VCU 3/24/03 PROGRAM ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONE-STOP CENTERS Present: Teri Blankenship and Marian Vessels Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. *** >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Hi and welcome to the RRTC webcast on Program Accessibility for One-Stop Centers. I'm Teri Blankenship. Thank you for joining us today. Before we get started, there are a couple of items that I want to cover with you. First of all, today's webcast is open captioned. If you need this feature, just click on the open captioning link off of your webcast page. You can still leave your Realplayer open, if you would like. Secondly, today's webcast will be archived. We will e-mail you to the user name and password tomorrow so you can access it. And thirdly, for today's chatroom session, please submit your questions in the chatroom, but our presenter will stay on camera to answer them. So you will need to leave your Realplayer open. It is now my pleasure to introduce our presenter today, Marian Vessels. Marian is the director of the ADA and IT Information Center for the Mid-Atlantic Region. The center is one of 10 disability and business technical assistance centers funded by the National Institute on Disability, Rehabilitation and Research, and operated by TransCen, Inc. Marian is responsible for the daily operation of the center, as well as acting liaison with local coalitions. So I would now like to turn the program over to Marian. >> MARIAN VESSELS: Good afternoon. It's my pleasure to be here with you today to talk about Program Accessibility for One-Stop Centers, assuring access in the One-Stop environment. As you all are aware, access to the One-Stops is vital and it's required under WIA. But many people don't know exactly what that means, and how to apply it. So there's a couple things we want to go over with you. I know that you've dealt with many of these issues in the past, and for some of you this will be just review. For others of you, though, there may be some new faster features that we may be able to talk about today. The first thing we want to talk about is getting in the door. Facilities covered include those which have been newly constructed, expanded, or altered. You'll see on the screen that we've got symbols of different kinds of disabilities that you need to consider when you think about accessibility for people with disabilities. With a man with a cane indicating blindness, we have the wheelchair user, we have the sign language interpretation, representing people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and we've got those who need hard-of-hearing applications. All of those people need to be considered when we think about including people with disabilities in the One-Stop environment. Now, getting in the door means we need to think about leased, rented, or otherwise obtained, in whole or in part, with federal financial assistance provided under the WIA, which means that all One-Stops need to be fully accessible to people with disabilities because under WIA as well as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act you are required to provide programmatic access to people with disabilities. We'll talk about in greater detail. We want to look at physical access, communication access, and service delivery systems. So getting in the door, whether you own it, lease it, rent it, all of those require you to assure that there is access. One of the things we want to think about is, is the One-Stop accessible from public transportation? Many times we find that people forget that many of our clients and customers may not actually be driving to a One-Stop but they may be using the bus, they may be using a taxicab, or other types of systems to get to the One-Stop. So is there an accessible route? Which means is there a good, safe, usable path from the bus stop or trolley station or tramway to the front door of the One-Stop. Is it clear? Is it at least 36 inches wide? Does it have a smooth, clear surface? We want to think about parking. Most of our facilities will have parking. Is there access to and from the parking lot? Again, is it clear? Is it readily usable for people with a variety of disabilities? Not only wheelchair users but people with mobility impairments, people who may be using mobility devices such as canes or walkers. Can they get clearly and easily into the One-Stop front door? And is the entrance accessible to people with disabilities? Are you required to have an automatic door opener? The answer is: Maybe. You'll see that sometimes people with disabilities need to have a variety of features to make things accessible to them. You're now looking at van accessible wheelchair parking space. Technically the law calls it handicapped parking but most of us call it disability spaces or individuals with disabilities spaces. You'll notice that there is a sign above the space, and in this case there is a 8-foot-wide parking access area next to the wheelchair parking space. That allows somebody who has a van or a lift-equipped device that will be able to lower it and be able to go into the very side of the parking area, goes up towards the front where you can see it's ramped and connect easily to the walkway and into the front door. Even if you only have one accessible parking space, it must be van accessible, which means it has to have the 8-foot-wide area. This is commonly overlooked by many people. They will have very small places. They're not marked, they don't have an access aisle so it doesn't allow people effectively to get in and out of their vehicle, so you need to have at least one, and even if you only have two parking spaces, one must be a van accessible parking space. You want to make sure that the path to and from is not with a lip, as you can see with this poor individual who is getting ready to fall out of his wheelchair. It doesn't look like much. It's only about an inch-and-a-half lip but in a very heavy power chair, that could be enough to throw somebody completely out of their wheelchair. So even something that is an inch or inch-and-a-half can be a huge impediment to both people who are in power chairs or in wheelchairs, people who are walking with walkers or canes, people who are blind and who are using a cane to navigate