Accessible Maine - A Collaborative Curriculum Promoting Community InclusionLynn Gitlow, Director of Occupational Therapy, Husson College, USA Kathy Flecky, Husson Faculty, Husson College, USA David Webster, Executive Director, VSA Arts, USA Denis Pratt, Architect / Accessibility Specialist, Alpha One In 2000, to solve some of the volunteer recruitment problems that limited several organizations ability to complete access reviews of cultural venues in Maine, Accessible Maine, a collaborative initiative between VSA Arts of Maine, Alpha One (Maine's Independent Living Center), the Maine MS Society, and Husson College was formed. Occupational Therapy (OT) students from Husson College are trained by members of the partnership and people with disabilities from the community at large to conduct accessibility surveys at cultural sites around the state, providing the participating sites with reports containing information and suggestions for making their facilities more accessible to all visitors. The reports, with site approval, are posted on VSA Arts of Massachusetts' web site www.accessexpressed.net. To date thirty listings are posted on the website and a total of more than forty site reviews have been completed. The OT students who are participating in the VSA Arts project are enrolled in three service learning courses (OT 160, OT 260 and OT 261) during their freshman and sophomore years of the OT curriculum. By participating in the project they are meeting occupational therapy academic course objectives while also meeting a community need. Course goals include investigating how the social and physical environment interacts to promote or interfere with community accessibility and beginning to understand how to use assessments to evaluate individual and environmental components effecting community participation. These three courses are lay the foundation for understanding the construction of disability for occupational therapy students and the courses are taken before the students enter into the professional phase of their five year program. For the past five years at Husson College OT students collaborate with Accessible Maine staff to learn how to complete Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) access assessments of art, cultural and recreational venues. The students are trained by artists with disabilities, Alpha One and VSA arts staff regarding the importance and techniques of making arts and recreational venues accessible to all people. Students also have assigned readings that relate to these topics and all students are required to keep reflective journals. They are also provided with materials to facilitate their planning, scheduling and carrying out the ADA access assessments. One product of the course work and access reviews are an online and printed catalogue providing access information regarding arts and recreational venues to people with disabilities and their families and friends. Another project integrates student research and experiential learning into a workshop on low cost adaptations that is presented to community art, cultural and recreational venue staff. In this presentation, the courses, course outcomes, course evaluation and journal themes related to course outcomes from four years of students and educators participating in the Accessible Maine will be presented. Our research over the past years indicates that these service learning courses are teaching OT students to be cognizant of the physical and social factors that can interfere with or promote community inclusion, and that changes in the way they think about making their communities accessible are occurring. Once we present our findings, we hope to engage in a dialogue of how to expand these courses to a broader student base. We anticipate that a dialogue with an international community will provide us with input to make our curriculum materials pertinent to interdisciplinary students in post secondary educational programs. |