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Libraries serve as a primary destination for many families with children and remain an essential hub for accessing valuable resources, information, and social connection across the lifetime. With approximately 26% of Americans living with a disability, and over 300,000 individuals with disabilities residing in the Greater Rochester area alone, there exists a significant opportunity to ensure that the valuable services offered by our libraries are accessible to people with intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities. In this session, we will take a close look at what the concept of “inclusion” looks and feels like and explore strategies to use a lens of inclusion to transform our libraries into inclusive places of destination and employment for people with disabilities.

Learning Objectives
– Participants will understand inclusion as a process rather than a checked off box.
– Participants will learn how to reframe language so that it is used to promote an inclusive and empowering environment.
– Participants will understand a model of Functional Ability to help reframe disability in a way that can result in the removal of barriers to participation by patrons/employees with disabilities.
– Participants will learn at least three tangible strategies they can implement at their library that can result in enhanced participation by patrons with disabilities.

Presenter: Anita O’Brien, Executive Director, Rochester Accessible Adventures. Anita O’Brien, M.A., is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist with 27 years of experience working with individuals with disabilities, and helped found Rochester Accessible Adventures. Anita serves as a member of the Community Advisory Committee at the University of Rochester’s Center of Excellence for People with Disabilities, and the DEC/APA Accessibility Advisory Committee. She is a longtime member of Genesee Valley Parks and Recreation Society, New York State Recreation & Parks Society, and New York State Therapeutic Recreation Association. Anita has lived in Rochester since 2000, working to bring opportunities in sports and recreation to individuals and families with disabilities and medical conditions. She is passionate about building relationships within the community which serve to connect people with resources, remove systemic barriers to recreation and sports, and build communities that embrace inclusion. And she loves spending time reading, hiking and camping with her family and blue-eyed husky hound, Alice.

Free to RRLC & ESLN Members. This webinar will be held on Zoom Webinar; registration is required.

All attendees will receive a certificate of attendance for 1 hour of CE credit. This webinar will be recorded. All registrants will receive a copy of the recording within 1 month of the webinar.

We are committed to offering inclusive, diverse, and equitable services to all of our members. To request specific accommodations, please contact RRLC at least five business days ahead of the program you’d like accommodations for.

RRLC Registration & Program Attendance Policies

If you have any questions, please contact Tina Broomfield.

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