with. A lip or a difference on the curb, a difference in the cement, a difference in structures where there may be an inch or even less, sometimes, can be very detrimental for physical access into your One-Stop. Signage is the cheapest and easiest thing that you can do to assure that people know how to get into your One-Stop. That it is fully accessible. As a can see, for this individual, he's looking at a set of stairs in front of him and without that very beautiful brass placard there that shows where the wheelchair access is, he would not know and it would be very difficult and challenging to do. So think about your One-Stop, would signage make a big difference. It is a cheap and easy solution. When we think about accessibility, one of the things we want you to consider is universal access. As you can see by this picture, easy access into a facility is not only good for people with disabilities, but for parents with baby strollers, and all kinds of other people who may have large packages or are carrying large items with them. It makes it easier for all of us to enter and exit a One-Stop. So this explains how a good accessible front entrance is beneficial to all your customers. I indicated that you may or may not have to have an automatic door opener. The law doesn't necessarily require that you have an automatic door opener. But under requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as Section 504, you do have an obligation for program access. Program access means that you must be able to easily get into the program and take advantage of that. If your door on the outside is extremely heavy, then someone may not be able to get in if they have arthritis, use a power chair or are quadriplegic. Somebody who has a mobility device, it makes it very difficult for them to open and navigate a door independently. If, according to the regulations, you have more than 5 pounds per square inch of pressure, which is -- essentially means if it's easy to open, it's probably okay. If it's hard to open, you may want to consider automatic door-opening devices. This example is one of a seeing-eye device where the door opens automatically as you enter the door. There are other devices that are much cheaper and you've seen them, I'm sure, where it has a strike plate right next to the door, with usually a wheelchair symbol on it and you hit the plate and the door opens. So it doesn't open automatically upon entrance, but you hit a plate. Almost all people with disabilities can hit that plate with an elbow, a shoulder, part of the wheelchair, with their cane, with their mobility device, et cetera. Those are much less expensive and have much less repair problems than the seeing-eye device, so you may have to consider using a mobility opening device, an automatic door opener, if indeed it is difficult to open your facility door. This shows how all of your door handles need to be these days. You should not have any doors within your facility that the public will use that need to grasp or twist. I.e., a standard round doorknob is no longer appropriate for people with disabilities. The test is, can you open the door with a closed fist or a flat hand? This example shows you flat-handed entrance which allows people to use a lot of different ways to be able to open that door. Again, it has to be easy to open. If you have door pressures that are very difficult to open, there is a cheap and easy solution to opening those doors, and that is, looking at your door adjuster at the top. There is usually a bolt or a nut at the very bottom of it, and you can see with this picture with a screwdriver you can loosen that bolt or nut, reducing the tension on the door and allowing it to open easier and to close slower, which will allow people with disabilities to be able to use the entrance easier. Once you get in the facility, you need to be able to get around the facility, and there's a lot of things that you need to consider when you look at navigating within your facility. Are the elevators accessible to people with disabilities? Are they on a clear and easy path? The hallways and the doorways, are they 36-inch clear hallways and are the doorways clear and free? Again, is there good and clear signage available? This is an example of good accessible signage. It has the room number, the name of the room, and it has it in two very different formats. Although it's hard to tell in this picture, the 230 and the classroom are in raised letters, which means that somebody who doesn't even know Braille -- excuse me -- could use this by running their fingers over it with raised lettering. They will be able to feel the 230. You will also below is Braille. That Braille allows somebody who is blind or visual impaired who knows Braille to be able to identify the room. The rest room designation is one you're very familiar with. It shows a male and female, and this is an example of a universal access. It shows that both the male and female may be using it. It doesn't show the wheelchair symbol, which is not required, but this happens to be an accessible bathroom. Many people say that they don't have room for a fully accessible bathroom; that they've got the men's and women's rooms and they don't really have a room for a good bathroom design with a 5 by 5-foot turning radius. A universal access bathroom, which allows for both men and women to use, can be a one-toilet facility, one-stall facility, and allows for people with disabilities to be able to use it if, indeed, you don't have full access in both the male and the female bathrooms. This, again, is a good example of good signage. The raised figures and the raised rest room sign indicates that for people with vision impairments but who aren't using Braille, what the room is and then it's got the Braille at the bottom. One of the most overlooked ways to make sure that our One-Stop is fully accessible, and welcoming to people with disabilities, is having a lowered greeting and reception area. As you can see, the receptionist is seated, and she's still able to make full facial contact with a woman who is in a wheelchair. This also makes the facility accessible to short-statured people or other folks who may not be tall or be able to see over a standard counter height. This is very, very important. Many people feel