, for example, may provide high-quality services but still reach only a small portion of eligible residents if its hours are inconvenient, transportation is limited, people do not know the clinic exists, information is not available in relevant languages, or previous experiences have made community members hesitant to use the service.

Situations like these highlight an important distinction between making a program available and making it meaningfully accessible.

Outreach can help bridge that gap. Sometimes this means bringing information or services directly into communities. In other cases, it means building relationships, working through trusted community partners, helping people navigate services, or learning from community members about barriers that organizations need to address.

Rather than describing people as "hard to reach," it can be more useful to ask why an organization has not yet connected with them. The challenge may lie in communication, service design, transportation, cost, trust, accessibility, eligibility requirements, or other conditions that can be changed.

What is outreach?

Outreach includes a wide range of activities that connect people with information, services, resources, opportunities, and one another. Effective outreach often takes services or information beyond an organization's usual setting and into places, networks, and communication channels that community members already use and trust.

Outreach can include:

• Providing sterile syringes, safer-use supplies, overdose prevention information, and connections to health services in places that are accessible to people who use drugs
• Bringing mobile screening or health services to rural communities where access to health facilities is limited
• Demonstrating correct child car-seat installation at community events or other places families regularly visit
• Sharing condoms, sexual health information, and information about confidential health services in places where young people can access them comfortably
• Training community health workers, peer educators, or other trusted community members to provide information and help people connect with services
• Helping people complete applications, understand eligibility requirements, schedule appointments, or navigate complex systems
• Holding listening sessions or meeting people in community settings to better understand barriers, strengths, priorities, and experiences

The type and extent of outreach should reflect the purpose of the initiative and the priorities, circumstances, and preferences of the people and communities involved.

Outreach may be used to:

• Deliver services, resources, or products directly in accessible community settings
• Share useful information and support people in developing knowledge or skills
• Work with community health workers, peer educators, navigators, or other trusted community members who can connect people with information and resources
• Build relationships and connections among community members, organizations, and systems
• Learn directly from community members and use what you hear to improve programs, services, policies, and outreach strategies

When is outreach needed?

Outreach can be especially important when people experience barriers to traditional services or when organizations have not developed strong relationships with the communities they hope to serve.

Outreach is commonly used with older adults, people living in rural communities, people experiencing homelessness, people who use drugs, immigrant and refugee communities, people with disabilities, communities that have experienced discrimination or disinvestment, and others who may face barriers to conventional service systems.

These communities should not be treated as inherently difficult to reach. Instead, examine whether existing systems, locations, hours, communication methods, eligibility requirements, costs, or institutional relationships make services difficult to access.

If you're unsure whether outreach would help, consider:

• Who currently uses your program, and whose perspectives or participation may be missing?
• Have you asked community members how they prefer to receive information, services, and support?
• Are there differences between who could benefit from the program and who is actually using it?
• What barriers may be limiting participation?
• Are aspects of the program itself contributing to low participation?
• Which community organizations, leaders, or networks already have trusted relationships with the people you hope to engage?

Many programs have historically been designed around the experiences, schedules, communication styles, and resources of people who already have relatively easy access to services. When communities differ in language, culture, income, disability, transportation access, work schedules, family responsibilities, or other circumstances, a program designed around only one set of experiences may unintentionally exclude people.

Surveys, interviews, focus groups, listening sessions, community advisory groups, observation, and ongoing relationships with community organizations can help you understand these differences. Whenever possible, involve community members not only as sources of information but also as partners in designing the response.

For people to make meaningful use of a program, service, or resource, they generally need to:

• Know that it exists and understand what it offers
• See it as relevant, trustworthy, respectful, and useful
• Be able to access it physically, financially, technologically, linguistically, and practically
• Feel welcome and able to participate without unnecessary stigma, discrimination, or administrative burden

If one or more of these conditions is missing, outreach may help -- but outreach should not automatically be used to persuade people to accept a service that does not meet their needs. Sometimes the appropriate response is to change the program itself.

Outreach to increase access

Some access barriers can be addressed through changes in program design. If clinic hours conflict with people's work schedules, for example, evening or weekend hours may improve access.

Outreach may also help address transportation barriers by bringing services into community settings, providing transportation assistance, coordinating rides, offering mobile services, or using virtual options when appropriate.

If childcare responsibilities make participation difficult, organizations might offer childcare, allow children in appropriate settings, provide family-friendly scheduling, or work with community partners that can provide support.

