Contact: Matt Harris
Iowa Arts Council Administrator
515.281.4641
Matthew.Harris@iowa.gov

Accessibility & Outreach Program

Resources

Basic Accessibility Information

Americans with Disabilities Act homepage
ADA Standards homepage
ADA Standards for Accessible Design
Accessibility Planning Guide: A Step-by-step Approach
Communicating, Working With & Writing About People With Disabilities
Disability Access Symbols
Disability Etiquette: Equal Treatment, Not Special Treatment
Making Your Arts Activity Accessible
Seeing with Sound

Outreach Models

Outreach to artists and audiences with disabilities
Arts and the Disabled, Dr. Timothy Schmidt, Spring 2009

Outreach to offenders and prison populations
Outreach through Dance

Outreach through the arts in healthcare
More Than Words: A Tactile and Audible Poetry Experience, December 1, Des Moines
Music for Seniors
Building Audience Capacity for the Arts in Iowa
Disability Awareness Through the Arts
Please Touch the Art
Art as a Bridge between People
Cultivating the Art of Creativity in Belmond
NEA: Outdoor Arts Festivals Have Major Economic and Cultural Impact
Accessible Art at the Iowa Department for the Blind
More Than Words II: ISU Poetry Students Explore Blindness Through Art Adventures in Social Drama

Accessibility Links

Accessibility for the internet

Accessibility at IBM.com
This free service will allow you to test web pages and help expose and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines, such as Section 508 and the W3C's WCAG.

Online teaching and accessible web-page design
An accessible web design process ensures that a site is usable by students whether or not they have disabilities. For example, hearing impaired students can learn from a narrated video if it includes captions or if a transcript of the narration is provided. Either of these accommodations can help reinforce learning concepts not just for the hearing impaired, but for all students.

Understanding accessibility
Understanding accessibility requires an awareness of the special needs of multiple user groups, including people with disabilities and mature users with age-related disabilities. A person with a disability may encounter one or more barriers that can be eliminated or minimized by the software or Web developer, the assistive technology, or the underlying operating system software and hardware platform. The four main categories of disabilities are visual, hearing, mobility, and cognitive.

WebABLE! Solutions Seminars and Workshops
WebABLE! Solutions conducts on-site training seminars and accessibility workshops for the World Wide Web, emerging technology and usability/accessibility design.

Web Accessibility Initiative
WAI, in coordination with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development

Web Accessibility Tips: Font Size and Contrast
Information from the Iowa Department for the Blind about how to change settings on your web browser if you have trouble reading web pages because of the colors, type of text, or text size on the page.

Web Browsing (Easy)
http://www-06.ibm.com/jp/accessibility/raku2web/jp/start_en.html
Easy Web Browsing is software that helps people who have some types of vision impairments to access Web sites more comfortably.

ADA planning guides and checklists

Design for Accessibility: A Cultural Administrator's Handbook
Designed to help organizations not only comply with Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, but also assist in making access an integral part of planning, mission, programs, outreach, meetings, budget and staffing.
Complete guide in printable format (pdf)

Accessibility Planning and Resource Guide for Cultural Administrators
An online companion to the printed text Design for Accessibility: A Cultural Administrator’s Handbook (2003). The Guide provides guidance to cultural administrators on how to achieve accessible and inclusive programming for everyone including individuals with disabilities and older adults.
Complete guide in printable format (pdf)

Facilities Checklist
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public accommodations to provide goods and services to people with disabilities on an equal basis with the rest of the general public. This checklist will help you identify accessibility problems and solutions in existing facilities in order to meet your obligations under the ADA.

The Accessible Museum: Model Programs of Accessibility for Disabled and Older People
By the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Association of Museums, 1993. Profiles a wide variety of museums, including art, natural history, and historic museums that have exemplary accessibility programs. Hard copy only—see website for details.

Tip sheet from the NEA for revised September 2010 regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act
This tip sheet clarifies and amends the requirements for ticketing, mobility devices, service animals, and new construction.

Arts and accessibility

Arts Midwest Accessibility Center
A comprehensive set of tools, links, and upcoming opportunities related to accessibility in arts organizations.

The Non-Traditional Casting Project (NTCP)
The Non-Traditional Casting Project (NTCP) is a nonprofit advocacy organization established in 1986 to address and seek solutions to the problems of racism and exclusion in theater, film and television.

State and Regional Arts Agency Accessibility Coordinators List
State Arts Agency and Regional Arts Organization accessibility contact information. (Formerly known as 504/ADA Coordinators.)

VSA arts of Iowa
Formerly Very Special Arts, VSA arts of Iowa is a nonprofit organization that provides educational arts opportunities by, with and for people with disabilities and at risk. Founded over 20 years ago by Jean Kennedy Smith as an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, VSA arts affiliate programs now exist as nonprofit organizations across the country. VSA arts of Iowa exists to connect Iowans of all abilities through arts experiences and education.

Assistive Solutions (more than the internet)

Blazie Engineering/Freedom Scientific
Helping to change your world through technology.

