Training Topics
Disability Inclusion Training
This module pairs well with our core training. It dives deeper, discussing disability models and other current disability approaches and focuses on concrete changes to improve accessibility and disability in inclusion in your workplace. This is a customizable training and can be 30 minutes to 1.5 hours.
We have developed two industry specific version of this training that we can offer, Accessibility and Inclusion for Arts and Culture Institutions and Healthcare Inclusion for the Disability Community and we can partner with you to create an industry specific module for your workplace.
From Institutions to Independence
Our core disability 101 training is part of all packages. It is an interactive workshop that covers the history of disability in the US, how that history impacts society’s views on disability today, and the history of disability civil rights. We believe this rarely taught history is essential to understanding the landscape of disability in the US which provides a foundation from which to build inclusion. This training can be 1.5 - 3 hours in length and can include custom sections.
Disability Inclusive Human Resources Practices
Developed by an HR professional with 30 years of experience in the field, this module examines typical HR practices and makes suggestions for adaptations to promote a disability inclusive workplace. This customizable training can be 30 minutes to an hour.
Community Awareness Trainings
Led by disability community members and based on their experiences and needs as disabled people, these trainings focus on one group within the disability community highlighting ways to be inclusive of that particular group. This training can be 30 minutes - 1 hour in length and can include custom sections.
Disability Competent Care
Coming Soon
With MassHealth’s new requirements for ACOs to train staff in all seven pillars of Disability Competent Care, we are hard at work developing training to meet these needs. Please reach out if you are interested.
Not seeing a topic that meets your needs? We can create a customized training that meets your exact specifications. Visit our contact page to submit an inquiry.
Why Do a Disability Training?
At 14% of the U.S. population, disabled people are the nation’s largest minority group. Issues of disability and accessibility are vital across a whole range of policy domains, from health care to housing to transit. Often, however, disabled people are treated less like a population (let alone a community with a history and a culture) and more like a problem: a negative health outcome, an inconvenience, or a source of liability. Even when decisions are made that will affect disabled people, we are often not consulted before they are made; disabled people are frequently spoken about, rather than spoken to. And while organizations have gotten better at celebrating many forms of diversity, disability is very rarely thought of in this way; the contributions of disabled people are often not highlighted, and the unique and valuable insights of disabled people are not sought out.
For all of these reasons, a focus merely on complying with accessibility laws is welcome but insufficient. While it is good to be accessible in order to ensure that disabled people can access your school, organization, or business, accessibility is not the same as being welcoming. Just as there is more to building a diverse organization than not violating the Civil Rights Act, or to building a gender diverse organization than not violating Title IX, there is more to promoting disability inclusion than not violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. What our training provides is an answer to why organizations are so often inaccessible, why disabled people are subject to exclusion and discrimination, and what remarkable things can happen when disabled people are empowered to innovate in society and pursue their own solutions to making our world more inclusive.