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Access Linky Oct 2017

a rusty key with #accesslinky written below

Huge apologies for the lack of linky last month!

Those pesky school holidays messed up my schedule so I decided I would wait and have a relaunch today on the 1st anniversary of the linky and to change the linky date to the (much easier to remember!) 1st of the month!

Share your accessibility stories on Access Linky. Open from 1st of the month for 3 weeks

Thank you so much to everyone for joining in last time, there was a fab variety of posts!

Round Up:

A number of the posts linked last time addressed the wider aspects of inclusion, and what that means for their families. The Long Chain picked out the Five Things I’d Change to enable greater inclusion for her family and Ordinary Hopes gives a heartfelt picture of how the environment & society impacts her son’s life in  Children Should Not be Scared to go Out.

Things are changing and businesses are beginning to show greater awareness of access issues but this can sometimes feel like tokenism as Mum on a Mission points out in her post Are Physically Disabled Children Invisible?

Little Mama Murphy shared a lovely post about How to Talk to A Disabled Child! Yes! This is all it takes!

As part of her #SEND30DayChallenge (which I am attempting to complete too… albeit VERY slowly!), Mum on a Mission highlighted 10 Things You Don’t Know about Changing Places Toilets – although many readers of this series will know some of these as Changing Places Toilets is one of my regular topics!

It was brilliant to see a number of reviews focussing on the accessibility of places and venues! Wheelescapades reviewed on of our own family favourite places Wimpole Estate – Down on the Farm. Really interesting to read someone else’s perspective on somewhere we know so well!

A Wheelie Great Adventure reviews their experiences of a family trip to the coast in Tales of Birds, A Beach and A Bomber and Life and Other Stories’ shared a fab post written by her daughter, My Day Out by Cerys Giles.  Great to hear from the next generation of access advocates!

Finally Rainbows are Too Beautiful gives some really helpful tips for those who find it a challenge to eat out with younger children and/or people with neurodivergent conditions in  Tips to Take our Autistic Kids to Dinner

Please do check in again next month to catch up with the blog posts in the round up, and bloggers I hope to see lots of you again this month and *meet* some new people too!

Linky Info:

The linky will be open for 3 weeks! Share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces, products and/or activities below…. and don’t forget to check in again next month to read the round up and link up again!

Inclusive Home

Guidelines:

  1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box under the badge image above and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or add a text link back to my site so that people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
  2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences (use the hashtag #AccessLinky in your comment)!
  3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessLinky) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
  4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.

Posted on

Accessibility Stories 07.17

a rusty key with #accesslinky written below

Thank you so much to all the linker uppers last month!

Apologies for running a bit late this month. The end of term and start of the school summer holidays have made their impact on my time to blog! I suspect many of you will be in a similar boat!?

Round Up:

Talking of holidays, last month Rainbows Are Too Beautiful shared an absolutely lovely little movie by @bobscartoons in her regular Wonderful Wednesday feature.  Family holidays can be daunting at the best of times, but when you have access and sensory considerations to make too, it can become a mission and a half!

Picture of a rusty key saying: Share your accessibility stories #AccessLinky

There were also a number of posts on inclusion last time.  Both good and bad examples!

Rainbows are Too Beautiful writes a lovely message to say Thank You Little Girls after glimpsing some natural moments of acceptance and inclusion between her little boy and his classmates at his school assembly.

Raising My Autistic Son shared a post about her son’s experiences of trying to Access After School Activities and The World of Gorgeous Grace enthuses about the contrast she’s experienced in the holistic approach to inclusion after moving to a new area in her post: This is how to do Inclusion

However The Sensory Seeker speaks of a disappointing approach to inclusion at her son’s school in Not Being Different

Disabled parking, or blue badge parking, is a topic I keep meaning to write about myself, because there still seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about why it’s needed and what impact the lack of parking can have.  The Long Chain explains just what this means for her and her family in This is A Disabled Parking Bay

And finally, my fantastic campaigner friend Lorna has decided to dabble in the world of blogging! Her first post about changing places toilets Even our Hospital Doesn’t Have a Toilet That We Can Safely Use was published in the #HPEveryBody series on HuffPost UK! Please read and sign her petition for #ChangingPlaces Toilets at the end of the post!