that if they are not able to be greeted properly or understand where they need to go, the One-Stop is not a welcoming and a wonderful place to visit. It just makes it fully, welcoming, accessible to all individuals, including individuals with disabilities. So think about your One-Stop. Do you have a lower counter where people are readily available and easy to operate for people with disabilities? We talked about access to the rest rooms. How can you make your restrooms accessible to all people with disabilities? You need to look at a variety of things, including stalls, sinks, and other functions like toilet paper, mirrors. How do you make sure that your bathroom is accessible? Well, one of the things you can see from this picture is good grab bars. Grab bars that are near the toilet and easy to use. Toilet paper dispenser that is easy to use but doesn't interfere with the use of the toilet. In this toilet stall, you'll see there's a 5-foot turning radius that allows for people with mobility devices and wheelchairs to be able to get in, be able to close the door behind them and to be able to navigate their wheelchair properly. Which means the door on the stall needs to open out. Many times we find people have beautifully designed bathrooms with the door opening in, which doesn't allow somebody with a wheelchair to be able to get in and close the door. So it kind of defeats the purpose. This is a great example of an accessible facility. When you think about sinks and paper towels and Kleenex, the sink is easy, it's low, it's accessible to people. It also has the pipes underneath the sink in case. That's important for people with lack of sensation who are using mobility devices who pull up underneath the sink and may not have sensation in their knees. If hot water is running through the hot pipes, it may burn their knees without them knowing it, so those pipes need to be concealed or wrapped. You can get very inexpensive wrapping from any of your local hardware stores and wrap and insulate those pipes so that they don't burn and cause problems. You'll notice that things are accessible from the counter so people don't have to reach above. You'll even notice that the mirror is dropped down and it's low and accessible so that people from a seated position can use the bathroom. One of the things we need to think about is auxiliary services, ancillary things like the telephones, water fountains, drinking fountains. Are those accessible to people with disabilities? Also, your information kiosk that you may have within the One-Stop or maybe at a mall that you're advertising your systems or are your computer systems fully accessible to people with disabilities? This is a great example of how a standard pay telephone can be made accessible to a person with a disability. It can be dropped lower so that it's 48 inches tall and accessible to all people so that people standing and seated, both, on people of short stature are able to use the telephone effectively and independently. The drinking fountain, you can see this is a high/low drinking fountain so you have a lower one accessible to someone using it from a wheelchair, as well as a taller one that's accessible to all individuals. These are inexpensive now and are readily available in the marketplace. These are two examples of wheelchair accessible computer stands. They are movable, as the one on the left, or stationary. They adjust to the needs of a person with a disability. You may find, actually, that it may be important for somebody if you have a very tall customer who might want to use something that's adjustable, or something very, very short who could use something that is adjustable as well. So these aren't designed just for people with disabilities. I can't tell you I've heard several stories of people with disabilities or people actually who are not people with disabilities but were short, and said, "I really would like to have used the accessible features of the disabled computer access stand and they wouldn't let me because I wasn't disabled." Think about them as being universally accessible to all different kinds of people with different needs. Disability is one of those needs but these are cheap and inexpensive ways to make sure that a computer stand is fully accessible to a lot of individuals. We need to worry about our communication access. We have to worry about services that we provide in the One-Stop such as having qualified interpreters, using a TTY or relay service, and assistive listening devices. Also, you may want to use things like captioning services. Most of you probably will have not used a captioning service to date, but it's becoming more and more common as you're seeing on our webcast today. Captioning services have also been used in large conferences and now again in smaller trainings as well. Captioning services can be assistive to people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing, people with learning disabilities or memory problems to be able to help them follow training. And they've gotten more and more inexpensive with more and more assistive devices that are using the computer and a captioning service. It's more like using a court reporting service used to be in days gone by. Alternative formats. I'm sure you're all familiar with being able to have materials available to people in large print, Braille, electronically and audio. Let's go over those a little bit. Large print. Almost all the information you're handing out at a One-Stop today was available, I'm sure, on computer disk. You have access to that computer disk or in a computer file, large-print is easy to do. Any word processing package will allow you to make the print 18-point font or larger. That's all you need to do for large print. It also can take a standard document, put it on even a low-bid state Xerox machine and make it accessible by blowing it up so that it's 18 points. Braille. A lot of people are overly concerned about Braille. Yes, Braille can be expensive, it can be difficult to do sometimes, but the reality is, you're not going to use Braille a lot. Only about 10% of people with visual impairments actually read Braille. Those that use it need it, and that's the format they prefer, and you should have it available. Which means you don't have to have