By Morgan Montalvo
WOAI News
YMCA employees from across the country are meeting at Morgan’s Wonderland for a two-day conference on increasing accessibility and inclusion for a fast-growing special needs community, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The gathering allows attendees to share solutions to mobility and related issues in an era of greater awareness of people with mobility-, sensory- and medical-related challenges.
“Twenty-five percent of our population identifies as having some kind of diversability,” says Sandy Morander, CEO of the YMCA of Greater San Antonio, “whether that’s hearing or sight or physical or intellectual. It is a growing need.”
Morander says the conference is the result of five years of discussion about improving the national YMCA’s infrastructure to better accommodate special-needs members. One long-standing concern among YMCA employees has been swimming pool accessibility for the physically challenged, who usually need the assistance of a lifeguard, friend or family member.
“There’s some really easy transfer stations that you can build on a pool deck that allow someone who’s capable to transfer to a rise and ease themselves into the water,” Morander says.
Sometimes, says Kids Included together CEO Torrie Dunlap, inclusion is a matter of visually interpreting one’s surroundings, and the fix can be a simple one, such as displaying pictographs rather than text.
“That doesn’t support either kids who don’t read yet, kids who are second-language learners, or kids who have disabilities or sensory needs that respond better to images,” says Dunlap.
Morander says with the YMCA celebrating its 175th anniversary, many of its oldest facilities will require major upgrades to incorporate solutions and “best practices” that emerge from the conference.
She says all service providers should consider now how best to accommodate the growing numbers of special-needs customers and clients, including America’s aging population, and veterans returning home with service-related impairments.
The conference runs through today.