The CACTI Blog: Breaking Barriers - Empowering Accessibility in the Disability Community
By Victoria Almanza, 2023-2024 Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Approach to Disability in Professional Practice Intern
While looking for an internship, I knew I wanted to do something that would relate to my interests. However, I was also looking for something that would give me new experiences and teach me new skills. I found the Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities, which gave me the best of both worlds. I had opportunities in high school to work with individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD). I loved being able to support them throughout their day at school and help them get the best out of their education. Given how much I enjoyed working with people with disabilities, I was immediately interested in an internship with the Sonoran Center. My internship was for both professional development and academic credit. The Sonoran Center worked with me to make sure I was working on projects that were appealing to me and that aligned with the requirements of my credit.
I was quickly put on a project that focused on vaccine accessibility. The disability community experiences a deficit in vaccinations due to a lack of awareness and access to vaccine resources. The Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities has a project that increases vaccine awareness, enhances accessibility, and reaches diverse communities. The Sonoran Center has worked with other organizations to host vaccine events around Arizona. The two vaccine events I helped work on was the Accessible Vaccine Clinic in Phoenix, AZ and the Disability Resource and Health Fair in Nogales, AZ. The Accessible Vaccine Clinic offered the COVID-19 vaccine and flu vaccine. The Disability Resource and Health Fair offered various vaccines including COVID-19, flu, RSV, HPV, and more. People in the disability community might not be vaccinated because of transportation, financial burdens, language barriers, and much more. The Sonoran Center ensured that the vaccine events were fully accessible and accommodated everyone’s needs by providing interpreters, private spaces, and accessible entrances.
With previous experience in social media and marketing, my role as an intern on this project was to use social media as a promotional and educational tool. I helped inform the public on the importance of vaccinations, posted updates on the vaccine events, collected data after the vaccine events occurred, and helped organize materials prior to and following the events. Through this work, there was an increase in vaccine awareness and accessibility to vaccinations especially in the disability community.
Alongside my work with the vaccine project, I regularly worked on tasks to make documents and videos more accessible. I would be assigned PDF documents and upload them to Adobe. These PDF documents included educational information regarding people in the disability community, such as, “What is Special Education?” and “What if my child is Not Eligible for Special Education?” In Adobe, there is a feature that allows you to create the reading order for the PDF so that when using screen readers the content is read in the correct order. I would also add alternative text to the images for full accessibility. Not only does the Sonoran Center provide educational flyers in this format, but they are also offered in several languages such as Spanish and Dari. Additionally, the Sonoran Center hosts several webinars that are recorded and uploaded to their YouTube account. I created captions for those videos to make them accessible for everyone to watch.
From my work as an intern for the Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities, I learned about the significance of accessibility. Accessibility is important because everyone deserves to have the same availability of opportunities. As a public health student, advocating for accessibility in the public health sphere requires a multi-faceted approach that addresses both physical and systemic barriers. One way to advocate for accessibility is to push for inclusive design in healthcare facilities such as ensuring that they are equipped with ramps, elevators, and other accommodations to cater to individuals with disabilities. Additionally, one could advocate for the implementation of accessible medical equipment and technologies, such as adjustable examination tables and screen readers for visually impaired patients. Beyond the physical environment, people in the healthcare field can promote policies and practices that prioritize accessibility in healthcare services like providing sign language interpreters, offering alternative formats for written materials, and training healthcare providers on how to effectively communicate with individuals with disabilities. By advocating for accessibility in the public health arena, we can strive towards a more equitable healthcare system that truly serves all members of society.
Before my internship, I never thought about incorporating this kind of work in my future career, but I am certainly more open to opportunities in the future to work with the disability community. I had a great experience as an intern, and I hope to carry on my new skills and knowledge in the future. With continued interest in Physical Therapy, I can certainly take what I have learned to ensure an accessible environment and space for the disability community.
The CACTI Blog features the voices of our interdisciplinary trainees and Community Advisory Council members as they highlight diverse images of people with disabilities and provide community information and advocacy on disability issues. Check Out The CACTI Blog