everything in the One-Stop readily available in Braille, but you must know how to get it. Who is your resource? Do you have a contract with them? What is your process in place to make sure it's available? Again, you must know a process. You may not have to have it, but you have to know exactly when you can get it, how it will be done, and how you're going to get it to that customer. Electronic is becoming more and more the wave of the future, such as today. So having things available on CD, or on a floppy disk, is very helpful to people with disabilities. So, I mean, if you can put something on a CD and be able to give it to somebody, put something on a disk and be able to give it to somebody so they can go home and use it on their own computer system and make it all the accessible features that they may need and they may already have at home. Audiotapes are another great way to provide access to people who have blind or vision impairment problems. So think about having somebody on your staff. Tape your brochure onto an audiocassette tape that you can give to somebody. Again, it's a cheap and easy solution. TTYs. A lot of concerns have come up around TTYs. The law requires that you have access to people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing, for telecommunications as well as other types of issues in the One-Stop. TTYs are not expensive, but they're not helpful if they're kept in a box. Many times I've talked to One-Stops who have said, oh, yeah, we've got one over there in the corner in a box. TTYs should be out and available for staff to be able to call a deaf or hard-of-hearing customer who has a TTY number. It is a sign of respect to be able to use a TTY, to directly communicate with an individual with disabilities. The relay is available. It's a wonderful service and you should all know how to use that as well. All you have to do now is dial 711 and you'll reach your relay operator. Also consider using the TTY directly with a customer. The One-Stop is also required to have a TTY if they allow phone service for any other customer. Many of you use phones to allow the customer to be able to call for an appointment, call for an interview, things like that. So if you have that available to other customers, you must have it available for a deaf or hard-of-hearing consumer. You might want to consider, if you have a large deaf customer population to use or purchase a TTY pay telephone. As you can see, the TTY pops out from underneath the stand when the receiver is hung on the right-hand side, and that's allowing a deaf or hard-of-hearing consumer who uses a TTY to be able to use a pay phone just like everyone else. Many people are concerned about how they're going to provide services to folks with vision impairments. You can see this individual is using Braille. You can also have a staff person read information to an individual with blind or vision problems, to make that material accessible to them. Ask the customer what kind of help or assistance they may need and then try and find a way that can be done within the One-Stop. You must provide notice to the public. You must have a posted notice regarding the compliance with the law, the ADA and/or WIA, and who to contact if assistance is needed. This has been a requirement from the Americans with Disabilities Act since 1990, which said that you must post notice in any public building. A One-Stop is a public building, so you must have that under the requirements of ADA. WIA also requires it as well so people with disabilities know if they have a concern or problem who to contact. You must also think about ways to notify the public. You must notify the public in anything you put out to the public, which means that if you have any printed notice of a training that's coming up, if you've got a class that you're offering, you must tell people how to get information about whether they need an interpreter, is the room wheelchair accessible, if any other special devices or services they may need to allow them to participate in that. This is an ongoing obligation. You don't just do it once but every time you put out a notice to the public, you must put information about how people with disabilities will be able to participate and what kind of provisions they'll need to do it. You can't forget about your electronic information access. What kind of general information do you have on the WIA system? Is it accessible to people with disabilities? Do you have community information or resources at kiosks? Are they fully accessible to people with vision impairments, mobility impairments? How are people with disabilities going to be accessing that information? We want to make sure that things like our on-line career services and job banks are accessible. Is your website fully accessible to people with disabilities? Have you run checks on it such as Bobby or looked at Section 508 website requirements to make sure that people with disabilities have full access to the same services that everyone else does? Are your career development programs, resume preparation classes, et cetera, are they fully accessible to people with disabilities? We need to look at all ways that people access services and the computer is probably one of the best ways we do it. How can we make sure this is fully accessible to all people? Even your videos need to be considered when you're talking about doing training for people. Do you have a TV or monitor that has closed-caption availability? If the TV was purchased within the last six years and has a screen of over 15 inches or more, it has the ability to have closed captioning, which means either on the remote or on the back you can flip a switch and the closed captioning will appear. Which also means that you need to purchase videos that are closed and/or open captioned. If you have those videos but have an older system, you can buy a telecaptioning decoder device that will attach to every regular television, and allow those captions to come up. Captioning is a wonderful device. Not only for people with hearing impairments who can't hear the audio, but also for people who may have learning disabilities, who may have English as a second language, or are auditory learners and visual learners, so they can learn both listening and reading the words as