I hope you’ll check in again next month to catch up with the blog posts in the round up, and bloggers I hope to see lots of you again this month and *meet* some new people too!

Inclusive Home

Info on how to join in below:

Linky Info:

I’ve switched over to Inlinkz for the linky this month as I think it’s a bit more user friendly, hope you think so too!

The linky will be open for 2 weeks, please do share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces, products and/or activities below….

And do check in again next month to read the round up!

Guidelines:

  1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box under the badge image above and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or add a text link back to my site so that people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
  2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences (use the hashtag #AccessLinky in your comment)!
  3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessLinky) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
  4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.


Posted on

Accessibility Stories 06.17

a rusty key with #accesslinky written below

Thank you to all those who joined the linky last month! I hope you all enjoy reading this little round up!

Round Up:

There were two fantastic posts on communication linked up last time.

I absolutely love this one by Little Mama Murphy about the training session she attended by Jo Grace about Communicating Without Words.  I had happy tears running down my face reading it. I LOVE the concept of ‘sensory being’ and ‘literary being’! It feels just right to describe the differences between my EJ & EW in that way!

Rainbows are Too Beautiful gave a shout out to the upcoming Singing Hands DVD  which also sounds fab! I did some baby and toddler singing and signing classes with both of mine when they were young.  I’ve been a bit lax with my makaton recently without the structure of the class to keep me motivated, so it would be fantastic to have a fun DVD aimed at an older audience!  Music is definitely key where it comes to engaging EJ!

Picture of a rusty key saying: Share your accessibility stories #AccessLinky

When it comes to getting around on wheels, I think there’s sometimes a misconception that ‘everywhere’s accessible these days’, but that really isn’t true, even some of the really fundamental stuff in newly refurbished buildings, as Ordinary Hopes highlights in her post Just Because Daleks Can Do Stairs

Mum on a Mission sets it out in black and white how society is forcing people to wear nappies if they want to get out and about, due to a lack of understanding and action on changing places accessible toilets (from legislators, designers, developers through to service providers) in My 8yr Old Isn’t Potty Trained and It’s Your Fault

It really seems ridiculous that some people’s outings revolve in detail around where they can go to the toilet, so Ordinary Hopes wants to say Thank You Exeter Services for acknowledging the need and acting upon it! As Ordinary Hopes says, it’s not only enabled her and her son to go out, but also to become customers and spend their money with them!

Speaking of customers, Brody Me and GDD linked up her post on Products SEND Parents REALLY want! Retailers are missing a market in other ways than just getting their customers into their shops or onto their websites, in that there’s a whole market out there for useful, comfortable, (affordable!) and well designed products for disabled children and adults! What can you add to her list?

I hope you’ll check in again next month to catch up with the blog posts in the round up, and bloggers I hope to see lots of you again this month and *meet* some new people too!

Info on how to join in below:

Linky Info:

This linky will be open for 2 weeks, please do share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces, products and/or activities below….

And do check in again next month to read the round up!

Guidelines:

    1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box under the badge image below and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or add a text link back to my site so that people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
    2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences (use the hashtag #AccessLinky in your comment)!
    3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessLinky) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
    4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.
Our Inclusive Home



Posted on

Slightly Invisible

Slightly Invisible

Last week, during Carer’s Week, a twitter conversation between two of my campaigner friends made me immediately think of one of our favourite books, “Slightly Invisible” by the fabulous Lauren Child (the brand new Children’s Laureate!).

Twitter conversation between @ordinaryhopes and @topeeornottopeeIn the story, Lola and her (imaginary?) friend, Soren Lorensen, drink an invisibility potion that her brother Charlie has made with his friend. Lola, of course, doesn’t become invisible but Soren Lorensen does…. Lola is adamant that she is also invisible and says:

“You can only see me because you know what I look like. You can’t see Soren Lorensen at all”!

Just as Ordinary Hopes said in her tweet, and her post The Invisible Boy, so many people just don’t ‘know what we look like’ either!

Perhaps they can’t see us because they don’t understand us or our needs? Perhaps we’re only slightly invisible and they can see some of our more obvious needs, like wheelchair access (not that that mean’s wheelchair access is a given!), but not our less obvious needs?

