Access Consulting meets Community Consulting

by Jenna Cohen

Jenna works as a Senior Associate at Loop Architecture, Melbourne and has recently started access and community consulting through Honeycomb Access & Design (www.honeycombaccess.com.au). Jenna is also a member of the Victorian Access Committee under the Australian Institute of Architects. Contact: jenna@honeycombaccess.com.au

In my past life, I was the co-founder of Flying Fox, an organisation that provides social experiences for young people with disability. Through that experience, I worked alongside and developed friendships with hundreds of young people with diverse backgrounds, interests, abilities and diagnoses. Over the last 15 years I have developed a passion for combating the exclusionary practices of society and to do as much as I can to promote inclusion.

A few months ago, I went shopping with a friend for some new bathers. This friend has high support needs; she is blind, non-verbal and uses a wheelchair. Together we picked out a few different bathers to try, but when we reached the change rooms there were no accessible spaces where my friend, her wheelchair and I could fit to try on the bathers. This problem is easily avoidable. By having one accessible change room, my friend and I would have been treated as equal, valuable members of society who are entitled to shop for a quality pair of bathers, just like anyone else.

Every day I see my friends being excluded from full participation in all that society has to offer because our built environment is just not accessible enough for those members of our community with disability. I have a passion for creating an accessible world for people with disability. I have seen the impact of an inaccessible world on my friends, and I have seen the impact of small tweaks to our built environment on the lives and wellbeing of so many.

Accessibility is the interaction between the built environment and the community. Access Consultants have a responsibility to work on behalf of the community to ensure that the built environment is designed with the community in mind. This can only be achieved if Access Consultants know the community, are a part of the community, and work with the community.

Furthermore, Access Consulting is often transactional. We write reports and performance solutions, ticking boxes to ensure that compliance is covered. These transactions cannot be effective without understanding the user, and the only way to understand the user is to listen. To do this, we need to engage the community at every step of the way to inclusion. We need to seek feedback and input, and wherever possible, to empower people with disability to guide and lead the process themselves.

The process of community consultation is empowering for everyone involved. To sit and have a coffee with an individual with disability and to hold the space for them to share their views on the big questions of life; where they want to live, who they want to live with, and what they want to have on their bookshelves. The empowerment is palpable. By providing an individual with the space to express their needs and wishes for their life gives them choice, an experience many of whom engage in for the first time in their lives when we do our jobs properly.

I recently interviewed a very independent guy about his Specialist Disability Housing (SDA) requirements. He knew what he wanted and he knew what he hated about his current living arrangements. He expressed his frustration at not being ‘allowed’ to have his girlfriend visit. He expressed his frustration at not being allowed to go to the kitchen to get a snack whenever he wanted to. He expressed his frustration at not living with the simple freedoms that everyone deserves. I have not been able to shake the outrage that I felt at hearing of the boundaries placed on someone with disability for no reason other than no-one had held the space for this individual to express his wishes. When individuals aren’t given choice, their lack of freedom constitutes a human rights infringement.

By simply hearing stories of freedom, and lack thereof, I am better equipped with the knowledge to design and construct a built environment that considers the rights, needs and personalities of the individual. We have an opportunity and a privilege as Access Consultants to change the conversation and to hold the space for our community members who will be the users of the designs we co-create.

Why does all of this matter? Have a read of this feedback I received from a parent of a recent participant in a community consultation project:

“Thanks for reaching out to Jeremy*. It is heart-warming to know that his voice can be heard on this topic. Conversations that extend beyond the basic human needs are important for inclusion and the person’s total outlook. Jeremy has no motivations other than to be loved and feel safe.”

*name has been changed for privacy reasons.