Issue 68: June 2011 - Youth Work Ireland

Irish Wheelchair AssociationBest Practice Guidelines:Designing Accessible EnvironmentsHave you ever wondered if the building currently inuse for youth services in your area is wheelchairaccessible?Has a young person with a disability everapproached your service, but has been unable toparticipate due to an inaccessible building?Do you need advice as to how to make simplechanges to your building to make it moreaccessible?About the Best Practice Access Guidelines:The IWA Access Guidelines recognises and respondsto societal changes. People with disabilities lead fullyindependent lives, and rightfully expect to be able toparticipate in all aspects of society. Young peoplewith physical disabilities may wish to join their localyouth service, but may have been unable to do so inthe past because of an inaccessible building orfacility.Do you need information about building anaccessible facility?Have you been looking for a document that couldanswer some basic questions about accessibility?The Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA) hasproduced a set of access guidelines to providesimple easy to use pointers that will supportorganisations large and small to improve the level ofaccess to their buildings.A major obstacle to social inclusion and communityparticipation facing young people today is access tothe built environment. If a young person who uses awheelchair or any other mobility aid noticed thattheir local youth service building was wheelchairaccessible or had a ramp outside, this may give themthe confidence necessary to approach that serviceand explore what the service could offer them. Frompast experience, IWA knows that this could result inlife changing experiences for young people withdisabilities, opening the door to a wide range of newopportunites.The IWA Youth Service works with various agenciesto develop participation opportunities for youngpeople with physical disabilities and the accessguidelines can assist youth workers to make theirfacility or building accessible and inclusive to allyoung people.The IWA Access Guidelines are used to inform andinfluence plans for the development of new facilitiesor for the upgrading of existing buildings. Byfollowing these guidelines, youth services can buildfacilities which meet the highest possible standardsand ensure that basic access requirements areincorporated.Daragh Kennedy, IWA’s National Youth DevelopmentOfficer, encourages all youth workers who areconsidering rennovating or making changes to thebuilding from which their service is provided, todownload a copy of the IWA Access Guidelines fromwww.iwa.ie. Speaking about the importance ofimproving access to youth service buildings he said:“The Access Guidleines can be used to inform andsupport youth workers on a number of access issueswhich may be restricting a young person with adisability from participating in their local youthIrish Youth Work Scene 14 Issue 68, June 2011