Language access may involve qualified interpreters, translated materials, bilingual staff, community health workers, accessible digital content, and plain-language information. Ask community members which communication approaches work best rather than assuming one method will meet everyone's needs.

Outreach to strengthen trust, relevance, and participation

When people are hesitant to use a service, avoid assuming that the problem is simply a lack of understanding or an attitude that needs to be changed.

Ask why people may be reluctant. Previous discrimination, poor treatment, confidentiality concerns, immigration concerns, cost, stigma, inconvenient hours, cultural mismatch, inaccessible facilities, complex eligibility rules, or a belief that the service does not meet their needs may all affect participation.

Outreach can create opportunities to listen to these concerns and make changes. Communication campaigns may still be useful when people lack accurate information, but they should be based on what community members actually want to know and should not substitute for improving a service that is difficult to use or trust.

Incentives can sometimes reduce practical barriers or encourage initial participation, but they should not be used to pressure people into services or decisions. Participation should remain voluntary and informed.

Outreach to increase awareness

Sometimes people simply do not know that a service exists or that they are eligible to use it. In those situations, outreach can focus on making information easier to find and understand.

Do not assume that newspapers, television, websites, social media, or any other single communication channel reaches everyone. People get information through many sources, including family and friends, schools, workplaces, health professionals, neighborhood organizations, faith communities, community health workers, libraries, service organizations, messaging apps, social media, and local events.

Work with community members to identify trusted messengers and effective communication channels. Organizations may need to use several approaches to reach people with different levels of internet access, literacy, language proficiency, disability access, schedules, and relationships with institutions.

What are some common methods of outreach?

Once you've decided outreach may strengthen your effort, choose methods that fit your goals and the community context.

Common approaches include:

• Outreach that brings services, resources, or products directly into accessible community settings
• Outreach that shares information, builds skills, or helps people navigate services, often through community health workers, peer educators, or other trusted messengers
• Outreach that strengthens relationships and connections among community members and organizations
• A combination of outreach strategies that provides services, shares information, reduces barriers, builds relationships, and connects people with resources

These categories overlap. Effective outreach often combines several approaches and changes over time based on what community members and outreach workers learn.

Outreach to deliver services or resources

Outreach may involve bringing health and human services directly to places where people already live, work, learn, gather, or receive other services. Examples include mobile health clinics, home visiting programs, school-based services, neighborhood resource events, street outreach, and telehealth when it is accessible and appropriate.

This approach can be especially helpful when people face transportation barriers, limited service availability, inflexible schedules, cost, disability access barriers, unstable housing, or lack of nearby providers.

Outreach services are often used in rural communities, neighborhoods with limited access to health and social services, Tribal communities, and communities affected by disinvestment. They may also support people experiencing homelessness, people who use drugs, older adults, young people, people with disabilities, and others when conventional service locations are not accessible or responsive to their circumstances.

Bringing services into a community should not mean offering a lower-quality version of care or support. Outreach services should maintain appropriate standards for privacy, safety, accessibility, informed consent, cultural responsiveness, and quality.

Outreach to share information, build skills, and support navigation

Informational outreach can range from brief communication about available resources to ongoing education, skill building, navigation, and peer support.

For example, a public health department working to prevent pregnancies among adolescents and sexually transmitted infections might partner with schools and youth organizations to provide age-appropriate education about sexual health, consent, contraception, healthy relationships, and available confidential health services.

Additional outreach might include providing information through social media, youth centers, libraries, community events, or other places young people use. Condoms and other prevention resources might also be made available in accessible and confidential ways.

Community health workers, peer educators, navigators, and similar community-based roles can be especially valuable because they often bring strong relationships, cultural and linguistic knowledge, and firsthand understanding of the systems people are trying to navigate.

Community health workers can help people:

• Find and understand available services
• Navigate health, social service, education, or benefits systems
• Communicate with organizations and providers
• Understand health information
• Identify practical barriers and possible solutions
• Connect with resources and community support
• Share feedback that can help organizations improve their services

Community health workers should be treated as skilled members of the workforce, not simply as convenient messengers. Programs should provide appropriate training, supervision, compensation, support, and opportunities for leadership.

Community-based health outreach

In many Spanish-speaking communities, promotores and promotoras de salud have helped connect people with health information and services through trusted community relationships. Similar community health worker models are used in many communities and cultures.

These approaches are most effective when community health workers have meaningful input into program design, are adequately trained and supported, and can bring community concerns back to institutions rather than functioning only as one-way messengers.

Outreach to strengthen connections between people and organizations

Outreach can also create relationships that expand access to education, mentoring, employment, health care, recreation, civic participation, and other opportunities.

