{"id":44581,"date":"2017-04-25T15:32:08","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T19:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=44581"},"modified":"2018-12-20T11:41:58","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T16:41:58","slug":"brock-employees-working-to-improve-ontario-accessibility-through-provincial-committees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/04\/brock-employees-working-to-improve-ontario-accessibility-through-provincial-committees\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock employees working to improve Ontario accessibility through provincial committees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">Brock University has representation on two provincial committees created to improve accessibility standards throughout Ontario.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rick Welland, Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics, was chosen to serve on the Health Care Standard Development Committee, while Christopher Lytle, Brock\u2019s AODA Co-ordinator, was selected for the Employment Standard Review Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pair began attending meetings at the end of March, with Welland on an 18-month appointment and Lytle a six-month appointment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The health-care committee was established to develop new accessibility standards, while the employment committee is conducting a review of existing legislation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis particular standard for health care has been a long time coming,\u201d said Welland, who is pleased to be a part of the development process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People with disabilities can encounter a variety of barriers \u2014 attitudinal, educational, physical and systemic \u2014 when trying to access health-care services.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAccessibility barriers to health care involve much more than providing ramps for wheelchairs and accessible elevators and washrooms,\u201d said Welland, who before joining Brock\u2019s faculty worked for many years as a speech-language pathologist in a variety of Ontario health-care settings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere are some significant attitudinal and systemic (largely policy-based) barriers that need to be removed before Ontario can claim to have an accessible health-care system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of those barriers include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">health-care providers learning how to approach and communicate with people who are totally blind<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how to communicate respectfully with people in wheelchairs and with people who have severe communications disabilities<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">making sure to use preferred methods of communication, such as sign language or an electronic communication device<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">eliminating health-care policies that offer services of differing quality to groups of people with disabilities.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accessibility standards for health care are needed to \u201cprotect the rights of all Ontarians with disabilities by removing as many accessibility barriers as possible, by ensuring that new barriers are not created, by giving patients a more effective mechanism for reporting rights violations and by establishing an effective means of enforcement,\u201d Welland said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lytle joined the provincial review committee to have a say in the critical legislation, and to highlight steps Brock is taking to ensure its accessibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe\u2019re viewing accessibility as a culture of diversity instead of a reaction to requests for accommodation,\u201d he said of the University, adding it\u2019s a cultural shift organizations across the province should be adopting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMy intent in applying for the committee was to try and hit home the idea that there can be a culture achieved through the development of provincial law.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lytle said Brock, as well as the Niagara Region, should take pride in the fact that they have voices at the table during such substantial provincial discussions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe want to ensure we\u2019re able to put our hands up. This applies to us. To have our input within the creation of this law is huge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The review committee\u2019s members will have an opportunity to consult with their constituents, going back to their respective municipalities and organizations to collect feedback.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhile doing AODA implementation here at Brock, I\u2019ll be able to bring people in from different aspects of the University to ask their opinion on things,\u201d Lytle said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThat level of connectivity with government I think is unprecedented. It\u2019s very inspiring to see.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brock University has representation on two provincial committees created to improve accessibility standards throughout Ontario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":44582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,1,4,38],"tags":[2239,72,5252,5251,5090,5250,5249],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55177,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44581\/revisions\/55177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}