As a journalist and storyteller, Chelsea Jones focused on reporting the challenges and joys experienced by people living with a disability.

But as her career progressed, she says she became more interested in telling stories about how “disabled cultural creators are telling their own complex and multi-layered stories.”

The Brock University Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies is captivated by the “creative and compelling” ways young disabled content creators make their material accessible for disabled audiences and wants to support that talent.

With funding from the provincial government’s Early Researcher Award, Jones and her team will be providing training and mentorship opportunities for 60 youth worldwide through their “Making Accessible Media with Youth” project.

“Ontario is a leader in the production of accessible media content,” said Sam Oosterhoff, MPP for Niagara West. “This training and mentorship project by Dr. Chelsea Jones and Brock University will advance the development of accessible media across the province, the country and internationally.”

Accessible media refers to movies, television shows, videos, websites and other content that have been modified so that people with visual or hearing challenges can follow along. Traditionally, these include additions such as closed captioning, sign language and audio descriptions.

But accessible media is so much more than just an “add on” or a requirement to comply with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, says Jones. Instead, she says content is built from “the ground up” based on what disability communities and disability culture-makers design to be accessible at the outset.

For example, she refers to the “silent podcast,” a style of broadcasting that incorporates long pauses during the show, giving space for neurodivergent guests and audiences to process information. Or, instead of subtitles scrolling at the bottom of a screen, text is incorporated through speech or thought bubbles, similar to scenes where a character is sending and receiving texts and the messages are displayed on the screen.

“Young, disabled producers are creative and understand how to do this stuff, and they’re changing the landscape, but they’re often overlooked when we talk about media accessibility,” says Jones. “The question is, how do we support the co-creation of this content that advances and actually surpasses established industry norms around making accessible media?”

Initially, Jones and her team will prototype a two-week online program, led by 10 disabled media makers and mentors, to train 15 disabled Ontario youth in innovative, accessible storytelling.

Once the program is evaluated and refined, the team will offer the training to 45 disabled youth content producers in Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

Near the end of the five-year project period, the trainees and a 10-person advisory committee aim to produce a public report with 20 recommendations of how to best implement public policy accessibility standards provincially, nationally and internationally.

“The heart of Dr. Jones’ project is about empowering the next generation of content providers to tell new stories in accessible forms,” says Brock Acting Vice-President, Research Michelle McGinn. “This work will advance strategies that enable people living with disabilities to participate fully in society, a key cornerstone of equity, diversity and inclusion principles.”

The Early Researcher Awards program enables new researchers working at publicly funded Ontario research institutions to build research teams.