well. So it's a good way for a lot of people to get information. Communicating with people with disabilities. One of the biggest things we hear from people is, their staff is concerned, they're afraid of offending somebody, so you need to talk to your staff. Talk to them about how to be comfortable interacting with people with disabilities. There's lots and lots of training resources available. You can get training from your centers for independent living, inviting the disability community to work with you on how to train your staff on being comfortable with people with disabilities. There is an on-line training service called "at your service" that was developed just for One-Stops to talk about physical access and interpersonal skills, about dealing with people with disabilities. It is important for people to practice and be comfortable so that they don't feel like they might make a mistake. One of the biggest things we see from people is they don't act directly with the individual with a disability. They may not make eye contact or they may talk to the person who is with them. The most important thing you can do is make contact directly with that individual with a disability, speak clearly and then ask for assistance if you're having difficulty dealing with the individual. Maybe through a speech impairment or other kinds of issues. There are lots and lots of resources available to assure that you are fully accessible for people with disabilities. The job accommodation network if you've not used it, is a wonderful resource that talks about accommodating people with disabilities. JAN is a service of the Department of Labor, and it has all kinds of wonderful resources on their website, and you can call them, 1-800-ADA-work, and they will walk you through accommodations both for a prospective employee, a prospective customer, and for someone on your own staff. There is also the National Center for Workforce which is on workforce and disability for the adults. It's a great new service that's available for One-Stops to make sure that you know all of the resources available for people with disabilities. There is a great manual. If you haven't seen it, you can go on-line. It's called "Access for All," a resource manual for meeting the needs of One-Stop customers with disabilities. It's put out by ICI and Boston hospital, and it is a very comprehensive manual that you can download or purchase, and it's got all kinds of physical access issues, training tips, resources, accessibility checklists, just about everything you needed to know about how to make a One-Stop accessible is available in that manual. You can also talk to VATS, the Virginia Assistive Technology System. VATS is located here in Virginia and it's got resources throughout the state to talk to you about assistive technology that you may need for a customer with a disability, or for your own staff. It's a great resource for you to have. Also, Cornell University has put up a website with wonderful resource fact sheets. The website is HRTIPS.org and it's got resources about how to accommodate people with spinal cord injuries, how to accommodate people with AIDS, people with cancer. There are great fact sheets and tips. There's also a great portion of their website that talks about resources for human resource managers. So I think it would be a really helpful and wonderful resource for you to use. If you still have questions after today, you can always call the ADA information center. You can reach us at 1-800-949-4232. That's voice and TTY. By e-mail at ADAinfo@transcen.org or on the internet. We're at www.ADAinfo.org. Well, that's the end of our formal presentation, so I will turn it back over and we'll see if any of you have any questions. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Thank you, Marian. Well, we hope that you enjoyed this webcast and that you'll join us in our chatroom. Just submit your question in the chatroom but please remember to keep your Realplayer open because Marian will be on camera to answer your questions. If for some reason you're not able to post your questions today on the chatroom, you can post them on the bulletin board and there's a link off the webcast page for the bulletin board. Well, thank you for participating and we'll be back in a moment to answer your questions. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Hi and welcome back. Marian, is there disability sensitivity training for staff? >> MARIAN VESSELS: There is a lot of disability sensitivity training. There is something being developed by the Consortium for Workforce Initiatives here in Virginia that you will be getting notice about. As I mentioned in the webcast, there is an on-line training service so that you don't even have to leave your office; that all of your staff and it's designed not just for managers but for all staff who can be made available to it. The website is listed on the resource list that you'll find on the website that will be sent to you and you were sent earlier. So you can go to that list and it will link you to the ADA information center's website. It takes about three hours to fully go through the training. It can be done in, you know, 5 or 10 minute segments but it's a wonderful resource that's free, easy to use, and about 1100 people around the country have used it to date and have very, very positive things to say about it. So that's a very cheap and easy solution. Another way is to contact your center for independent living. There are centers all over the state of Virginia, and they assist people with disabilities in being active participants in society and so if you haven't contacted them, they would be a wonderful player, a good way to get people with disabilities into the One-Stop. Asking them for assistance in training your staff and talking about specific disability issues is a great way to both involve the community of people with disabilities and get some good localized training. Talking to your division of rehab services is another great way to find out more about people with disabilities and resources. You can call our office as well and we can make sure that we link into a number of resources that are available. There are great fact sheets that are included on the resource list that is included here, such as the job accommodation network, such as the Cornell series, so there are great resources through Department of Labor. They have a lot of things. What used to be the president's committee on employment of people with disabilities and is now the office of disability employment programs, which is ODA for short have got lots of great fact sheets and tips, so there's a variety of ways that you can make your staff more accessible to people with disabilities and make them more comfortable. The most important thing is to make sure your staff is comfortable in talking to people with disabilities, and not being worried about saying, oh, I saw or did you hear or those kind of things. And once they get over that fear factor, usually people are very readily accepting of people with disabilities. