As the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act approaches on July 26, it’s worth taking a look at how that law, and the efforts of disability advocates, have expanded the roles people of all abilities are able to play in society.
From the simple idea of making buildings, jobs, and even summer camps physically accessible for all, has come the idea of universal design – a principle that prioritizes access for everyone.
Pat Prior Sorrells is president and CEO of Camp for All in Burton, Texas. Jamie Weiner is director of operations and disability services at Alexander JFS in Houston. Weiner says the ADA is a baseline for assessing inclusion for all. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Pat, tell us about Camp for All.
Pat Prior Sorrells: Camp for All is an amazing, beautiful, wonderful place outside of Burton, Texas. And it is for children and adults with challenging illnesses, special needs and disabilities. And it’s where they come to have their lives transformed and discover life.
What are some of the things you do to focus on inclusion for your campers?
Sorrells: Our camp is built from the ground up to be barrier-free.
Our architect got together with potential camps back in 1993 and said, “if we could meet all the needs of the people you serve, what would you need? What would you need in the bathrooms? What would need everywhere to make this a barrier-free place?” And then it was designed.
And then he got back together with them and said “will this work?” And they said, “well, the cabins need to be closer together so people can get to the activities easier with any kind of challenge.”
And it’s built on a 900-foot radius so they can get everywhere easily. Our sidewalks are eight-feet wide and concrete, even on our nature trail, because everybody needs to be able to access that. Two friends in wheelchairs can roll side-by-side.
All of our bathrooms are accessible. Not one stall, all of them. All of our showers are accessible and wide enough for two people to be in there if you need somebody to help you. And all of our food services – our record is 63 different special-needs diets for three meals a day for a week.
So this is barrier-free. There are no stairs. All of activities can be accomplished by anyone. We can get anybody out of a wheelchair, up a climbing wall and down a zip line to fly free for the first time. And it’s just people leave with knowing that they’re valued and they have skills and they’re not alone.
That sounds wonderful. Now, Jamie, inclusion is about more than the physical environment. Tell us what it means for both the people with disabilities and others when inclusion is a priority.
Jamie Paul Weiner: Sure. First of all, I’d like to say I’ve been to Camp For All myself, and it is a beautiful, magical place, and I just love it. It’s amazing.
And Camp For All was based on the premise of that universal design, and universal design is about designing places, not just physical places, but how you are included in that is open to all. So regardless if you have a disability or not, or if you don’t have a disability now but may have one in the future, it is inclusive for all.
Why put stairs when everybody can use a ramp? It’s that kind of thinking of how we design our spaces, how we design our education system, how our employment systems, to make sure that we are being open to everyone. And trying to remove all of those barriers, not just physical, but otherwise.
So Celebration Company is a program of Alexander JFS. It’s a supportive and transitional employment program. It helps people who have intellectual disabilities continue to work on their skills that they have worked on in the school system and help them in their vocational, life skills, social skills, advocacy skills.
Work on those skills in a safe environment while getting paid so that they are earning their paycheck, showing them the value, how much they bring to the community and society and letting them to experience the pleasure of earning a paycheck and being able to spend it how they want, and getting them out into the world and into the workforce so that the employers can see hiring somebody with a disability is not scary, is not overwhelming, and for them to see their value in that employment field.
In recent years, we’ve seen more people with disabilities on television and in films. Talk to us about the importance of those perspectives in the arts.
Weiner: Having representation is important to everybody. So having somebody who looks like you, sounds like you, has a similar vibe as you up on that screen, you know, seeing their art up on wall is just really important to show that they are, again, a part of the society – that they have contributions to make and that their voice matters.
Are there inclusive design or barrier-free design principles you would like to see applied more often? I’m thinking of community spaces, places where people with and without disabilities go.
Sorrells: This beauty of camp is I’d love to see the all-accessible bathrooms – not just one. You know, the doors, everything that could be… So many of these things could be easily done. And I think we just need to keep an open mind.
And what Jamie said about realizing what people can do, that’s what Camp for All does and in an environment where everything’s built so that it’s built for everybody to be able to access things. Then, all of a sudden, the playing field is is evened and you don’t have to do something special for Joe who works in your office because Joe has the same access to everything else ,just like you do.
So it’s not dividing people. It is bringing people together.
The ADA and other laws address employment for people with disabilities, including reasonable accommodations in the workplace, hiring and firing practices, and more. How have employment prospects changed since ADA, and do more people have the tools they need to get hired and then stay employed?
Weiner: Well, I see the ADA as the baseline. That is the bare minimum what we need to be doing. And it’s a great starting point.
But certainly there is more that we can do and there’s more that should be doing. Allowing for more flexible work environments – not everybody can work four, six, eight hours a day and in person.
Perhaps being able to allow for more of flexible scheduling. Allowing for somebody to come with a somebody to help them or a job coach if they need some extra time or assistance and just allowing for that flexibility to it’ll increase your production.
It may look different from the way of doing it you know in years past but it is the future of where I think our jobs are going employment is going.
The Trump administration’s effort to end DEI – sometimes with an “A,” meaning “accessibility,” added on – well, that effort has a lot of people with disabilities concerned. Do you share those concerns about how policies or funding might be changing?
Weiner: Sure. As we like to say, disability does not discriminate. Anyone at any time can acquire a disability and so making sure that those roads to access are available, that the funding is there, is available to support people because you never know what tomorrow may bring.
So it may not be your situation today, but it could be your situation tomorrow. And so it’s really important to protect what’s in place now and continue to grow it and not take it away.
With the recent floods in Central Texas and the impact on those campers attending summer camp along the river, how have you been thinking about disaster preparedness, especially for people who may have physical or cognitive barriers when it comes to getting out of a dangerous situation?
Sorrells: Well, it was, first of all, a terrible tragedy, and a friend of mine lost her granddaughter. And so I know how sad it is and still can’t believe it.
We are, as a camp, we are already reviewing all of our evacuation and all of our emergency procedures and making sure that we’re OK. We’re not in a flood zone, I’m happy to say.
But basically, I think it’s just so much of what we’re doing when we talk about our evacuation is what everybody, every camp should take into consideration. And that is, even in our building, we’ve had people in wheelchairs working for us here in Houston, and they are foremost in any kind of fire situation. Their name is listed, the firemen know to come to them first, and we have evacuation processes in place.
That will make sure that our campers are safe and can get out where they need to go, evacuate or whatever, and that they’ll have the facilities to go to and the way to escape from camp if need be.
And so yeah, we are really focusing on that more than ever. Even though we’re accredited by the American Camp Association, we feel like that our campers really, really, they come first. So we’re gonna do whatever we can to make sure everybody is safe.