Designers, developers & service providers could be forgiven for not knowing what we look like.  Nobody can ever know what other people’s needs are.  Disability is such a massive spectrum, we are all slightly invisible to each other.

That is why regulations, standards and guidance are so important!

To help make everyone visible to those decision makers and providers of facilities….

At the end of last week the BSi (British Standards Institute) published a long awaited consultation draft of the proposed changes to BS 8300.  This is the British Standard document which addresses accessibility in ALL aspects of our built environment (both outside spaces and in buildings).

I’ve been anxiously anticipating its publication (yes I am rock and roll!) and hope to publish some posts over the next few weeks on various topics covered that I have professional interest in or personal experience of.

The type of facility (or lack of) that impacts our family most, when out and about, is accessible toilets for people who can’t use the loo, those who need help to change continence pads, or those who can’t transfer to the loo without help of a hoist and/or more than one carer.  So the only section of the BS I’ve read through so far has been the ‘Sanitary Facilities’ chapter….

….and I have to say anti-climax doesn’t even cover it.

I am really disappointed to see that there’s little change in relation to those who need help to use the toilet.

I don’t believe this draft of BS 8300 will help the decision makers see us any more than they did before.

I’ve yet to do a detailed compare and contrast, but my first thoughts are that there are still clearly two classes of disabled people when it comes to toilet provision.

The intro to the sanitary accommodation chapter (chapter 18) sounds great!

“Disabled people ought to be able to find and use suitable toilet accommodation no less easily than non‑disabled people. The space requirements for suitable toilet accommodation are generally driven by the requirements of wheelchair users, although the facilities might also be used by people with other impairments..” (Clause 18.5)

“At least one unisex wheelchair accessible toilet (see 18.5.3.1) should be provided at each location where toilet accommodation is provided for the use of customers, employees or visitors” (Clause 18.5.1)

So far so good!  Wheelchair accessible toilets at each location where the other toilets are! Brilliant!

If only it meant all wheelchair users.

The ‘unisex wheelchair accessible toilet’ referred to is only suitable for those who can independently transfer to the WC.  People who need hoist or carer assistance and/or who can’t use the loo at all and need somewhere to lay down to change continence pads cannot use these toilets.

In contrast to the above inclusive statement, the recommendation for where it’s appropriate to provide toilets with a changing bench and hoist (a Changing Places Toilet), is:

“Any larger building where the public have access in numbers or where visitors might be expected to spend longer periods of time is a suitable venue for a CP facility. Such facilities are particularly important in buildings that might offer the only suitable sanitary accommodation within a locality, or in buildings where public services are provided, such as those operated by local authorities. Some commercial facilities such as large retail and leisure premises might be suitable as they provide longer opening hours and are likely to have a regular cleaning regime.” (Clause 18.6)

The way I think this will be interpreted by business (and the way I think it has been so far!), is that we are a municipal ‘problem’ and businesses don’t need to bother with these ‘special’ facilities.  It’s up to the government to provide them in strategic locations, not in locations where people actually are, or want to go.  Only if you have a large building, that isn’t near another large building that already has one, do you need to bother thinking about it!

Reading this during Mencap’s Learning Disability Week, it brings it home to me that we have a long way to go to break free of the ingrained attitude in society.  The older my daughter gets, the more it feels like people with complex needs are seen as other, even within the access community.  That families like ours are expected to accept their lot, and be grateful if the council provide some facilities to enable them to get out of their homes occasionally.

Both the current and this draft of the BS for toilets with a bench and hoist are written in a very exclusive way. The only solution given being a changing places toilet, which is a combined WC and shower, and which should be locked and ‘normal disabled people’ and ‘regular families’ should be directed to the ‘normal toilets’ – I paraphrase here, but that is the jist of it.  I really believe there are various design solutions which could create more flexible, inclusive facilities that could be more easily ‘sold’ to business as an asset for more customers/visitors/staff rather than an obligation (but I’ll blog about that later).

Slightly InvisibleThis lack of provision is something that affects disabled people of all ages, but also their wider circle.  You cannot go somewhere that your friend or loved one cannot access a toilet!

