Family Transition Place acknowledges and promotes the rights of all persons with disabilities as enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. All persons, including those with disabilities, have the right to equal access and opportunity in employment, programs and services at Family Transition Place.
Family Transition Place will provide its programs and services in a way that respects the dignity and independence of people with disabilities. We are also committed to giving people with disabilities the same opportunity to work for our agency or access our programs and services and allowing them to benefit from the same services, in the same place and in a similar way as others.
Training
Family Transition Place will provide training to all employees and volunteers on the AODA and Human Rights code as it relates to people with disabilities. Training will be provided during the initial orientation process and at appropriate intervals on an ongoing basis after the commencement of duties or activities.
Assistive Devices
Persons with a disability will use and keep with them their own personal assistive devices when working for Family Transition Place or accessing programs and services offered by Family Transition Place.
Family Transition Place will maintain an inventory of basic assistive devices for staff and clients who are visually impaired or deaf, deafened or hard of hearing. Appropriate employees will be trained on the proper use of these personal assistive devices.
Communication
A variety of appropriate methods, tools and devices will be utilized to communicate effectively with persons with disabilities regarding Family Transition Place’s services and programs.
Examples will include, but not be limited to: accessible web site; TTY; telephone relay; email; social media; large print documents, translation or interpretation services, screen readers, plain language, audio / video, Braille.
If a person with a disability requests a document or information, Family Transition Place will provide, within a reasonable time frame, the document or information in a format that takes into account the person’s disability.
Service Animal
Service Animals will have access to all areas of the facility at 20 Bredin Parkway. Persons with a disability who are accompanied by a guide dog or other service animal will have access to the premises with the animal and will keep the animal with them at all times.
Support Persons
A Support Person is anyone that the person with a disability identifies as a support person i.e. family member, friend, paid attendant, Personal Support Worker, sighted guide or interpreter. Persons with a disability can be accompanied by a support person when accessing services at Family Transition Place.
Support Persons will comply with all policies, procedures, rules and regulations of Family Transition Place.
Employment
Family Transition place is committed to fair and accessible employment practises. During the recruiting, assessment and hiring process people with disabilities will be accommodated as possible. Individual accommodation and return-to-work plans will be developed and put in place for employees that have been absent due to a disability.
Disruption of Service
In the event of a planned or unexpected disruption in the services or programs, a notification will be circulated internally, posted on notice boards, at all public entrances and on Family Transition Place’s website. This notice will include information about the reason for the disruption, its anticipated duration, and a description of alternative facilities or services, if available.
Feedback and Complaints
Comments on our services regarding how well those expectations are being met are welcome and appreciated. Persons with disabilities will be encouraged to provide feedback regarding the way Family Transition Place provides programs and services. Feedback will be directed to the Program Managers and / or Executive Director. Individuals can expect a response to their comments within 5 business days.
Amendments Policies
Family Transition Place is committed to developing policies that respect and promote the dignity and independence of people with disabilities. Any Family Transition Place policy that does not respect and promote the dignity and independence of people with disabilities will be modified or removed.
Multi-year Accessibility Plan
For your reference, and as required by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (OADA), a pdf version of our Multi-year Accessibility Plan can be found below.
This Web Site
We have tried to design our website to make it as accessible as possible whilst remaining visually interesting and easy to use.
Currently, this website includes a variety of features which are summarised as follows:
Images and alt tags
We have avoided using excessive graphics within the website where possible in an effort to maximise quick download times and access to information which cannot be read if in image format.
Where images are used we have added ‘Alt’ tags – text alternatives so that you will still know what the image is meant to convey even if it doesn’t load or if you’ve have chosen to browse with the images switched off or you are using an assistive technology like a screen reader to browse the web page rather than view.
Resizable text
We have been careful to make sure that we haven’t fixed the size of the textual information on the website so that visitors who wish to can alter the font size on the screen to make it easier to read.
At the top of the page is a menu item where you can change the text size.
You can also change the text size in your browser.
Change Contrast (high contrast)
We have provided our web users with an option to change the colour contrast on each of our web pages. If you have limited or low vision, you may find this website feature useful.
This website’s change contrast option (located near the top and left of the browser window) provides a high contrast viewing option.
Colours and contrast
We have considered the needs of users who are colour-blind by selecting colour combinations with sufficient contrast between foreground and background.
Coding standards and Double-A conformance
This website is built using code compliant with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets. W3C is the governing authority on web development standards and practices.
The site displays correctly with current browsers, and using standard XHTML code means that any future browsers will also display this website correctly.
We are continuously improving this website to ensure that pages conform to the Double-A level of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
The Accessibility Guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Conformance to these Guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users.
There may be a few pages that do not conform to all the guidelines. While every effort is made to ensure the whole site conforms, with many web contributors, this is an ongoing process.
If you have any problem accessing this site, please write to us at admin@familytransitionplace.ca
***ed.note: We are indebted to other accessible web sites, including the London (UK) Borough of Hounslow (link) for their model of how to address accessibility.