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Okay. What sources of funding is available for implementation of change? >> MARIAN VESSELS: Funding is always a difficult thing. There is, if you're talking about physical change, there could be some community development block grants that may be available to you. If you have a nonprofit setting for your One-Stop. If you are leasing or renting your facility, there are tax credits and tax deductions available for the landlord. Knowing that you're part of government or a nonprofit but the landlord isn't. And the landlord can take advantage of a $15,000 a year architectural removal barrier deduction which means that the feds pick up $15,000. If the landlord is a small landlord or a small business, they're also eligible for a tax credit for removing architectural barriers and making things fully accessible, so those are some techniques for assuring that there is accessibility in One-Stops. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Okay. Thank you. What is the difference between the ADAAG and DOL's existing facilities checklist? >> MARIAN VESSELS: The ADAAG, which stands for the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act Accessible Guidelines, and the Department of Labor's existing facilities checklist are very similar. The Department of Labor's exec list has not actually been certified yet by the Department of Labor, so using the ADAAG is probably a good way to make sure that your One-Stop is fully accessible to people with disabilities. You can find checklists on the resource list that I provided for you. There is an existing facilities checklist that's put out by adaptive environments that is a very good, user-friendly existing facilities checklist that you can use. There is also one available in the access to all manual that I talked about from ICI in Boston. Both of them are very user-friendly. If you have a question or concern about whether your facility may be accessible or how to make one existing area accessible to people with disabilities, please feel free to give my office a call. We've got lots of great folks who know the ADAAG and know the requirements and can help you problem-solve in making sure your facility is fully accessible. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Okay. You mentioned the landlord. What if your landlord won't let you modify your building? >> MARIAN VESSELS: We that hear a lot. People say oh, well, you know, the landlord says I can't so I can't do it so I'm sorry I just can't make it fully accessible. Well, that's not good enough under WIA requirements and under the ADA as well. You must provide full program access to people with disabilities. And so that means you need to make sure that the physical access requirements are there. So you've got a couple of options. First of all, you need to remember that when you negotiate a lease, you need to talk about whose requirement it is to make sure existing facilities are fully accessible. Traditionally in leases, that is the responsibility of the landlord. You need to work out an agreement with the landlord, what their requirements are, and what you need to do. Which means you immediately to be familiar with the ADAAG or other accessibility requirements. Make sure that happens so that all of this is fully accessible to people with disabilities. If, indeed, the landlord balks or is hesitant to do so, you can remind them about the tax credits and/or tax deductions that are available. So for every business, the tax deduction is available, so that means that $15,000 worth of modifications are taken by the federal government in their tax, so they're not even paying for them. And deduction is every year. The bottom line is it is your responsibility to assure that there is full program access, and you need to work with the landlord to assure that happens, and the tax credits and tax deductions are one way to do that. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Okay. Thanks, Marian. How can a person convince employers to hire people with disabilities? >> MARIAN VESSELS: That's always a challenge because many times employers think it's very difficult or expensive to hire people with disabilities. And many One-Stops have said, well, you know, it's fine, we'll make our One-Stop accessible, but employers aren't going to hire people with disabilities. And statistics show us it to be the case. People with disabilities have the highest rate of unemployment in the country. It's estimated between 65 and 70% of people with disabilities who are ready and willing to work are unable to work. And that may be for a variety of reasons. That might be transportation, it might be lack of great training, it might be lack of the right types of jobs, but for many people, it may be attitude. Many employers feel it's very difficult or challenging to hire people with disabilities, and then they're worried that, oh, my gosh, if I hire somebody with a disability and it doesn't work out, I can't fair them. I couldn't possibly fire somebody with a disability. And that's really not the case. First of all, hiring somebody with a disability should be just like hiring anyone else. You find the best qualified candidate, which the One-Stops are there to do, to show people how to be the best-qualified candidate and to encourage employers about all the wonderful resources that are available to find good qualified candidates, including people with disabilities. Also, encouraging the employers that making accommodations