Accessibility in Ogden

SHANE OSGUTHORPE
Welcome out to the Ogden Wire, and, man, we are joined this week with Caren Werner. Caren Werner is the Community Relations Manager at Visit Ogden. She's also the Weber County Film Commissioner. She wears many hats in our community. One of her big initiatives that she's been working on over the last several years, actually, is accessibility in Weber County, and we want to get into what that means and what what Weber County is doing, what Ogden City is doing, and what it means as we lead up to the Paralympics, and what kind of impact that could have on the accessibility scene in our county. We're joined by Taylor Hartman as well. He's got a bunch of great questions lined up for Caren to kind of get us going. So, Taylor, let's throw to you, and let's just jump right in with this.

TAYLOR HARTMAN
Sweet, well, thanks for coming on.

CAREN WERNER
You're welcome.

TAYLOR
This is going to be great. So, and we work closely with you on a lot of accessibility initiatives in the office, and it's just amazing to have somebody at Visit Ogden that works on those. We do both trainings and we do development right to help our partners and our community members be ready for those who have accessible needs, accessible needs. So, my first question to you is, what, what is Visit Ogden's role in that? Like, what makes it special about a tourism agency to be an advocate for disabilities?

CAREN
Our role, we're not obviously regulators or code enforcement people, but we want to be the catalyst, we want to be the the organization that moves the needle in a very positive direction, because not only does this affect our visitors that come to our community, but also our local residents who also have all kinds of different accessibility needs, and so it's about making sure every visitor and our residents have the opportunity to experience what's going on in our outdoors and within our community.

TAYLOR
Absolutely, and when it comes to being a tourism bureau, you know, we're looking at those attractions, at accommodations, restaurants, you know, places like that. Places where tourists visit, are there like unique hurdles or obstacles when people are traveling, you know? Say somebody's traveling with their child who has a disability, I mean, what is that like for a family?

CAREN
Well, for most travelers, or even our residents as well, it requires a lot more planning in advance. Some of our local community members have individuals within their families that are, whether wheelchair-bound or medically complex or site impairment, and so they have to plan out their trip well in advance to know where certain things are located, and so that's definitely a hurdle, but in some of the questions that we need to ask ourselves at Visit Ogden is some of the things that we have on our website, but someone looks looking with a dis or traveling with a disability, they're looking for accessible parking, like is it ample, can they park a van and have enough space, is the entrance step free, because we know 25th street's historic, a lot of them have a step up. This is another one that's come to fruition, is accessible restrooms, but with actually adult changing tables, because once they're past a certain size, a seven year old no longer fits on a regular size changing table. So it seems like that are service animals welcome, and what about assisted listening devices, things like that. So we've got all kinds of things that we can do, but one thing we can do that doesn't cost us anything is putting all those things on our website, because that's where they're going to look for the information.

TAYLOR
I remember our community partner training recently, a gal went up, and she shared about asking for an accessible room at a hotel. She's like, I book an accessible room online, then I call a month before, and they're like, yes, okay, we got it, we're gonna do it. Then I call a week before, okay, yes, we got you. And the day I show up, there's so many times where she said there's no room available, and just having us as a DMO, right, like training our hotels and our staff, you know, when you say there's an accessible room available, make sure the maid staff, right, communicating, and I think we do a really good job, and you do a great job, Caren, with your partnership trainings, where you can tell those hotel managers, and you bring people, residents, and visitors to these places to share their story. It was so impactful for Kerri.

CAREN
Kerri Knudsen, who was that individual. The solution that the hotel gave her was to put her in a regular room, but then make her go to the pool area, where it was an accessible bathroom, so she'd have to leave her room, to go three flights down to get to the bathroom, and so she canceled her reservation and went down the street to another hotel.

SHANE
So statistically speaking…I’m just going to jump in with this, and just ask you, what is the makeup of disabled Americans, and like, how many Americans are going to be faced with it? If not now, how many will eventually face a disability at some point?

CAREN
Currently, the CDC says one in four, so that’s 70 million people in the United States live with some type of disability currently. And almost everyone will experience a disability at some point, it's whether it's temporary or it's situational or it's permanent, and this could be like recovering from surgery, or like me last month I broke my ankle, which really opened my eyes to how inaccessible my own home was, and how hard it was to get around, and how isolating it became. So, it's, it's thinking about that, but at some point in our lives, every one of us will have some type of disability, whether it's permanent or temporary.

TAYLOR
And I think this really bridges that gap. We like to talk about that a lot about Visit Ogden, where, when you make a community that people want to live in, you make a community people want to visit. When you make a community people want to visit, hopefully you make a community people want to live in. And I think by taking this on and by advocating for these sorts of things, and it's we improve the quality of life for our residents, because, like, we said, I mean, so many of us, at some point, will be in crutches, be in a boot, right, or have a lifelong situation, and, and it's just everywhere where this can be improved, it helps everybody, and I think we've talked a little bit about this, but you know, what does it look like to you when a destination is keyed in with all of this? Right, what does it look like when it comes to partner training, and when it comes to on the ground, you know, beyond just ramps and elevators.

CAREN
So, this is something that I've used personally as Visit Mesa is probably one of the best examples in the United States of an accessible community, and so I tend to look at their website, I tend to look at the training and the itineraries that they have on their website, but some of these things that we can do that are simple is just clear a pathway, you know, especially some of our smaller, older stores on 25th Street is a good example. Some are very good and accessible, and some, there's just no way that you could get in there. And even as I was temporarily on crutches in a scooter, there's no way I would even attempt to do some of those storefronts. But I feel like, too, another great one is to train your staff to communicate clearly and respectfully, because oftentimes it's just, it's just, how can I help you and be sincere about it, and helping your staff feel comfortable doing that, and you mentioned Shane, you mentioned the, or the pool, and another thing that Kerrie mentioned in our training last month was make sure your staff, if you're at a hotel, knows how to use those lifts, or do they even work, because that's one of the first things Kerrie looks at, and she travels the world with her daughter, “Can I get in and out of a hot tub? Can I get in and out of a pool? And the staff, can I trust them to know that that's how it works?”

