Issues of disability, accessibility, and inclusion are present in every kind of organization and community, though their impacts are often under-acknowledged, under-discussed and under-addressed. Those with visible and invisible disabilities regularly need to navigate systems that are not designed with their needs and concerns in mind. As a result, even systems that achieve some level of accessibility typically fail to promote full inclusion. Dialogue is one tool that may enable organizations and communities to surface the current experiences, concerns, and challenges around accessibility and inclusion, and help people learn together about those challenges and how to engage them. 
 
The aim of this project—homegrown by HNMCP in conjunction with student interest—is to develop guidance, resources, and tools for organizations and communities that are interested in driving dialogue around issues of accessibility. There is no direct client on this project. Instead, students will conduct an assessment that gathers perspectives from stakeholders such as experts, activists, researchers, practitioners, and others working in the disability space about:  1) the issues, experiences, and concerns that people with disabilities face in their workplace or community; and 2) design considerations to help organizations convene dialogues around these issues. The final deliverable will include a set of resources to help support dialogue, ideally made available for use by any individual or group that is interested in designing and facilitating dialogues relating to disability, accessibility and inclusion.  

  Students will:  

• Conduct interviews with experts, activists, and other stakeholders in the disability space, to identify issues of concern that arise in varied settings; 

• Research, and draw on, best practices for dialogue and their application to conversations about disability, accessibility and inclusion; 
• Design a set of dialogue resources (e.g., proposed session structures, topic areas, outreach materials, etc.) that reflect the assessment findings and secondary research and could be utilized by organizations and communities to create their own dialogues.