'Easy wins' for all
Our Easy Access Audit is a simple document that anyone can use to help assess many areas of churches' physical, medical and social facilities. With thanks to Alice Kemp from the Bristol Diocese.
Enabling Actions
- Regularly during the notices invite feedback from anyone with comments or suggestions of what doesnt work well for you if you have some kind of impairment.
- Speak to people we know who may already have suggestions for challenges they have.
- Agree as a PCC that all those leading worship invite people to remain seated if they are more comfortable every time they invite the congregation to stand.
- Make multiple copies of the services in large print.
- Test hearing loop before each service.
- Plan Sides people/ Welcomer training to inc. to explore guidlines and resources. They are literally a Godsend in this ministry!
- Sides people to help people up/down steps as part of welcome.
- Sides people to remind each row that it is fine to remain in their pew to have Communion brought to them.
- Encourage each person who has limited mobility to sit somewhere that they can remain seated and still see, esp. during Eucharistic prayer.
- Improve signage to be Dementia Friendly - clear and without words.
- Re-print service sheets to include pictures which make it easier to follow when words muddle.
- Make a church Memory Box (& Fiddle Pinny) available to offer to anyone who may find it hard to sit through a service, or who is feeling disorientated through Dementia or memory loss.
- Offer people a time out space for those who cannot sit during a whole service.
A Questionnaire for PCC's and the ministry to consider
- Are there already disabled people or people on in your church who have an impairment of hearing/ sight/ movement/ learning/ memory? (Almost certainly, yes!)
- Have you asked them what their struggles and suggestions are? They are your best resource!
- What works well here? For Example:
- Aisle width good?
- Ramp (but needs improving)
- Availability of Sides people
- Roving Microphones
- Screen and books for services
- Large Print available (and offered?)
- Got any other ideas already?For Example
- Loop test
- Ramp improvements
- Ask people who we know who struggle for their suggestions
- Explore Handrails
- Explore/ review each ministry with Roof-Breaker lens
- Think about how we cater in an inclusive way
- Review 'childrens' space for accessibility
- Offer light-clips to those with visual impairment
- Review the role of Sides People throughout the service
- Are there people who used to come who now can't?
- Whats a good place to start?
- When and how will be review our progress and keep the community informed?