A.O.D.A. Customer Service Regulations

I did some looking around on the Government of Ontario website to look more closely at the customer service standards for accessibility.  this is what I found:

http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/about/videos/transcripts/accessible_ontario_webcast_2.aspx

 

" Let me give you a for instance to illustrate this one. Imagine you are organizing a meeting in a small board room. You’ve invited twelve of your customers but it’s a tight fit with little room between the chairs and walls.
The first customer to arrive uses a walker, the next uses a cane. After they are seated, you become concerned that others entering the room may trip on the assistive devices, possibly injuring themselves or damaging the walker or cane.
You say, "I'm just going to take your walker and cane and put them over in the corner, so they won't break if someone steps on them."
While your concern is well meaning, this practice is not consistent with the principles of independence, dignity, integration and equality of opportunity, because the participants might not be able to choose to leave the meeting, change their seats, stand to make a point, without asking you to return their assistive devices.
There are other examples and more information about the principles of independence, dignity, integration and equality of opportunity available to help you understand this requirement in the on-line Manual I mentioned earlier that you can find under the tools to help you comply section at ontario.ca/accesson ."

I may have to send this to the front of house manager at the Avon Theatre so that he can review it.  This issue has come up for us a few times in the last couple of years during trips to Stratford.

 

Doing Things Differently

When you have children with special needs you quickly discover that going places is not as straight forward for your family as it might be for your friends.  In our case we have to check for latex safety.  We can't always make everything safe but we do our best to be prepared by giving the boys profilactic allergy medication, always having epipens and benadryl as well as a latex safe blood pressure cuff in case (heaven forbid) something should go wrong.  Next, we have to determine who will need a wheelchair.  Every day is different when it comes to what the boys are physically able to do.  If we need wheelchairs, then we need to determine if the powerchairs are the best choice or can we get away with transport chairs.  If both boys need powerchairs then we need to book mobility at least 48 hours ahead.  We also need to determine how accessible our destination is.  At this point we haven't even gotten out the door and I'm already tired. 

It can get overwhelming but when it works everyone wins.  This week we went to the Royal Ontario Museum.  We turned the outing into a mini vacation by booking a night at the Holiday Inn.  This meant that the boys could rest after travelling so that the next day they were better able to cope with the rigors of a whole day out and about.  We had tickets for the Terracotta Warriors exhibit at 10:00 and then spent the rest of the day exploring other galleries.  We had never before managed more than a few hours at ROM!

The one surprise was the Mc Donald's on Bloor Street near the museum.  Although the restaurant itself was accessible and latex safe (I'll deal with latex and restaurants in a seperate post another day) the washrooms were not accessible.  Thankfully the boys were able to manage.

At the end of the day, we were all tired but had a wonderful trip and learned a lot about a period of history that we were as familiar with.