DO-IT/University of Washington
Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking & Technology.

National Center for Accessible Media/WGBH
A research and development facility dedicated to the issues of media and information technology for people with disabilities in their homes, schools, workplaces, and communities.

National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS)
Through a national network of cooperating libraries, NLS administers a free library program of braille and audio materials circulated to eligible borrowers in the United States by postage-free mail.

Resources For Your Hearing Impaired Child
Information on hearing aids, communication, education, government pages, organizations, websites, and more.

Funders

Community Development Block Grants
National Endowment for the Arts (www.nea.gov) Report on federal funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for removal of barriers in both public and private cultural facilities and programs.

Accessible Media Resource List
Organizations that can assist in the production and funding of media projects, federal agencies that relate to such projects and resources to aid in closed- and open-captioning and audio description. The listed resources are only a few of the many resources that work to assist accessibile media. This list was compiled by the Office for AccessAbility at the National Endowment for the Arts. Phone: (202) 682-5532; Fax: (202) 682-5715; TTY: (202) 682-5496. Updated September 2009.

Health

Artists' Health Insurance Resource Center
Information about individual and small business group health insurance options available in each state. A project of the Actors' Fund.

Resources For Your Hearing Impaired Child
Information on hearing aids, communication, education, government pages, organizations, websites, and more.

Legal and legislative information regarding the ADA

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The full text of the ADA statute as well as links to ADA-related resources online.

New ADA Regulations, 2010
New revised ADA regulations that will impact theaters, museums, parks, performing and arts centers.

Service & resource organizations & sites

Iowa

Deaf Action Center
The Deaf Action Center has been serving Deaf Iowans since 1988 and is Iowa's most experienced private agency provider of Sign Language Interpreters for community, educational, employment, medical, social and business settings.

infoNet
a free publication of ID Action (Iowans with Disabilities in Action) and Iowa's Developmental Disabilities Council. infoNET is a newsletter and website produced by ID Action (Iowans with Disabilities in Action) in partnership with Iowa's Developmental Disabilities Council. infoNET was created to give advocates with disabilities living in Iowa the information, tools, resources, and opportunities to take action on the issues important to them.

Iowa Able Foundation
Iowa Able offers an alternative financial solution by providing loans with flexible terms to help individuals increase their independence at home, at work, and in the community. This statewide, nonprofit program will loan funds for any item, piece of equipment or product that is used to improve an individual’s quality of life.

Iowa COMPASS
Iowa's free, statewide information and referral service for people with disabilities, their families, service providers, and other members of the community. Iowa COMPASS maintains information on over 6,000 local, state, and national agencies and programs.

Iowa Division of Persons with Disabilities
This state agency is located within the Iowa Department of Human Rights. Its 24-member commission is appointed by the Governor to equalize opportunities for full participation in employment and other areas of the state's economic, educational, social and political life for Iowans with disabilities.

Iowa Governor’s Developmental Disabilities Council
This Council identifies, develops and promotes public policy and support practices through capacity building, advocacy, and systems change activities.

Iowa Protection & Advocacy Services, Inc.
Protects the human and legal rights of people with physical disabilities and mental illness in Iowa.

Iowa School for the Deaf
Iowa School for the Deaf serves students across Iowa and Nebraska who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, including those with multiple disabilities, preschool through age 21, in compliance with state and federal regulations and laws.

Iowa's University Center for Excellence on Disabilities
Promotes the independence, productivity, and community inclusion of individuals with developmental disabilities through a broad range of training, service, technical assistance, and information sharing activities.

Regional

Arts Midwest Accessibility Center
A comprehensive set of tools, links, and upcoming opportunities related to accessibility in arts organizations.

Trace Research and Development Center
The Trace Research & Development Center is a part of the College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Founded in 1971, Trace has been a pioneer in the field of technology and disability.

National

Children with Disabilities Resource List
Organizations that assist families and children with disabilities find the resources and support available to them in the arts and elsewhere.

Gallaudet Research Institute
At Gallaudet University, deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing students and scholars join together in a unique community to learn, to teach, and to create. Full access and open communication drive the Gallaudet University vision.

Independent Living Centers
Independent Living Centers are typically non-residential, private, nonprofit, consumer-controlled, community-based organizations providing services and advocacy by and for persons with all types of disabilities. A good place to make sure you're doing your building designs and renovations right the first time.

Institute for Human Centered Design
A nonprofit organization, IHCD was founded in 1978 to address the environmental issues that confront people with disabilities and older Americans.

ADA Compliance and Technical Assistance State Resource Directories
Compiled by the National Arts and Disability Center (http://nadc.ucla.edu), directories include listings of organizations and agencies that provide technical assistance regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Arts in each state.

National Arts and Disability Center
A resource, information and training center dedicated to promoting the full inclusion of persons with disabilities into the visual, performing, literary, and media arts communities.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Office for AccessAbility
An invaluable list of accessibility resources, checklists, programming ideas, promotional and media resources, and more. This site has it all!