I can only speak for our family.  For myself and my husband as carers, and to represent our daughter who, quite literally, doesn’t, and may never, have a voice.  However I feel that many of my campaign friends are at a similar stage of life to us, watching as our kids grow apart from society as they outgrow the baby change unit.  Seeing the opportunities to visit places and join in activities with our wider family and friends slip away.

We don’t want to allow that to happen.  We want to retain the opportunities for inclusion for our families.

We don’t want our kids, their siblings and friends to be limited by society’s views of disability.

We need to be visible to those people who make the decisions on the most fundemental of facilities (the toilet) on whether to include or exclude us.

Spectrum Sunday
Mummy Times Two
Posted on

Accessibility Stories 05.17

a rusty key with #accesslinky written below

Thank you to all the linker uppers from last month!

Round Up:

Starting the round up with a couple of neurodiversity posts (access isn’t only about ramps and lifts!)…

Rainbows are too Beautiful wrote about an experience a friend had had at an entertainment venue which prompted her to say, yes! Yes He is Perfect… AND he has a Disability!

The World of Gorgeous Grace speaks about the need for better advice and access to services around learning disability, as she reflects on GG’s Learning Disability Journey.

Picture of a rusty key saying: Share your accessibility stories #AccessLinky

Wheelchair Chic Home joined the linky with a fantastic Top 10 House Buying Tips When You Have Mobility Issues! This is definitely one to share with anyone looking to rent or buy an accessible or adaptable home!  If only the agents & developers understood the value in these features and marketed accessible homes properly so people could find them (and people might build more of them!)!

Another 10 was shared by the Firefly Community: Accessible Toilet Campaigners: 10 famous faces! So lovely to learn more about the people behind the campaigns, bringing a huge variety of experience and expertise to the table (or the bench?)! Really honoured to be included in the list myself!

And a fellow Firefly famous face, Rachel George of Ordinary Hopes linked a couple of her fab posts last month too.  The first, questioning how horrified people might be if non-disabled children (or adults!) were forced to wear nappies/pads! in her post: Some Things Are Just Wrong.

In contrast, Ordinary Hopes, also shared a most fabulous accessibility story, One Perfect Day, made possible by Cornwall Accessible Activities Programme in conjunction with Mobiloo (a charity providing mobile Changing Places Toilet facilities) – real inclusion! Just how it should be!

I hope you’ll check in again next month to catch up with the blog posts in the round up, and bloggers I hope to see lots of you again this month and *meet* some new people too!
Info on how to join in below:

Linky Info:

This linky will be open for 2 weeks, please do share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces and products below…. And do check in again next month to read the round up!

Guidelines:

    1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box under the badge image below and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or add a text link back to my site so that people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
    2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences (use the hashtag #AccessLinky in your comment)!
    3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessLinky) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
    4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.
Our Inclusive Home



Posted on

Accessibility Stories 04.17

a rusty key with #accesslinky written below

What a fantastic range of blog posts linked up last month!

Picture of a rusty key saying: Share your accessibility stories #AccessLinky

 Round Up from last Month

There were a number of posts on one of my regular (and favourite!) themes, changing places toilets. Ordinary Hopes linked this very powerful post “When this is the best option you have“, i.e. the toilet floor or don’t go out at all.  Clos-o-Mat and Ordinary Hopes also commented on the lack of understanding of the need for assisted toilet provision until it’s something you need yourself, in “I’d never even thought about it” a key reason many are campaigning that it’s “Time for change” for the building standards, to be made clearer and more comprehensive!

I’m very excited to *meet* a new blogger friend, Wheelchair Chic Home, joining in this month with her fab “5 tips for styling your house to accommodate a disability” and with some more specific ideas on “Storage Ideas to hold crutches or walking sticks” in a stylish way!  I love this blog, it’s totally up my street and I’ll definitely be following for more inclusive design ideas!

My daughter EJ has sensory processing issues which affect her in all different ways (touch, vision, hearing that we know about).  Sensory processing seems to be being more and more widely acknowledged as a challenge in accessing our world for set up for the ‘average person’ and of course can vary greatly from individual to individual and vary in intensity. Rainbows are too Beautiful linked this post about how something as seemingly simple as a particular welly boot (considered a staple in every child’s wardrobe!) can enable inclusion in outdoor family activities in “We’ve got to get our kids outside!”