This often involves working through trusted institutions and networks such as schools, youth organizations, libraries, community centers, faith communities, neighborhood groups, cultural organizations, workplaces, or other community-based organizations.

Example: College access and mentoring outreach

A university might partner with local middle schools and community organizations to connect students from communities historically underrepresented in higher education with college mentors.

Students could receive tutoring, explore academic and career interests, visit campus, participate in cultural or recreational activities, learn about financial aid and admissions, and talk with mentors about the transition to college.

Families could be included through information sessions, campus visits, and opportunities to ask questions about college costs, financial aid, academic expectations, disability services, housing, and other concerns.

The program would be strongest if students, families, schools, and community partners helped shape the activities rather than the university deciding by itself what participants need.

Combining outreach approaches

Comprehensive outreach efforts often combine awareness, navigation, direct services, community partnerships, and follow-up.

Consider a program designed to help people enroll in health coverage. Outreach workers might first share information through trusted community organizations, schools, health centers, and local events. They could then help eligible participants complete applications, understand documentation requirements, address enrollment problems, and learn how to use their coverage.

Effective navigation should build people's understanding and ability to use systems without implying that confusion about a complex system is a personal failure. Outreach workers can help participants understand their options while also identifying administrative problems that organizations and agencies should simplify.

How do you implement effective outreach?

The following principles can be adapted to many health promotion, human service, education, and community development efforts.

Guidelines for effective outreach

• Meet people where they are -- physically, socially, culturally, and in terms of their priorities
• Treat people with dignity and respect
• Listen to community members and involve them in shaping the outreach
• Build trust and relationships over time
• Communicate without stigmatizing the people or communities you hope to engage
• Offer information and services in a variety of accessible locations and at times that fit people's schedules
• Make information clear, useful, accessible, and easy to understand
• Provide language access through qualified interpretation, translated materials, bilingual staff, and other appropriate approaches
• Follow up consistently without pressuring people to participate
• Protect privacy and explain clearly how personal information will be used
• Reduce practical barriers such as transportation, childcare, cost, disability access, technology access, and complicated enrollment procedures
• Use community feedback to improve the service itself, not only the outreach strategy

Planning and implementing effective outreach

Depending on the nature of your initiative and the type of outreach needed, consider the following steps.

Determine the purpose and methods of outreach for your initiative.

Be clear about what you hope outreach will accomplish. Are you trying to increase awareness, provide direct services, reduce barriers, strengthen trust, connect people with resources, learn from community members, or accomplish several of these goals?

Determine staffing needs.

Outreach staff should have the skills, relationships, training, and support necessary for the work. People who live in or have strong relationships with the communities involved may bring valuable cultural knowledge, language skills, lived experience, and understanding of local resources and barriers.

At the same time, don't assume that someone automatically understands every member of a community simply because they share an identity or live in the same neighborhood. Outreach workers still need training, support, clear roles, and opportunities to learn from community members.

Outreach workers may need preparation in areas such as:

• Communication and active listening
• Cultural humility
• Disability accessibility
• Language access
• Trauma-informed approaches
• Privacy and confidentiality
• De-escalation and personal safety when relevant
• Community resources and referral systems
• Documentation and data privacy
• Boundaries and informed consent

Organizations should also support outreach workers through fair compensation when outreach is paid work, appropriate supervision, manageable workloads, opportunities for professional development, and meaningful involvement in program decisions.

Choose physical and virtual spaces carefully.

If outreach uses a physical office or community site, consider whether the space:

• Is near public transportation or otherwise reasonably easy to reach
• Is accessible to people with disabilities
• Provides private space for conversations when privacy is needed
• Feels welcoming, respectful, and appropriate to the community
• Can accommodate children and family needs when appropriate
• Provides language, communication, sensory, and other accessibility supports

If outreach is offered online or by phone, consider internet and device access, accessible technology, privacy, language, digital literacy, and whether people have a safe and confidential place to participate.

Plan your services or activities.

Develop strategies and action plans using principles for effective program design. Preparation may include:

• Developing clear procedures and accessible information for outreach workers and participants
• Establishing protocols for referrals, privacy, safety, follow-up, and situations that require additional support
• Coordinating with other organizations and services to reduce duplication and make referrals easier for participants
• Creating ways for participants and community members to provide feedback about the outreach process

Consider potential partners.

Outreach is often stronger when organizations work with partners that already have trusted relationships and relevant knowledge. Partnerships should be mutually beneficial and should respect the expertise, time, and resources that community organizations contribute.

