VSA Accessibility Grant
VSA Accessibility Grant
To improve accessibility and increase attendance by visitors with disabilities with staff and volunteers training. To provide oral guided tours with MP3 player and provide written guided with iPad.
Karen Aakre: fiber artist, retired K-12 art instructor, disability; Megan Johnston; arts administrator; Karan Ouran, visual artist, administrator, disability; Tanya Stoll; Independent Living Advocate, Freedom Resource Center; Richard Vandever; woodcarving artist, worked with Care-a-Van; Laura Youngbird; visual artist, Circle of Nations School art instructor
Karen Aakre: fiber artist, retired K-12 art instructor, disability; Megan Johnston; arts administrator; Karan Ouran, visual artist, administrator, disability; Tanya Stoll; Independent Living Advocate, Freedom Resource Center; Richard Vandever; woodcarving artist, worked with Care-a-Van; Laura Youngbird; visual artist, Circle of Nations School art instructor
ACHF Arts Access
To provide training to staff on working with the public and meeting all of their needs, including those with disabilities, To purchase electronic equipment with voice over commands for self-guided oral tours and written tours, To add these tour options to future exhibits at both museums.To measure the number of people who request the new audio and written exhibit tours.
Six volunteers with disabilities participated in project activities. Access training was provided to 7 staff members who now know better how to serve patrons with disabilities. One presenterwas blind. Captioned videos are now played on request; no patron has yet used the iPad resources. 25,000 visitors have attended since project completion, but they don't track visitors with disabilities. Until we got into the research and what accessibility to the arts really means, we naively thought a few recorded tours and a little training would work wonders. What it did is reveal the depth of our ignorance, the scope of our inaccessibility, and how far a journey we have to travel to live up to our responsibilities. I think everyone should have to start with a planning grant to work with accessibility consultants (we were blessed to have Sherry Shirek come into our world when she did) and to learn about what accessibility means for patrons who are blind (audio-description is not verbal description). We've got some great ideas for making improvements going forward, but it is going to take more resources than we imagined.