The City of Kingston informed us we will receive the Celebrating Accessibility Award at a virtual ceremony this year. We will receive the award for developing virtual inclusive arts programming best practices in response to the pandemic.
Our main goal was to maintain stability and access to programming for 50+ H’artists and their families during the unprecedented event. Our secondary goal was to evaluate what we were doing so we could share what we learned. We are thrilled community artists today have a facilitator’s guide with best online practices.
We would like to recognize two Occupational Therapy students from the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queen’s University, Sabrina Leonard and Katy Palaic, for their role in this project. The two studied responses from a staff survey and reached out to H’art artists, caregivers, community artists, and volunteers to learn about their experiences in order to find out what we are doing well and what challenges remained. They conducted research into existing best practices, looked at what other organizations were attempting, observed our Zoom workshops, and led segments of workshops to get a feel for the online experience and software.
The City created this award in 2011 to recognize a person, group, or organization that has made or is making a significant contribution beyond legislated requirements towards improving access for persons with disabilities in Kingston. The Municipal Accessibility Advisory Committee selected this year’s award winners from nominations.
Previous Awards
MixAbilities Inclusive Arts Training program (2018)
THE BOX, inclusive performing arts space (2012)
Previous Nominations
Able Artist partnership with Queen’s Cultural Studies Program and Queen’s Film and Media and Cultural Studies Program, Dramaturgies in Translation (2017)
For information on the Celebrating Accessibility Awards, please click here.
Watch social media for the virtual ceremony date announcement.