Depending on your initiative, partners might include:

• Community leaders and resident-led organizations
• Faith and spiritual communities
• Hospitals and emergency departments
• Health centers and clinics
• Medical practices and their clinical, administrative, and billing staff
• Pharmacies
• Organizations that help people navigate insurance and medical billing
• Public health and community health programs
• Home health and visiting nurse organizations
• Schools, counselors, nurses, family engagement staff, and student-support programs
• Childcare centers and family, friend, and neighbor care networks
• Housing organizations, tenant groups, and housing authorities
• Courts, public safety agencies, and community-based violence-prevention programs when relevant to the initiative
• Local businesses and employers
• Local, state, and national organizations that provide related services or advocacy
• Shelters, workforce programs, adult education programs, food-access organizations, and other community-support programs
• Local news outlets, community media, social media networks, and other communication partners
• Current or former participants who choose to share their experiences and recommendations

Expand outreach thoughtfully.

New outreach efforts may benefit from starting with existing relationships, learning from early experiences, and then expanding into communities or partnerships where the organization has fewer established connections.

For example:

Beginning with established relationships

• Conduct an outreach activity with a community organization that already knows and trusts your program
• Provide information or referral training to other programs within your organization

Building new partnerships

• Offer a listening session, training, or information session with a school, health provider, neighborhood organization, or community service agency
• Participate in joint outreach with another organization

Developing relationships in communities where you have fewer connections

• Build relationships with community leaders, resident groups, and organizations you do not already know and ask what kind of collaboration would be useful
• Meet with organizations that already conduct outreach to learn from their experience and identify opportunities to coordinate rather than duplicate their work

Make the most of your outreach.

Outreach can fail even with significant resources if organizations do not understand the barriers people experience or if the service itself does not respond to community priorities.

Ineffective outreach may use the wrong language, communication channel, location, messenger, schedule, or format. It may also focus so heavily on delivering a message that it leaves little room to listen.

People may encounter information several times and through several trusted sources before deciding whether a service is relevant to them. Use consistent communication and appropriate follow-up, but avoid overwhelming or pressuring people.

Evaluate outreach regularly. Ask not only, "Did we reach more people?" but also:

• Who did we reach, and who is still being missed?
• Did people find the outreach respectful, useful, and accessible?
• Did outreach reduce barriers or simply increase awareness of a service that remains difficult to use?
• What did community members tell us should change?
• Are our partnerships reciprocal and sustainable?
• Are outreach staff adequately supported?

In Summary

Outreach can be the foundation of a community initiative or one part of a larger strategy for improving health, well-being, access, and participation.

Effective outreach is not simply about finding better ways to persuade people to use a service. It begins with understanding the people and communities involved, listening to their priorities and experiences, identifying barriers, building trust, and examining whether the service itself needs to change.

No single approach works in every community. Outreach should be adapted to local relationships, culture, language, accessibility needs, resources, communication preferences, and community strengths.

Strong outreach meets people where they are, works through trusted relationships, provides useful and accessible information and services, follows up respectfully, and creates ways for community members to influence the programs and systems intended to serve them.

___You have analyzed your target population and initiative to determine what type and degree of outreach can help you achieve your objectives.

___You have determined staffing needs.

___If you decide to use Community Health Advisors or Workers (some form of trained outreach educator), you look for workers who live in the community who understand the needs, concerns, and questions of the people they serve, and know the barriers they face.

___You have developed training for staff.

___You have chosen a physical space carefully if you need one

___You have developed strategies and action plans for your effort using principles for effective program design.

___You have used existing resources for your initiative (such as those made available by national organizations).

___You have identified and contacted potential partners, people and organizations to work with as your allies.

___You have chosen and implemented appropriate (and creative) strategies to reach your target population. These might include:

___You have followed up!

Example #1: American Lung Association of Kansas

In the U.S., asthma is the leading cause of missed school days due to a chronic illness.

With a program called "Open Airways," the American Lung Association of Kansas takes asthma education to children where they are--in public and private schools--to help them gain better control of their illness. This outreach program also expands the knowledge of adults who care for them.

The program provides training to school nurses and community volunteers, who then conduct sessions for children ages 8-12 on how to manage their asthma. The children learn how to take their medicines, what their medicines are, and how to use a peak flow meter to monitor their breathing capacity.

"We're reinforcing the work of their doctors," says Lynne Crabtree, Outreach Program Director. "Many families hear the diagnosis of asthma, but everything that follows doesn't quite sink in."

