Disability Deep Dive

Welcome to the first episode of "Accessibility Outside the Box!" Today we talk about Travel and Vacationing.

We spoke to Olivia Shivas and Rebecca Dubber to learn more about this topic. They host a great podcast called What's Wrong With You? where they recorded an episode during a trip they took, recounting all the challenges they faced along the way. They shared with us what they learned about accessible travel and vacationing.

Links:

• What's Wrong With You? Podcast

We are happy to announce our new six-episode series we call, “Accessibility Outside the Box!”

Most of us are aware by now of what it means for something to be accessible: a ramp into a building for a person who uses a wheelchair, or a website that works for people who are blind and use screen reading software. This series is all about some aspects of accessibility you might not be aware of, but regardless often affect the daily activities of many people with disabilities. Without proper accessibility in place, lots of folks are left out of things like buying fashionable clothes, playing video games, going to concerts, taking a trip, or even participating in a research study.

Each week we’ll speak with an expert that can help us understand these issues. The first full episode drops on May 5th!

We'll be back in April with new episodes. But until then we're releasing encore presentations of several early episodes that matter just as much today as they did when they were originally recorded.

This month, we bring you our 14th episode, Accessibility in Florida Prisons. This episode was originally released on November 21, 2017, when Disability Rights Florida was suing the Florida Department of Corrections over an enforcement of a settlement agreement signed in summer of that year. That settlement agreement was intended to ensure that individuals with disabilities in prisons were having their rights vindicated under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but over the years, we learned that many of these provisions were not being enforced, which led to the lawsuit.

Since that time, the two parties have settled with stronger language and oversight, but the struggle for the rights of individuals with disabilities in prisons continues. The prison population not only has a larger proportion of individuals with disabilities than the general population, but, in Florida especially, it is rapidly aging, making the ADA in prisons more important than ever in this State. As we continue our work in this area, please enjoy this encore episode of You First.

Links

• Original Presentation of Episode 14: Accessibility in Florida Prisons
• News Room: Disability Rights Florida Settles Landmark Lawsuit Against Florida Department of Corrections for Systemic Violations of Disability Laws
• News Room: Disability Rights Florida Sues Florida Department of Corrections for Breach of Settlement Agreement Protecting Incarcerated People with Physical Disabilities
• News Room: Disability Rights Florida Reaches Settlement with Florida Department of Corrections Requiring Systemic Reforms to Treatment of Incarcerated People with Disabilities

We'll be back in April with new episodes. But until then we're releasing encore presentations of several early episodes that matter just as much today as they did when they were originally recorded. This month we bring you "The Right to Recovery." This episode was originally released on February 21, 2017. Since then, we've done two more episodes on related topics: episode 10 on Peer Support and episode 29 on Clubhouses. Links to those are below, but for now please enjoy this encore episode of You First.

Links

• Original Presentation of Episode 7: The Right to Recovery
• Episode 10: Peer Support
• Episode 29: Creating Community with Clubhouses

We'll be back with new episodes in April, so until then we'll be releasing encore presentations of several early episodes that still ring true today.

This month, we present our fifth episode, titled Supported Decision-Making. This episode was originally published on December 15, 2016, and supported decision-making, or SDM for short, is now going strong in Florida and many other parts of the US. Our guest for this episode, Michael Lincoln-McCreight, is currently the co-chair of the SDM4FL Coalition (and you can hear more from him in Episode 24: SDM4FL in 2021).

As always, more work needs to be done to make SDM the preferred option in Florida over more restrictive options such as guardianship. Michael and others are currently working to formalize SDM into Florida law, so please enjoy this encore episode of You First.

Links

• Original Presentation of Episode 5: Supported Decision-Making
• Episode 24: SDM4FL: Supported Decision-Making in 2021
• SDM4FL Coalition Website
• Disability Rights Florida Supported Decision-Making Disability Topic

In this episode, Jordan Kuveke-Guyton, a Veteran's Affairs Accredited Attorney with Chad Barr Law, and Ann Siegel, the Legal Director at Disability Rights Florida, discuss options available to veterans with disabilities, many of which you might not be aware of. Not only are there benefits and discounts veterans can qualify for, but there are a number of services and rights protections that can provide veterans with a successful transition to civilian life.

Links:

• ProtectingVets.com
• Find Your State's P&A

In this episode of You First, we talk to Angela Muir Van Etten. Angela just published her third book, Always an Advocate, which is full of both practical advocacy advice and many interesting stories. There will always be a need for advocates and, Always an Advocate offers hope for those who are skeptical about changing the discriminatory treatment of people with disabilities.

Links:

• Angela's books on Amazon.com
• Angela's website and blog

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. In this episode of the You First podcast, we wanted to bring some awareness to a group right here in Florida that created some amazing resources to help people with disabilities find and keep quality employment.

To talk much more about that are my guests: Danielle McGill, the founder of Empower Possibilities and a disability consultant, advocate, and public speaker; and Wendy Vance, an Advocate-Investigator at Disability Rights Florida.

Resources:

• A copy of the white paper will be posted soon on the Employment First Florida website.
• The presentation, Looking Beyond the Pandemic: Ways to Facilitate Growth and Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities Seeking or Retaining Employment, will be posted soon on the Florida Center for Inclusive Communities website.

In Episode 23 of the You First podcast, we talked about the representation of people with disabilities in the media, how that has evolved over the years, improving in some ways, but more often still faltering with poor and inaccurate portrayals of people with disabilities in popular media. A great point that was brought up was one of the best ways to combat these issues was for people with disabilities to create their own content, to control the narrative, and help to create platforms where their stories, in their words, can be shared.

My guests today, Elizabeth Wright and Jennifer Price, are doing just that!

Elizabeth is a writer, activist, keynote and TEDx speaker, and an Australian Paralympic Medalist. She is also the founder and editor of Conscious Being Magazine, a publication for disabled women by disabled women, and the editor of Disability Review Magazine.

Jennifer is a special education and disability rights attorney, and author of EmpowerEd: Using Real Case Examples to Look Deeper into IEP Management. She is also the founder and CEO of Disability News Report, a TV streaming service that features content created by and for people with disabilities.

When you hear the word "clubhouse," what do you think of? For somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million people with mental illness, they think of a clubhouse as a place to gather regularly to reduce isolation, gain important skills and resources, and is an integral part of recovery.

My three guests today will tell us more. They are Debra Webb, Executive Director of the Key Clubhouse of South Florida; Amy McClellan, President of the Board of Directors of the Key Clubhouse; and Alexander Lasa, a long-time member of the Key Clubhouse.

Resources:

• Key Clubhouse of South Florida
• Clubhouse International