are not expensive. The job accommodation is a great resource to talk about that. It talks about the fact that making accommodations for people with disabilities is very cheap. Less than 90% or less of all accommodations cost less than a thousand dollars. The amazing statistic is that accommodations for 50% cost nothing. It may be a modified schedule. It may be a modification in the way they're supervised. It may be rearranging furniture. So we know that disability modifications are cheap. We're talking about 90% costing less than a thousand dollars. That's not expensive. And employers may get a tax credit or tax deduction to do it. So we know they're not expensive, and we know we've got good qualified candidates out there, so part of it is just encouraging employers to look at qualifications, not the disability. And looking beyond the disability and finding what is truly available out there in the marketplace. There's a lot of really wonderful candidates out there that need to be given a chance. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Does a TTY have to be connected in a One-Stop so that a person who is deaf can call the center? >> MARIAN VESSELS: Ideally, yes. Either the person with a disability who has a hearing impairment needs to be able to reach the One-Stop, so they can use the relay, they can call 711 through their TTY, and the relay operator will do it, or ideally, your TTY should be connected. That's what I said before. So often I find that they're in the back corner in a box. They shouldn't be in a box. They should be taken out. Staff should know how to use a TTY. It's very easy. Once you connect, you don't even have to connect it permanently. Staff can be trained that if they hear the beep, beep, beep, or even a dead sound on the phone, to try it on the TTY and then be able to communicate. It really is a sign of respect to a person with a disability to use a TTY. That is their preferred mode of communication. That is what they're comfortable with. So you should be using that and it should be connected. Play with it. Get people comfortable with it. Do test calls. Use the relay to call someone else through the TTY. Be comfortable with the language. SKSK means that I'm finished, GA means go ahead. Very easy, very simple to learn. It's a matter of respect and a requirement to make sure that you're fully complying with the accessibility features, which means you're communicating directly with the individual. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Did you talk about where a person could purchase a TTY? >> MARIAN VESSELS: TTYs can be purchased from a variety of different companies. You can call our office and we can give you resources. You can call VATS. Even Sears carries them now. So TTYs are becoming more and more available to people with disabilities and to places like One-Stops. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Thanks, Marian. Is there an easy checklist for a person to use to review their facilities and their communication needs? >> MARIAN VESSELS: There is. There is, in that ICI manuel, Access for All. There are some checklists that will make you think about how you provide services. One of the biggest things we find for people, they say, well, it's too difficult to provide alternate formats or it's too expensive or I don't know how to do it. That's something you should plan ahead. Know who a Braille provider is. Know how you're going to do large print. Know how you're going to do an audiocassette tape. Know how you're going to provide these formats. Do you have disks available so that you can easily and on the spot make a disk or burn a CD for somebody to make it accessible to them? Have a plan in place. It is not good enough to say, "Gee, I don't know." That's not a good answer. It should be, "Oh, it will take us two weeks to get Braille. What can I do for you in the meantime? Can I read you these portions? I've got it on a CD. I've got it on a disk and I'll get you the Braille." Or "if you'll wait, I can get this transcribed into large print for me. I'll put it on my computer and I'll print it out for you. It will be five minutes." Or, "Gee, I don't have the audiotape available but within a week, I'll mail it on you." Tell people what time frame, what you need to do and using the communication checklists that are available through the ICI manual will help you be prepared so that you're not caught saying, "oh, I don't know," because "I don't know" is not a good enough answer. It should be "I know exactly what it is and I know how to do it and this is how long it will take to do it." So there are checklists available, there are ways that you can use available existing resources so that it's not expensive, that it's not cumbersome. Find out who a Braille provider is maybe in your community. Find out who a Braille provider is within a local area. If not, please feel free to call us and we can give you resources within the area. Braille can be expensive, but more and more people are using things other than Braille. They're using computer disks because many people can then print off their own Braille if they need it. Braille is becoming more cumbersome to more individuals because the computer has become more and more a manner for which they provide access. But if somebody doesn't request Braille, you do have an obligation to provide it. