Section 5. Recommendations on evaluating and documenting your accessibility plans
From: Employment and Social Development Canada
- Section 1. Introduction
- Section 2. Accessibility plans
- Section 3. Recommended first steps
- Section 4. Preparing your accessibility plans
- Section 5. Recommendations on evaluating and documenting your accessibility plans
- Section 6. Looking ahead: the reporting cycle and updating your accessibility plan
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Recommendations for evaluating your plan
Your organization is required to prepare and publish progress reports on the implementation of your accessibility plan. Since each organization has different resources, needs, and capabilities, the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) and the Accessible Canada Regulations (regulations) do not mandate a specific approach to implementing or evaluating your plan.
We recommend that you actively evaluate the success of your plan’s individual elements throughout the three years it will typically remain in effect before your required update. This could help you prepare both your progress reports and the updated versions of your plan.
The Evaluation in the Government of Canada hub includes many resources and recommendations for evaluating policies, programs, practices and services. While these tips and best practices have been compiled with federal organizations in mind, many of them may be useful to federally regulated private-sector entities as well.
Although success will look different for every organization, here are some recommendations and best practices for implementing and evaluating your accessibility plans:
- include specific actions in the plan that can be measured:
- example: install a properly graded ramp at the front entrance of the main office by [date]
- example: conduct an accessibility evaluation of the organization’s emergency exit procedures by [date]
- example: ensure that 75% of employees complete a training course on accessible communication by [date]
- avoid vague or aspirational statements, or things than can’t be measured:
- example: instead of saying that you plan to “improve accessibility” within your organization, specify which aspects you will improve and the concrete steps you will take
- example: instead of saying that you plan to “change attitudes” about disability and accessibility within your organization, specify which topics you will address and the concrete steps you will take
- be honest and thoughtful when assessing the implementation of your accessibility plan:
- you may find that specific actions in your plan are completed, some are in progress, or some are not yet undertaken
- you should provide similar levels of detail about actions at each stage listed above
- for actions still in progress or not yet begun, you should ask yourself:
- when this action will be completed
- what additional resources may be required to complete this action
- what has prevented this action from being undertaken or completed by the proposed deadline
- what steps can be taken to reduce or prevent obstacles to completing this action
Recommendations for record-keeping
We recommend that you keep clear records about the actions your organization has taken to identify, remove, and prevent barriers. This will help you develop your progress reports and update your accessibility plans. These records will also be beneficial during an inspection by the Accessibility Commissioner.
We strongly recommend that you keep clear, detailed records of your consultations with persons with disabilities in preparing your accessibility plans and progress reports. Such consultations are required by the ACA, and your records could help demonstrate that your plan accurately describes how the consultations were conducted.
Here are some specific things that we recommend you include in your records of the actions your organization has taken to identify, remove, and prevent barriers:
- with whom you consulted in preparing your accessibility plans and progress reports:
- keep a record especially of how you consulted persons with disabilities
- retain copies of comments or other information submitted through this consultation
- specific details of actions taken to identify, remove, and prevent barriers:
- record information on a regular basis to keep track of how barriers are identified, removed, or prevented
- document what the barriers were and what specific steps were taken to remove or prevent them
- note any future steps that will have to be taken to remove or prevent additional barriers
- any costs and resources required:
- keeping track of this will help your organization plan for future accessibility improvements and training
- who was responsible for identifying, removing, and preventing these barriers:
- you should identify the employees responsible for implementing and measuring accessibility improvements
- keeping track of this will help you plan for future accessibility improvements; it will also help build a team of people who can advise other employees about accessibility
- what you have been told:
- the ACA requires that you have a formal feedback process through which any persons who deal with your organization may submit feedback about the implementation of your accessibility plan and about any barriers they have encountered
- the ACA requires that you receive this feedback, keep a record of it, and acknowledge it (when it is not anonymous) in the same means by which it was received
- the ACA also requires that your progress report contain information concerning this feedback and how that feedback was taken into consideration
- you may also have contacted experts, disability organizations, or service providers to get advice about removing and preventing barriers
- keeping track of this will help you develop your progress reports, update your accessibility plans, and meaningfully take feedback into consideration
- note: if these records are available to the public, be sure to remove all names and personal information to ensure confidentiality
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