New Captioned Video Gives Practical Advocacy Tips for Members of a Municipality’s Accessibility Advisory Committee and Members of a School Board’s Special Education Advisory Committee

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities

www.aodaalliance.org aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance

 

New Captioned Video Gives Practical Advocacy Tips for Members of a Municipality’s Accessibility Advisory Committee and Members of a School Board’s Special Education Advisory Committee

 

July 4, 2023

 

SUMMARY

 

Are you a member of an Ontario municipality’s Accessibility Advisory Committee or an Ontario school board’s Special Education Advisory Committee? Are you a member of some other public or private organization’s advisory body on disability issues, such as the Toronto Transit Commission’s Accessible Transit Advisory Committee? Here is a new video that can be very helpful for you!

 

The AODA Alliance today unveils a new 55-minute captioned video. In it, AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky provides practical tips for members of a municipal Accessibility Advisory Committee or a school board’s Special Education Advisory Committee. These tips are equally helpful for members of other organizations’ disability advisory bodies. You can find this video online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdBCrEtZJAk

 

It is wonderful that members of the public generously volunteer their time to serve on these disability advisory bodies. By volunteering their time, they want to advance the important cause of making our society fully accessible to and inclusive of people with disabilities. Some find it challenging and even frustrating when they try to make a real difference on these committees. This video can help.

 

We want these advisory committees to have the most positive impact. This video aims to equip them to most effectively advance the cause of full accessibility and full inclusion for people with disabilities. The video’s practical tips draw on the AODA Alliance’s many years of experience carrying out community advocacy on these issues. Our tips draw on feedback we have obtained from our supporters over the years and from our many contacts with disability advisory committees and councils.

 

Please encourage others to watch it. If you are a member of a municipal Accessibility Advisory Committee, a school board’s Special Education Advisory Committee or some other disability advisory body, tell other members of your committee to watch it too!

 

This is just the latest addition in the AODA Alliance’s large and growing collection of online videos on disability, accessibility and advocacy. To date, our online videos have collectively gotten over 100,000 views! More videos are coming! You can find them all on the AODA Alliance website’s videos page.

 

Below we give you a table of contents to the major topics in this video, with time stamps. You can use our pinpoint links to jump to whatever topic you want, or just watch it all from the beginning to the end.

 

We welcome your feedback on this video. Write us at aodafeedback@gmail.com

 

Table of Contents for the AODA Alliance Video Giving Practical Tips to Members of Municipal Accessibility Advisory Committees and School Boards’ Special Education Advisory Committees

 

  1. 00:00 Introduction
  2. 00:23 David Lepofsky’s Background
  3. 03:39 Why these Advisory Committees?
  4. 05:29 Your Most Important Power: Make Recommendations
  5. 14:49 Human Rights Duties of Municipalities and School Boards to People with Disabilities
  6. 19:10 Topics on Which You can Give Advice and Make Recommendations
  7. 26:21 Practical Tips
  8. 52:01 Conclusion

 

Links to Key Background Resources Mentioned in this Video

 

This video encourages you to check out the following helpful additional resources:

 

 

  • Video: AODA 101: Introduction to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act

 

 

  • Video: Roadmap to a Barrier-Free School system for Students with Disabilities – Overview of the Findings and Recommendations in the January 2022 Final Report of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee

 

  • All the AODA Alliance’s advocacy efforts can be found in the AODA Alliance website, our open filing cabinet!