Open Airways is a national program that is implemented statewide. It was created at Columbia University, so workers at the state level begin with a well-researched program. The Kansas Lung Association is able to offer the program free to schools through funding from grants and individuals.

Implementing the program begins with recruiting the educators. Usually the partner in this outreach effort is a school nurse, but in Kansas many schools are phasing out or reducing the position of school nurse in response to tight budgets. If a nurse isn't available, Crabtree contacts other medical folks in the community--respiratory therapists from local hospitals or people in emergency medical services, such as ambulance workers and firefighters.

Through eight weekly sessions held during the school day, the children become a support group for each other, and the older kids also teach the younger ones. Each school decides what time of day to hold the sessions, so they need not infringe on academic work or recess.

Parents are involved, too. Handouts are sent home to encourage child-parent interaction about asthma management and to inform parents how to avoid asthma activators, such as smoke, dust and mold.

"Like diabetes, it is so important for people to understand and manage this disease. No amount of prescribed medicine will help if a child sleeps in a moldy, damp basement," Crabtree notes.

How does the Kansas Lung Association let people know this program is available? "We usually start at the interest level. It could be the school nurse, parents, families, the PTA, or the district office," says Crabtree.

And how do they evaluate the success of the program? "School nurses, who serve as volunteer Open Airways facilitators for the American Lung Association of Kansas, evaluate the program by the number of children with asthma who are better able to manage their disease after completing the classes," Crabtree explains. Success is measured by the facts that children are attending school more consistently, actively participating in sports, and spending less time in the nurse's office for asthma-related symptoms.

In addition, parents report to school nurses that they have a better understanding of their child's disease after reading the handouts and they appreciate the active role their children take in monitoring their asthma symptoms.

Along with Open Airways, the Lung Association markets an EPA-approved program to check the school building itself for activators of asthma and headaches. Any improvements made as a result of the check help the school's staff as well as the students.

The "Tools for Schools" outreach effort teaches school representatives to see with new eyes by walking them through the building to inspect for mold, poor circulation, dirty vents, and radon. Take, for example, that hamster cage in the kindergarten classroom, right next to the return air vent. This could adversely affect someone with allergies, while a simple move of the cage could prevent problems.

Or what about the wonderful school remodeling that was just completed? Yes, it offered more room--but did it also stir up mold and mildew? Did the architects' moving of walls also allow for proper movement of air?

Tools for Schools is marketed to people responsible for the building. In a large school district, that might be the district's risk manager, while in small schools or districts, the contact could be the maintenance person. "This program doesn't put any requirements on the school, but it does help them identify triggers," Crabtree says.

Both programs seek to improve health by bringing education to the people who will benefit. In order to accomplish successful outreach, Crabtree offers the following tips from her experience:

"Our outreach is only as effective as our networking with contacts. Therefore, follow up on all leads and welcome volunteers from all walks of life, including parents, interested individuals, healthcare professionals and community leaders. Often a contact will be a resource for more than one program. For example, someone calling for information about asthma will probably also be interested in second-hand smoke as an irritant and may want to participate in more than one project."

And on a larger scale: "Share information freely with other organizations and welcome coalition building to help strengthen your mission."

 

Example #2: Breaking the Prison Pipeline

An ex-convict, Susan Burton, furnished her house with bunk beds to accommodate ten women and within a few weeks, all ten beds were occupied. Her guests slept in the bedrooms and she slept in the dining room. With no fixed rent, the women chipped in to the best of their abilities with welfare money – if their benefits hadn’t been eliminated because of drug convictions – to help pay the mortgage. They shared their food stamps to stock the refrigerator. Most importantly, they stayed as long as they needed. Burton helped these women transition back into regular life by providing services and opportunities to get a driver’s license, addiction treatment, a job, and a sense of self-worth. Before long, she noticed a change. Women who would have gone without assistance in their old neighborhoods or maybe even be in trouble with the law again were beginning to thrive. Burton claims, she saw the re-emergence of life, right there in front of her. Astonishingly, that was eighteen years ago and since then, Burton has expanded her efforts to five houses in South Central Los Angeles and provided more than 1,000 women a chance to rebuild their lives after prison. In California, about sixty-five percent of former prisoners are re-incarcerated within three years, according to a 2012 report by the state’s department of corrections. Strikingly, last year, the recidivism rate of the women Burton took in was just thirteen percent.

Read more about Breaking the Prison Pipeline.

Contributed by Lia Thompson, University of Kansas, Community Tool Box Intern.

 

 

A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the major points in the section.