Access isn’t all about ramps and grab rails, and I had two posts this month, telling of the frustrations faced trying to access childcare and education for their children with very different needs. Rainbows are too Beautiful’s “30 hours free childcare” and The Long Chain’s “Benjamin doesn’t tick boxes” illustrating the catch 22 of local authority juggling of services and funding between education, social care and health care.

I hope you’ll check in again next month to catch up with the blog posts in the round up, and bloggers I hope to see lots of you again this month and *meet* some new people too!  
Info on how to join in below:

Linky Info

This linky will be open for 2 weeks, please do share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces and products below…. And do check in again next month to read the round up!

Guidelines:

    1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box under the badge image below and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or add a text link back to my site so that people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
    2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences!
    3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessibilityStories and/or the shorter #AccessStories) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
    4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.
Our Inclusive Home



Posted on

Accessibility Stories 03.17

a rusty key with #accesslinky written below

Thank you so much to all those who linked up last month, loads of great posts!

This month I’ve decided to change the hashtag, for sharing on social media, to something a little shorter and easier to spell! ….#accesslinky

Picture of a rusty key saying: Share your accessibility stories #AccessLinky

 Round Up from last Month

The 1st March was International Wheelchair Day! Ordinary Hopes wrote this lovely post, Wheelchairs Are Awesome, about the massive difference a wheelchair makes and the independence they enable.  Brody, Me and GDD also wrote a more reflective post about coming to terms with your child needing a wheelchair and, more so, coming to terms with the Reactions To my Son’s Wheelchair from other people.

It was also Disabled Access Day on 11th March, which saw a lots of events throughout the UK over that weekend and disabled people and their families and friends were encouraged to try getting out to somewhere new!  I have to say we fall into exactly the category of sticking to tried and tested places, or places relatively close to home, as we have the same issues as Brody, Me and GDD discusses in this post… Raising Awareness of Changing Places Toilets this Disabled Access Day!

Challenges in getting out and about are not only, or always, physical as Rainbows are Too Beautiful’s post The disassembled abandoned cake – autism eating out and about illustrates.  Sensory barriers to access, or sensory overloads, can be extra problematic when there’s no visual cue, people around you don’t often understand or react in a helpful way.

I also linked up a post myself from a local project I’m involved with for a new unique playground, a playscape! I’m really excited about it as one of the core aims is to create an inclusive play space that people of all ages and all abilities will be able to enjoy! By designing unique elements, there’s no prescriptive way to use them, so we are hoping people will access them in the ways that they can!  Perhaps this can be a destination for some in future Disabled Access Days!? …..we have yet to solve the access to a loo problem, although no equality issues here, there’s no public toilet for anyone at the moment!

The lovely Little Mama Murphy linked up a very exciting update in the #BigBuild4Hugh!  Their adaptations project is almost complete and the family were able to have a proper inclusive family christmas due to the new layout!  Loving the enthusiasm for good storage… you can’t beat a good cupboard!

Finally I’d like to mention this poignant post by The World of Gorgeous Grace, My Learning Disabled Child is not a Burden on Society.  Attitudes to disability are changing, and when you look back we have come a long way in a relatively short period of time, but we still have a long way to go before we are ‘there’.

Linky Info

This linky will be open for 2 weeks, please do share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces and products below…. And do check in again next month to read the round up! Guidelines:

    1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box under the badge image below and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or add a text link back to my site so that people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
    2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences!
    3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessibilityStories and/or the shorter #AccessStories) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
    4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.
Our Inclusive Home

Posted on

Accessibility Stories 02.17

A rusty key with title "Accessibility Stories 2017 Linky"

Thank you so much to all those who linked up last month!

Round Up from last Month

At this time of year many of us are thinking about booking our summer holidays, however for families with physical and sensory access needs, staying away from  home can be stressful! It was lovely to read this positive holiday experience by Rainbows Are Too Beautiful.  Particularly interesting for us as both my kids love being outside, especially EJ who thrives on the immersive sensory experience nature provides (the light and shade, the feel of wind and rain, the differences in sounds, smells and even tastes) so a forest holiday would be ideal for us, and a holiday home with a safe outside space would be perfect!

