{"id":190,"date":"2025-07-28T12:25:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T16:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/advancingculturalaccessibilitypractices\/?post_type=chapter&p=190"},"modified":"2025-09-04T14:05:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T18:05:58","slug":"introduction-to-the-project-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/advancingculturalaccessibilitypractices\/chapter\/introduction-to-the-project-2\/","title":{"raw":"Introduction to the Project","rendered":"Introduction to the Project"},"content":{"raw":"

Access Activations Project Description<\/h1>\r\nThis course is part of the Access Activations project, a research project that aims to catalyze justice-based transformation in the Toronto arts and culture sector by designing disability-led access plans that mobilize cultural accessibility practices and are rooted in crip wisdom, disability justice, and critical access and decolonial approaches that are unique to particular cultural organizations. This initiative combines institutional ethnography with participatory action research to engage directly with cultural organizations and the lived experiences of disabled, Deaf, mad, and neurodivergent people.\r\n\r\nWe will work with 12 students from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and two community members who identify as disabled, Deaf, mad, or neurodivergent. These students will be trained as \u201caccess activators\u201d and will collaborate with four cultural organizations in Toronto to co-create access texts and access plans. The project will unfold in three key phases:\r\n
\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. Assessment of Existing Accessibility Practices: We are working with each organization to understand how they currently understand, communicate about (through writing), and practice access. We are doing this by analyzing their access texts (e.g., access statements) and workplace documents (e.g., employee handbooks), interviewing staff, holding focus groups with community stakeholders, and sending out surveys to their broader networks. We will synthesize these findings in access reports that will summarize the organization as a whole, how they understand and practice access, and recommendations for improving access. These access reports will be given to students at the beginning of their training to inform the development of the access plans they create.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Access Activator Training: Over 12 weeks, students will collaborate with course instructors, cultural accessibility leaders, and each other to bolster their practice-based knowledge in critical access approaches and cultural accessibility practices grounded in disability justice and decolonial frameworks. These workshops will emphasize the connection between how organizations write about access in \u201caccess texts\u201d and how they practice access. Access activators will apply these skills in partnership with a Toronto arts organization to create an access plan, including re-written access texts, cultural accessibility practices, and an implementation plan, informed by an access report that details the organization's current practices and areas for transformation.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Evaluation of Impact: We will assess the effectiveness of these access texts and plans by exploring their impact on the ways disabled, Deaf, mad, and neurodivergent people interact with and experience the cultural organizations. We will do these by conducting another set of interviews and focus groups, and sending out another round of surveys in order to assess whether or how the plans encourage real, justice-based change in the organizational structures and practices. This final assessment will focus on how the development and implementation of these access plans inspire cultural organizations to engage in broader systemic changes that address issues of justice, equity, and intersectional access.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Access Activations project is committed to reimagining access within cultural institutions, focusing on transformative justice that goes beyond inclusion to address the deeper systemic issues that affect disabled, Deaf, mad, and neurodivergent people. Through this work, we seek to challenge and reshape the arts and culture sector in Toronto to create meaningful, lasting change.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLink to document: Access Activations Project Description<\/a>","rendered":"

    Access Activations Project Description<\/h1>\n

    This course is part of the Access Activations project, a research project that aims to catalyze justice-based transformation in the Toronto arts and culture sector by designing disability-led access plans that mobilize cultural accessibility practices and are rooted in crip wisdom, disability justice, and critical access and decolonial approaches that are unique to particular cultural organizations. This initiative combines institutional ethnography with participatory action research to engage directly with cultural organizations and the lived experiences of disabled, Deaf, mad, and neurodivergent people.<\/p>\n

    We will work with 12 students from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and two community members who identify as disabled, Deaf, mad, or neurodivergent. These students will be trained as \u201caccess activators\u201d and will collaborate with four cultural organizations in Toronto to co-create access texts and access plans. The project will unfold in three key phases:<\/p>\n

    \n
      \n
    1. Assessment of Existing Accessibility Practices: We are working with each organization to understand how they currently understand, communicate about (through writing), and practice access. We are doing this by analyzing their access texts (e.g., access statements) and workplace documents (e.g., employee handbooks), interviewing staff, holding focus groups with community stakeholders, and sending out surveys to their broader networks. We will synthesize these findings in access reports that will summarize the organization as a whole, how they understand and practice access, and recommendations for improving access. These access reports will be given to students at the beginning of their training to inform the development of the access plans they create.<\/li>\n
    2. Access Activator Training: Over 12 weeks, students will collaborate with course instructors, cultural accessibility leaders, and each other to bolster their practice-based knowledge in critical access approaches and cultural accessibility practices grounded in disability justice and decolonial frameworks. These workshops will emphasize the connection between how organizations write about access in \u201caccess texts\u201d and how they practice access. Access activators will apply these skills in partnership with a Toronto arts organization to create an access plan, including re-written access texts, cultural accessibility practices, and an implementation plan, informed by an access report that details the organization’s current practices and areas for transformation.<\/li>\n
    3. Evaluation of Impact: We will assess the effectiveness of these access texts and plans by exploring their impact on the ways disabled, Deaf, mad, and neurodivergent people interact with and experience the cultural organizations. We will do these by conducting another set of interviews and focus groups, and sending out another round of surveys in order to assess whether or how the plans encourage real, justice-based change in the organizational structures and practices. This final assessment will focus on how the development and implementation of these access plans inspire cultural organizations to engage in broader systemic changes that address issues of justice, equity, and intersectional access.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

       <\/p>\n

      The Access Activations project is committed to reimagining access within cultural institutions, focusing on transformative justice that goes beyond inclusion to address the deeper systemic issues that affect disabled, Deaf, mad, and neurodivergent people. Through this work, we seek to challenge and reshape the arts and culture sector in Toronto to create meaningful, lasting change.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

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