Set of Tactics
The following resources are examples of tactics you might use once you have completed the preceding worksheets, entitled “Capacity Worksheet” and “Implementation Toolkit”. These come primarily from the literature surrounding social change tactics1, and each has been grouped according to the following themes which describe the type of action:
- Relationship building:
This theme involves reaching out to relevant individuals and organizations in order to expand your network, gain additional resources, and build your collective power.
- Education and awareness:
Educating others and spreading awareness of accessibility issues is an important part of changing problematic policies, advocating for more resources, and shifting the dominant ableist culture.
- Mobilizing public support and getting on the agenda:
This theme involves gaining the support of the public in order to place pressure on key decision-makers who have the power to enact change. At the same time, engaging with the public can also help to shift away from widespread ableism in society at large.
- Policy change:
Many of the policies within institutions, healthcare settings, and the government are rooted in ableist beliefs and make it difficult for students with disabilities to succeed, so working to change them can lead to tangible, long-term improvements.
- Create a new tool or resource:
There are gaps in the tools and resources available for different actors in this space. Creating a new “thing” such as a guide, database, decision tree, or toolkit can help to address these shortcomings.
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING: with relevant individuals and organizations
- Coalition building:
- A coalition is a group of individuals and/or organizations working toward a common goal. Coalitions bring multiple professional and grassroots organizations together to expand available resources in order to achieve better results than would be possible for any single group alone (SOPHE, 2016).
- Coalition building resources:
- Support existing organizations:
- Sometimes, an organization may already be working on your issue, in which case you can choose to support their efforts.
- For some ideas, we have assembled a list of relevant organizations (hyperlink).
- Establishing relationships with key decision-makers and influencers:
- Establish contact and request participation/support
- Provide constructive feedback
- Attend public meetings
EDUCATION AND AWARENESS: for placements, decision-makers, influencers, and the public.
- Research:
- Conducting primary and secondary research are important parts of effecting change as they can shed light on different issues and provide information on interventions that have succeeded elsewhere.
- Primary research can be as straightforward as tracking who enters, completes, and withdraws from a given program.
- Research findings can then be communicated to different audiences using some of the methods and platforms outlined in this section.
- Conduct accessibility audits at placements:
- Accessibility audits are a way of assessing how accessible a workplace is for people with disabilities.
- By highlighting any shortcomings, placement sites can become more aware of the ways they can better meet disabled students’ needs.
- Accessibility audits can be completed through Abilities to Work.
- Offer educational or training sessions, webinars, teach-ins:
- Communicate information via:
- Posters
- Fact sheets
- Leaflets, pamphlets, books
- Newspapers, journals, online articles
- Radio and television
- Organizational and community newsletters
- Informational websites
- Presentations at public, institutional, organizational meetings
- Film-making and screening
- Re-circulate existing media coverage, such as:
- Disabled Doctors exist: Celebrating their contribution to medicine
- Social media campaigns:
- Social media campaigns involve communicating via platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. in order to reach large groups of people outside your direct network.
- Some ideas to consider:
- Show real people who are impacted e.g. portraits, quotes, stories from disabled students, disabled healthcare workers, and disabled patients.
- Make use of hashtags to facilitate discussion, gather more stories, and measure engagement.
- Resources on social media campaigns:
- Messaging, framing, and targeting information:
- With all of these forms of education and awareness, pay attention to how you are framing your message and whether or not it targets the appropriate audience.
- Some resources to help with this include:
MOBILIZING PUBLIC SUPPORT AND GETTING ON THE AGENDA:
- Plan a public meeting
- Start a petition
- Plan a social media campaign
- This tactic overlaps with Education and Awareness, where you can find additional resources and information.
- Develop symbols, flags, or symbolic colours for the public to display their support
- Organizes marches or parades
- For example, try collaborating with Toronto Disability Pride March.
- Organize protests, sit-ins, or student strikes
POLICY CHANGE:
- Information about the policy change process:
- Policy briefs:
- A policy brief is a concise, stand-alone document intended to inform/advise a non-academic audience about a policy issue that requires attention (Policy Scotland, 2021).
- “A strong policy brief distills research findings in plain language and draws clear links to policy initiatives” (IDRC, n.d.).
- The key elements of a policy brief include:
- An executive summary
- An introduction
- An overview of the research or problem
- An examination of the findings
- A conclusion that outlines the policy recommendations while linking them to the research
- Resources on how to write a policy brief:
- While policy briefs can be prepared as a stand-alone tactic, they are often most effective when combined with tactics from the previous sections. It is often a multi-step process that involves building relationships, mobilizing public support, and educating people about the issues with current policies as well as options to improve them.
- Relationship building:
- Networking with decision-makers is necessary to get your message across to those with the power to create change.
- Building relationships and/or coalitions with other organizations who support your policy aims can help to place greater pressure on decision-makers.
- Education and awareness:
- In order to change policy, it is first necessary to educate people on the issues with current policies as well as options to improve them.
- Both primary and secondary research can be important steps in gathering more information about the issues at hand as well as the negative effects of similar policies and the successes of alternative policies.
- Mobilizing public support:
- By educating the public and gaining their support, policy makers may be more likely to take the issue seriously.
- For resources on how to achieve these steps, please visit the previous sections.
- Relationship building:
CREATE A NEW TOOL OR RESOURCE:
- Guide
- For an example of a student guide to accessibility, please see: HYPERLINK
- Database
- Some options for creating databases include spreadsheet technology (e.g. Excel) and virtual document sharing (e.g. Google Docs)
- Decision tree
- Toolkit
- E.g. Call to Action #4, Action Area #3: Develop a repository of resources for professionals supporting placement access.