A rusty key with title "Accessibility Stories 2017 Linky"A few of the posts last month were about how just getting out of the house can be a mission, never mind going on holiday!  In this aptly named post, Project Get Out of the House, Orange This Way determines to start a new #wheelygood resource for Devon and Cornwall to help visitors and locals alike to find wheel friendly places & activities!  In Where Were the Good People, Ordinary Hopes asks why people stand by and allow others to struggle, and even become victims of bullying behaviour, sometimes in circumstances where a little thoughtfulness or a kind gesture could easily make all the difference.  While on the other hand, Raising a Superhero tells of a lovely Christmas outing where inclusion was at the heart of the experience and is definitely an Afternoon Tea with Father Christmas I’ll be looking up next festive season!

Accessible toilets is a favourite theme, well, when I say favourite theme I agree with Ordinary hopes in her post Petitioning for What?, in that we shouldn’t even need it to be a theme for discussion (…please do sign the petition though!)!  However on reading this update by Mum on a Mission about her an ongoing correspondence with Cineworld it’s pretty clear that we do need to continue to lobby for greater clarity of standards, as the big service providers still seem to believe the guidance doesn’t apply to them!

On the positive side for loos, it was great to read this fantastic guest post by Brody, Me and GDD about changing places toilets on Mumsnet, with loads of fantastic comments, many from people who hadn’t heard of the campaign before – it’s always brilliant to reach and gain support from people not directly affected by the issues!

Linky Info

This linky will be open for 2 weeks, please do share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces and products below…. And do check in again next month to read the round up! Guidelines:

  1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box under the badge image below and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or add a text link back to my site so that people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
  2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences!
  3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessibilityStories and/or the shorter #AccessStories) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
  4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.
AccessibilityStories

Posted on

Accessibility Stories 01.17

A rusty key with title "Accessibility Stories 2017 Linky"

Happy New Year!

A rusty key with title "Accessibility Stories 2017 Linky"

Welcome to the first #AccessibilityStories of 2017!

Apologies for the lack of linky last month, too much going on at Christmas I’m afraid!

My lovely campaigner friend at Ordinary Hopes linked up a couple of posts to my last linky, in November, which are particularly topical as this year has begun with quite a flurry of media interest in accessible toilets!

The first is a Christmas post, The C Word, highlighting how the lack of suitable toilet facilities, meant that her family couldn’t participate in many of the festive activities that many others take for granted.

The second, Struggling to Care, a poignant post setting out what really makes caring for a loved one difficult.

This linky will be open for 2 weeks, please do share your posts about ideas and experiences (good and bad!) around physical and/or sensory accessibility of buildings, places, spaces and products below….

And do check in again next month to read the round up!

Guidelines:

  1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! It would be lovely if you could add my badge (cut and paste the code in the box below and add it into your blog post while in ‘text’ mode of your blog editor) or a text link back to my site so people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
  2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences!
  3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessibilityStories) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
  4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.
AccessibilityStories



Posted on

Accessibility Stories (Nov 16)

Rusty old key in a door lock

Thank you so much to everyone who linked up with #AccessibilityStories last month!

Collage of pictures of smiling children how need changing places toiletsThere has been much discussion within our campaign group about why the need for Changing Places toilets has not really reached the conscious of the general public and, when it does, it’s often misunderstood as Brody Me and GDD describes in Sorry for the Inconvenience.  Of course the official Changing Places campaign has made huge headway (from zero provision!) in it’s 10 years, but at still less than 900 toilets in the whole UK, we felt that perhaps us independent campaigner bloggers could shake things up a bit more if we got together!

So at the end of last month Brody Me & GDD rallied a group of bloggers to publish a wave of posts about the lack of fully accessible toilets, in the hope that a surge of posts, coming from a range of perspectives, might break through the social media noise and reach new people.  And I think we succeeded, at least to some extent!

The name ‘Changing Places’ can be a bit confusing and abstract from peoples lives.  Having a mix of parent bloggers, who don’t normally write about toilets (well some of them do, but maybe not always about changing places!), might make the story more relatable to people who don’t need them.