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Okay. You mentioned your resources page are there any other resources there that you'd like to highlight. >> MARIAN VESSELS: Oh, there's some great resources. Let me just talk to you briefly about them. ODEP, the Office of Disability Employment Policy that used to be part of the President's Committee that many of you are probably familiar with has a huge selection of fact sheets and resources that are available that can help you train staff, partners, employers on how to be more accessible to people with disabilities. JAN, the Job Accommodation Network, if you've never used it, you really should try it. It is a great resource. It is staffed by rehabilitation technologists, people with master's degrees in rehabilitation, who are truly experts in providing accommodations. They are there to answer all of your questions. So you should really use them. They're a wonderful resource. The employer can use them. People with disabilities can use them. The free telephone service as well as they've got a great website with all kinds of resources on it for you. The division of rehab services is part of the mandated partners through WIA and so many of you have partnerships already, but they're a great resource as well. VATs, the Virginia Assistive Technology project has got resources throughout the region, great technologists where you can actually go on-site and work with technology and work with the assistive devices that you might want in the One-Stop or at least can refer people with disabilities to make sure they have all the resources they need to be good employees. You might want to go to RRTC, the people who are hosting this. They've got a lot of wonderful resources on their website. One thing that we use constantly is the fact sheet that's got tax credits, tax deductions and WOTC: A resource for on-the-job training. The National Center on Workforce in Disability for the adult is a good resource, again, for people with disabilities in a One-Stop environment. HRTIPS, the one from Cornell University talks about not only great fact sheets for people with disabilities and how to make accommodations for them but is a great place for human resource managers. It has all kinds of technologically based as well as good practical common-sense, how does the SMLI -- FMLA, sorry, Family Medical Leave Act, apply to people with disabilities. How do you incorporate people with disabilities in an overall HR plan? What are things like medical leave? Questions about pre-employment physicals, things like that. One-Stop tool kit is a brand-new resource available through the Department of Labor's employment and training agency. It's designed recently to assist One-Stops with some of the more thorny issues that they have, and it's a great user-friendly website that you have available to you. ETA has also provided suggested guidelines on communication accessibility. Again, it talks about how to make documents accessible to people with disabilities. Communication tip sheets on how to communicate freely with people with disabilities. And that's developed by ETA for One-Stops. The access for all that I've been talking about is a great resource. You can download it. It's pretty long. It's about 300 pages. So if you don't want to download all of that, it's available for $30 in a big beautiful manual with all kinds of user friendly tabs. And also the existing facilities checklist is one that we use in our central constantly. It's very user-friendly. You don't have to be an architect, you don't have to be a professional. And it will not only tell you what the guidelines are, such as 36-inch clear hallways, 32-inch clear doorways but what does that mean. And if it's not, it gives you very user-friendly suggestions about how to make those accessible features. For a doorway that extends too far into the 32-inch clear, you can do something like a recessed hinge which lets the door frame sits back over the door so that it makes it wider so that it costs very little. You can go to the local hardware store and get T but it will give you those kind of tips to make it accessible without costing a lot. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Thank you. Do you have some suggestions if somebody wants to stay on the cutting edge and know what's going on right now and they want to know if there are listservs or e-newsletters? What do you recommend? >> MARIAN VESSELS: There are some e-newsletters. There are ones that come out from ICI in Boston. You can get onto that. That comes out twice a month. And you can go on to the National Center on Workforce in Disability website and get on that. The other is the tool kit, the website on the tool kit is also another great resource, and they don't have a listserv but they are constantly updating. And on a weekly basis, they have best practices, so they will highlight One-Stops, and what they're doing, from around the country. So you can benefit from those things that other people have learned and tips and strategies that they have learned. Some of the things that people are currently talking about are how to make the One-Stops more accessible to people with psychiatric disabilities and mental illness which continues to be a very challenging area and people are very concerned about hidden disabilities and now how to accommodate those. So those are resources that are available to you to be able to stay on the cutting edge and be able to provide good, top-quality services for people with disabilities. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: All right. Thanks, Marian. Did you want to add anything else today? >> MARIAN VESSELS: There are resources out there. You should not feel that you're all alone. There's lots of people who are happy and willing to assist you. You can call any of the number of places that I've listed on the resource, and you can always call the 1-800 number that we have at the ADA information center. We're happy to provide. We feel that One-Stops are one of our target audiences and so we're happy to provide that. I know in the future we will be providing training throughout the state of Virginia in making sure that people feel like they need some one-on-one training that we'll be getting people out there to do some more one-on-one training out in the One-Stops. So please feel free to call us. You know, we always say that the only question that is a bad question is the one you didn't ask. So we're out there to assist you, and we look forward to working with you as a partner. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Great. Could you give that 1-800 number again? >> MARIAN VESSELS: The number is 1-800-949-4232, or 4ADA. >> TERI BLANKENSHIP: Okay. Well, thank you, Marian. Well, again, we hope that you've enjoyed the webcast and that you've enjoyed the question-and-answer session. We will have the bulletin board open all week, if you want to post your question there, and Marian will be checking that throughout the week. So, again, thank you for participating, and we will be having upcoming webcasts. You can sign on at worksupport.com and get our e-newsletter. Thank you. Thank you, Marian. >> MARIAN VESSELS: Thank you, Teri. (Call ended at 2:00 p.m. CT)