Planning: identify the barriers Expand Consider the development of your project like a user journey. This is a technique commonly used in marketing and the development of services such as websites. Reflect on how an audience member or user might work or engage with the final outcome, and the various elements along this journey. Identify possible barriers they might face. This can be simpler and more effective than starting with a list of health issues and/or impairments and trying to map these against your project plans. You will need to identify which barriers apply to: your team (internal) your audience/users (external) These are likely to be different areas, involving different budget lines and resources. Considering barriers rather than impairments is an approach that works to the Social Model of Disability. Find out more about the Social Model What might the barriers be? Commonly identified barriers faced by both internal and external groups centre on: Team collaboration methods Team and partners relationship(s) Event logistics Event marketing (e.g. reaching target audiences, ticketing, and websites) Location practicalities (getting there, facilities, parking) Audience experience (interpretive tools, physical access, atmosphere, welcome, and inclusivity) Feedback and quality assessment Responsibility for public access in a host venue will need to be discussed with them, to clarify approaches, cost, and what the venue provides already, or wishes to build on. This will be covered in our audience access resource. Innovative or experimental approaches to access are explored in our access as a creative tool resource.
People: roles and responsibilities Expand People are the most essential element of any project. The team involved are integral to its success. Catering for the team's access needs will inform your choices around elements such as logistics and communications: this will form the project's foundations. Identifying roles is essential to ensuring your project runs smoothly and people know what their responsibilities are. At the planning stage, it is important to identify where access support comes into this. For example: you may be the lead artist working with a producer. You might require access support with managing your diary, organising meetings, keeping records and notes, or assistance with travel. Two things need doing here: 1. Establish your PA/access worker's role and look at whether this is to be funded within the project or by an external source such as Access to Work. 2. Define the producer's role, which likely includes various kinds of organising. This makes it clear which duties and responsibilities are your own and which are the producer's. The tasks that are your responsibility and require support from an access worker need to be defined and provided to the access worker in the form of a job description. Find out more about Access to Work
What access support is available? Expand While Access to Work funding can make a huge difference to your career, qualifying for it, even when eligible, can take time. Some artists find that they depend on what access support the funder is available to provide upfront - for example, to complete the grant application itself - while they are waiting for Access to Work to confirm other support. This means you may need to factor in additional access support in your budget, ahead of knowing the outcome of your Access to Work application. All you can do is work with the situation as it is and follow up with your Access to Work application in order to avoid jeopardising your chances of receiving it now or in the future. This is because, if you receive support through Access to Work, the funds are restricted to your personal support costs, rather than those of the project. Other forms of access support for your team may come in the form of tweaks, amends, and flexibility - known as adjustments. For example, arranging meeting times to suit a team member who has difficulty concentrating at particular times of the day, or using a tool for communication that is accessible for all team members. As with your project tracking tools, certain communication platforms such as Zoom, Slack, or Discord can provide alternative ways of meeting and sharing information that might be more accessible than relying exclusively on text-based systems such as email. Access support workers are people who take on the responsibilities and duties that present barriers to the disabled person working on the project, functioning as support for their role. What these duties are will depend on the disabled person's role in the project and the barriers they anticipate facing. The support worker will be selected for the job according to their skills and experience. For some areas, they may need certain qualifications or to have passed particular checks, particularly if their role entails any personal care or support. Other roles where the support worker might need specific skills include communication support, such as speech to text reporting or sign language interpretation. If the access needs of the team are known, then barriers can be identified through discussion, and adjustments and provisions put in place before the project gets underway. The resources you need to do this may be external, like funding from Access to Work or elsewhere, but barriers might not always require funding to navigate, instead requiring a certain atmosphere or working relationship in order to best suit individual needs. It can be useful for yourself and your team to keep a record of individual access needs through the creation of Access Riders. Don't forget that the focus is on what support they require in order to do their job. Find out more about Access Riders It's important to remember that access needs can fluctuate. You should encourage honesty and openness while discussing the barriers you and your team face in order to best plan to support one another. Some people may have had negative experiences when disclosing their access needs in the past, possibly because their needs were misunderstood or the information held against them. You should bear this in mind and ensure discussions around individual access needs are sensitively handled. You will need to obtain their consent to hold personal information and keep it somewhere secure.
People: communication Expand Good communication is essential to ensure your project runs smoothly and has the best chance of success. Taking the time to research accessible formats to match the communication requirements of the team will enable regular meetings and sharing of information to take place with fewer obstacles. Including review points to check on how the individual team members are progressing (as well as how well their tasks are progressing) can be a useful way of managing issues that often lie beneath the surface. Such issues can cause problems if left unattended or ignored. Giving people the opportunity to ask for support, extra time, clarification, or alternative working methods can add to the creative dynamic which drives the team and gels you together. When recruiting your team, asking how people usually manage their time, deadlines and pressure can be as useful as checking on access needs. This is because not everyone may be aware of the demands of the project at the beginning, and so may not feel a need to disclose certain things that are useful to know. Usually, people will have preferences about the way they have been managing their support needs in the past, and this insight can be valuable because it gives you an idea of what choices are available to ensure good team working. At a time when many people are using remote conferencing for meetings, it will also be important to use accessible tech tools. Zoom is a well known platform that is free to use for limited time sessions. Recordings can be made for those who prefer to recap or can't attend with the rest of the team and need to catch up later. You can add captions through services such as Otter.Ai and change the viewing set up to make it easier to view access support workers such as BSL interpreters. The more features you use, the more likely it is that you have to pay for the service, so do factor this into your access budget.
Systems to support planning Expand Systems can mean tools such as software and ways of organising information. An effective project relies not only on a good team working together but on having the tools in place to track and monitor your progress. Choosing the right systems can help with all these tasks and keep you on top of everything. If your team is spread out across locations, or working remotely, then digital systems will be central. Some questions to consider are: Do you have the right systems in place to do the jobs you need to do? For example, you may wish to use spreadsheets to monitor your budget and spending, but use a more flexible system to keep track of what tasks are complete or in progress. Software like Open Office contains free spreadsheet, presentation and word processing documents which work on most computer systems. Some tools, such as Trello, allow team members to keep lists tracking their work that use visual and audio content as well as text. These platforms are free to use (at the time of writing) but may charge for certain services or features. The same applies for software like Discord and Slack. Many people find Google Docs have good levels of accessibility, and with a Google account this opens up use of folder sharing and storage through Google Drive as well as virtual hangouts and calendar and email integration. Tapping into your team's creativity when organising your project can be a great way to make the most of the experience. Using systems that allow for everyone to contribute, no matter what format or media they prefer, supports this well. Above all, it supports the flow of ideas and communication. Are all these systems accessible to all the team? You may be fortunate in all your team being able to use the same tools, but sometimes this will not be the case. For example, the person tracking the budget may find spreadsheets accessible while other team members may not. When the team's access needs are known from the outset, it should be easier to create workarounds that ensure everyone is informed and supported, therefore able to do their tasks and support the wider team. In the case of spreadsheets, there is flexibility to redesign them with access needs and barriers in mind, but you may also prefer to visually represent the data through things like charts and infographics, or simply to talk through the material in conversation. It's all about what works for your team, so the right people have the right information at the right time.