We decided on Halloween as a date to publish and decided on the theme of #phantomloos (as standard accessible WCs just being an illusion of accessibility to many of us!).

Many of the bloggers hooked up to last month’s #accessibilitystories and there are so many amazing posts I figure it’s just better if you hop over there and have a browse!  I’ll just pick out this storyboard style post by Little Mama Murphy which gives such a clear description of what we are talking about and why, that surely it’s just obvious there should be more changing places!  You can also check out this #PhantomLoos storify a try to capture the mood around the hashtag on twitter.

The most exciting thing to come of the flurry of activity was that a BBC journalist contacted a number of us who had taken part as she was writing up this fantastic article, When does accessible not mean accessible?, published last weekend, on #worldtoiletday!

The linky wasn’t only about toilets though!

Rainbows Are Too Beautiful linked up this beautiful, balanced and heartfelt open letter to Tess Stimson in response to an article she wrote about ‘disruptive’ behaviour in public places.  Rainbows Are Too Beautiful explains how precarious it can be as a family trying to walk that line between tolerance and intolerance and how the limitations society places on what is acceptable can deny people access to typical family life. Have a scroll through the comments to see a thoughtful response from Tess Stimson herself.

And finally A Hunter’s Life posted a great list of their families favourite products! I’m always excited to share great inclusive product ideas, especially those (usually the mainstream products) that don’t come with the higher ‘special needs’ or ‘disability’ price tag!

The linky for November is now open and I’m really looking forward to reading some fab posts from friends old and new!

Please read the guidelines and then get linking below (the linky will be open for 2 weeks)!

Rusty old key in a door lock

Guidelines:

  1. Link up to 2 posts each month (old or new)! I don’t have a badge, but it would be lovely if you could add a text link back to my site so people can find the linky and read the other blog entries;
  2. Please comment on this post to introduce yourself if you’re new to the linky, and comment on some of the other linked posts to help share ideas and experiences!
  3. It would also be amazing if you could share your post (using the hashtag #AccessibilityStories) on social media to help spread awareness of the issues around accessibility!  I’ll also try to retweet as many posts as I can!
  4. I welcome input from anyone that is affected by accessible design – users, carers, friends and family as well as designers, developers, managers and legislators (so pretty much everyone then!). I welome blogs from professionals and suppliers as well as individual bloggers as long as they keep within the spirit of idea exchange and are not sales posts for products or services.



Posted on

Why should we?

Changing Places toilet selfie

Why should we install a changing places?

I can understand that many people have not heard of Changing Places toilets. I understand there’s a valid argument that venues just don’t know about them.  However once they do know….?

I worked in architectural practice up until 2010, just after the guidance was entered into the British Standards (BS 8300), and I honestly hadn’t thought about the building regulations ‘standard unisex accessible WC’ not being adequate for all disabled people.  Don’t ask me how I didn’t know as it seems so obvious now, but it just hadn’t occurred to me what people would do if they couldn’t get onto the loo on their own ! How could someone help to lift them in that little room and without any hoisting equipment!?  And what if you were not a baby (maybe you’ve not been a baby for decades!), but wear an incontinence pad and need assistance to change it? Where would you lay down?

Changing Places toilet selfieIt wasn’t really until my daughter was growing too big for baby changing tables that I began to wonder if I was missing something, and of course when I began to look around I found the Changing Places campaign.  A campaign that had grown out of the frustrations of a determined bunch of parent carers deciding to take action about this lack of provision.

I was excited to find that they had secured a pretty comprehensive entry in BS 8300, recommending the type of buildings these facilities should be installed in.  And there is also reference to this BS guidance, and to the Changing Places Consortium, in the Building Regulations relating to building accessibility (Part M).

However it soon became clear there really weren’t that many of them actually installed.

Ok so it’s a new standard?  There will be loads in the pipeline right?

Now that the need has been identified and quantified in BS guidance, there will be lots of new buildings automatically including them, and lots of existing venues will start installing them…. right?….right!?  Erm….no, not really.

