A guide for young people on disabled people's rights when accessing transport
Public Authority
Equality Commission for NI (ECNI)
Who helped us
Cedar Foundation
Barnardo's - 6th Sense
Clic Sargent
Mencap
Face Inclusion Matters
Compass Advocacy Network
What we wanted
The Disability Discrimination Act was amended at the beginning of 2010 to remove the exemption of the provision and use of transport vehicles from the service provisions of the Act. This will mean that transport providers such as: taxis, buses, coaches, trains, breakdown recovery and rental vehicles providers will have to ensure that their policies, practices and procedures do not prevent disabled people from accessing services. They will also be under a duty to provide auxiliary aids and services. Apart from breakdown and rental vehicles, there will be no obligation to remove physical barriers.
The Equality Commission have consulted on a Code of Practice, and have drafted a range of short guides for transport providers and disabled people. They then set out to produce a guide for young people.
How we did it
The Equality Projects Team Manager and Equality Officer from the Commission met directly with approximately 50 young people with disabilities aged 12 – 21 years.
The young people were in their own environment and the discussion was facilitated by their support worker.
The young people were shown some existing publications produced by the Commission and asked what would make them more accessible and available to young people.
What they said
The young people had a range of suggestions on accessibility and availability which included:
- Social networking sites, short DVD, publication with raised pictures or symbols via use of Board Maker, audio in libraries, materials that are short and snappy, provided in local tourism centres, laminated wallet size, magazine style publications, included in welcome packs in colleges and available in job centres.
An internal working group within the Commission was established in June 2010 to consider the input from the young people. An external working group(s) will be established made up of young people to determine how their ideas and inputs will be taken forward. The external working groups are currently being developed. The groups will be short term and tasked focused taking forward each area that is possible within the Commissions resources.
It is hopeful that the guide will be produced by October 2010 and presented to Commissioners and Senior Management Team.
As well as learning from young people on how to make information accessible and informative to them the Commission was able to provide details of their role and function and how this relates to young people.
This process is ongoing and the case study will be updated as the project progresses.