Making Services More Accessible to Kids and Teens with Disabilities
Leah Langby
June 22, 2020
Keeping Up With Kids

It is ALWAYS time to be thinking about how to make our environments and our services accessible and welcoming to kids and teens who have disabilities.  This is something I find that I can always use a reminder of, even though I’ve been trying to think about it for many years, I still haven’t completely integrated into the way I do business.

I want to put in a plug for a new resource someone shared with me.  It was designed for classroom teachers, but it includes practical ideas that may be of use to you in the library about how to make your services more inclusive of people with any one of the 13 disabilities that are covered by IDEA (developed to ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to education).  Many of the tips about how to arrange rooms and instruction would be useful for librarians to consider when setting up programs and spaces.

Also, remember to check out the Project ENABLE resource–a self-guided course to help you think about these issues in a much more comprehensive fashion.

 

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