Over the last year or so I’ve gotten to know a number of campaigners pretty well, several of them are fellow SWAN UK members with children with complex undiagnosed conditions, some have older children and some are adults who need the facilities themselves.  Unfortunately their experience has been negative on the whole.  Of course there are some exceptions and some lovely positive stories of venues, on hearing of the need, step up and even enthusiastically take steps to ensure a changing places toilet is installed in their new building or refurbishment.  Some see the benefits of inclusion straight away without much, or even any, persuasion.  Two such projects that spring to mind are Longdown Farm and Cornwall Services – both fantastic examples of how it should be, how I’d have expected it to be.

However the far more frequent response seems to be: “not our responsibility”.  Even when confronted with the fact that their disabled customers & carers have to leave early, risk falls & back injury, lay on toilet floors or even not come at all, the fact that changing places are not compulsory, that there’s no minimum requirement to cater for ‘our kind’ of disability, means that venues see changing places as an extra. Something over and above what they need to provide.  Their competitors haven’t had to do it so they don’t want to be the ones who have to spend the extra money.

I have to say I have a little sympathy for this.  The changing places standard is significantly bigger than designers and developers are used to as an accessible toilet, and of course floor area = cost.  Without clarity of who should install them, and in this financial climate, I can sort of understand individual organisations backing away from responsibility.  My feeling is that there should be a review of the whole ‘suite’ of sanitary facilities we have in our regulations as minimum standards.  I think there’s opportunity to have more inclusive options, for smaller family friendly venues for example, where perhaps the adult and baby changing areas are not put in separate rooms but a single family toilet area is installed, so the room will be used by a greater number of customers and business’ will feel there is more ‘value’ in if for them? But that’s another blog post I think!

As I say, these facilities seem to be viewed (by most?) as an ‘extra’, as something for a minority and not their responsibility to cater for, so thought I’d look at some figures I could find online which (I think!) illustrate clearly that’s not the case (although even if it’s just one person that’s being excluded, isn’t that one too many!?).

The Changing Places Consortium website tells us there are over ¼ million users in the UK who need a greater than the average accessible toilet, in a population of 65.1M (ONS).

So that’s (at least!):

1 : 260 people

1 in 260 may not sound like a huge number of people on first glance, but just to put that into a bit of context, here are some building venue capacity stats:

Blackpool Tower Ballroom (who do have a changing places toilet I must add – #IncLOOsion!) can accommodate:

  • 900 people for a banquet (statistically 3.5 changing places users per banquet),
  • 550 for a dinner dance (statistically 2 changing places users per dinner) ,
  • 1100 for theatre performance (statistically 4 changing places users per performance).

Wembley Stadium (who, again, do have a changing places toilet) has:

  • 90,000 seats (= statistically 346 people per match needing CPs)
  • 2,618 toilets (including 1 Changing Places Toilet!) in this one (granted, very large!) venue, yet there are only *895 Changing Places in the WHOLE UK!

For an area with such high density of entertainment & tourist venues, the west end of London has particularly poor provision of changing places, and I don’t mean to single out these two over any other (because they ALL should have one) but, for example:

The Royal Opera House auditorium seats:

  • 2,256 people ( = statistically 8.7 people/performance needing CPs)

The Odeon at Leicester Square has:

  • 1683 Seats (= statistically 6.5 people/screening needing CPs)

So, some of my questions to businesses who are questioning whether they should have better accessible toilet facilities in their building or venue are:

  1. Do you have toilets for your other customers? Why would you expect our family to leave your venue to find a toilet somewhere else when you don’t expect other people (who are most likely more mobile!) to do this?
  2. What is the capacity of your venue? If it’s greater than 260 people, then statistically at any one time there may be someone who needs a changing places toilet using your service.  And they are most likely to be there with friends and family (or often at least a carer), and if they have to leave early, they’ll all leave!
  3. Do you see yourselves as an accessible building/venue? Then shouldn’t that accessibility extend to all users?

I’m not suggesting tiny coffee shops should be expected to provide fully accessible facilities (although of course that would be lovely and very inclusive!), and perhaps some people may say I am too close to the issue to see it objectively, but I am really struggling to understand why there is any debate as to whether meeting this need should become a minimum requirement in larger publicly accessible buildings, ones that provide toilets for everyone else!

*total figure in November 2016