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• Â鶹´«Ã½ will use an integrated framework to enable collaborative work across the university to develop, monitor, and continually improve its accessibility plan.

• The framework will support work to identify, remove, and prevent barriers for persons with disabilities and to monitor progress to address legislated requirements.

• Â鶹´«Ã½ will continually strive for a barrier-free institution that demonstrates innovation in approaches to accessibility.  

• Â鶹´«Ã½ will strive to exceed the core requirements set out by provincial legislation. 

Efforts to develop a Â鶹´«Ã½ Accessibility Plan began in August 2019, building off an accessibility audit, and was followed by the development of the Â鶹´«Ã½ Accessibility Advisory Committee (DUAAC). Our decision-making teams were mostly comprised of members of the Â鶹´«Ã½ community who live with disability and leaders responsible for accessibility work.

Developing an Accessibility Plan for Â鶹´«Ã½ has been a collaborative effort, stewarded through project leads, the Accessibility Advisory Committee, and six working groups. The collaborators consulted and worked to ensure our plan addresses the six areas of focus through individual sub-plans that were submitted in July 2021. These sub-plans have been reviewed, analyzed, and integrated into a single cohesive roadmap of priorities/initiatives, expected outcomes, and anticipated timelines. This will be accompanied by an implementation plan with accountabilities identified across the university community.  

Critical to developing a comprehensive and inclusive Accessibility Plan was connecting with and listening to members of our community through a variety of initiatives.

• A series of cross-university consultations between October and December 2020, including focus groups and meetings with individuals and groups.  

• Working group cross-collaboration intended to ensure the integration of consultations and sub-plan content to avoid duplication and gaps.

• Intentionality around working group membership – each group includes members who have lived experiences with disabilities, as well as those who are responsible for providing service, education, or research regarding accessibility at the university. 

• Consultation with people with disabilities, and campus groups and committees representing people with disabilities.

• A comprehensive Employment Systems Review was conducted in 2021. 

• Consistent and regular communication across the Â鶹´«Ã½ community was critically important throughout the Plan development process and included:

• Dedicated web content on Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s public site (dal.ca), connecting to current resources and services for students, faculty, and staff.

• Regular communications updates to students, faculty, and staff.

• Feature stories and updates are shared through Dal News (link to Dal News) and Today@Dal. (internal/external audiences)

• Intentional connection with other projects taking place at Â鶹´«Ã½ that have significant overlap, for example, the employment systems review and development of Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s Employment Equity Plan (link to equity plan), 2022-2025. 

• A February/March 2021 accessibility survey was completed by 2,209 respondents (942 students, 346 faculty members, and 921 staff)

• The survey featured customized versions for students, staff and faculty, providing valuable data that was used both to improve and address current issues/gaps in accessibility services and inform Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s Accessibility Plan for 2022.

• A survey summary (dashboard) was developed and shared through multiple team and leadership meetings.