And the thing is, too, with all of our attractions, there's going to be varying disabilities, and so I feel like meeting those basics is a great place to start, especially with how can they help you.

SHANE
Well, and one thing I'd like to touch on really quickly, because I know how hard you've worked on over the last several years, is the idea of Hidden Disabilities and the initiatives that you've taken on in that, in the community to educate all of our, you know, downtown, our businesses, and our partners about hidden disabilities, the things that you don't necessarily, I mean, wheelchairs are obvious, you see it, there's clearly a disability, and there's some accommodation needs to be made, however, you've, you have really educated all of us on hidden disabilities, the things that don't necessarily show up at first glance, that whether it's, you know, being on the autism spectrum, or whether it's a sight-related disability that doesn't present itself necessarily, it doesn't have a cane and sunglasses in the obvious way. Talk a little bit about Hidden Disabilities, and that the work you've done in that.

CAREN
So, that's where we started with it, with disabilities in general, because when you look at accessibility, physical accessibility, it tends to be overwhelming, and so it was one of our partners in Vacaville, California, that had joined the program that started in the UK in 2016 Visit Mesa was also a DMO that introduced Hidden Disabilities, and so it was a simple way for us to talk about hidden disabilities at a very minimal cost to us as a DMO, but also something that was very easily implemented to businesses. We trained our ski resort frontline staff, Weber State outdoors, community employees, all of them have taken on a role which brings awareness to those disabilities, because they can be varied. There's hundreds of them.

SHANE
Give us the 30-second elevator speech of what it is, for our listeners of the awesome pod, that we're doing here, like explain the Sunflower lanyard or the bracelet, so that other people can be aware of it, beyond those you’ve trained.

CAREN
So it's a green lanyard with yellow sunflowers, and it just brings awareness to whoever may see that person wearing the lanyard, that they may need a little bit more time, a little bit more understanding, and patience, and just be kind, because individuals that have a hidden disability sometimes feel uncomfortable because they may be slow in speech, they may be sight impaired, they might be hearing impaired, and so that's its awareness.

SHANE
And you've mentioned airports and a lot of major destinations, big cities…they've all bought into this program.

CAREN
It’s all over the world. It's a law in Saudi Arabia, it's a law in Brazil. It's a worldwide campaign.

SHANE
And right here in little old Ogden, we've been doing it for years.

CAREN
That’s right. Yes we have. We were the first DMO in the state.

TAYLOR
How can a marketing organization like ours, a tourism marketing, how can we make sure that we're inclusive in our messaging to travelers with disabilities?

CAREN
I think we've started out doing this really well with the most recent photo shoot that we did with Kristi Prall and her family, her on her recumbent bike, showing individuals with varied disabilities in our marketing materials, and so when people see that a destination or even our own community, it's like, “Oh no, we can go there, we can have access,” because, like, even with me, I like to look at the destination, the DMO, and say, well, are they catering to me, are they catering to the 20 something year olds, and so it goes the same way with anybody with any type of disability.

TAYLOR
You want to be able to see yourself there; see yourself represented.

CAREN
Absolutely. Yes, and so when people know that they're welcome, they're most likely to visit.

TAYLOR
Absolutely well. I always like to end with points of pride and moments of pride. And so, what do you think there is like an accessibility win for Visit Ogden? Is there something where you really feel like we've, we shine, we've touched on so many today, but is there anything, and and then also, you know, what can you, what message would you have to community partners if they want to train up, right, kind of plug to our resources.

CAREN
So I feel, feel like the big one, Shane mentioned it, it's the Hidden Disability Sunflower Program. I'm proud of that. It's taken a little while to get that up and going, but we're gaining some momentum currently, but I feel like what I'm really proud of. In the last year, we created the Accessibility Coalition, which includes local community members. We've got a hotelier, we've got a gentleman from Schools for the Deaf and Blind, and people with varied disabilities that have joined this coalition, because accessibility is just important to them. That's a big win for us, but next steps, kind of, why? Why should businesses care? Because it shows anybody within our community it's like, no, we care, and and we want, we welcome everybody. In fact, Kerri Knudson, who I mentioned earlier, she lives in Clearfield, but she comes to farmers market almost every Saturday. That's how important it is for her to get out, and she feels like it's a safe place to be. So, but our businesses, we've got all kinds of resources that we're continually adding to the website on our accessibility page, and we now will have a list of local, state, national, and international organizations where they can gain support, but we'll also have links to accessibility rubric, and also a list of just easy fixes that you can do within your own business.

TAYLOR
That's fantastic. All that info on visit ogden.com and I think for partners it's good to be plugged into our partner newsletter. We announce a lot of those things and release trainings and different calendar invites like that. But thank you so much, Caren.

CAREN
Thanks for having me.

SHANE
In addition to all the kind of business accommodations and attraction accommodations, we have to keep in mind that in 2034 the entire world will be here for the Paralympics. Snowbasin will be the exclusive venue for the Paralympics, and you better believe we better be accommodating and accessible for when the world shows up. So, thanks for all your work toward that. And this is not the last you're gonna hear from Visit Ogden about our accessibility initiatives and what we're doing, and we're also going to try to be bringing in our friends from Ogden Valley Adaptive soon to talk about other ways and adventures you can have in our community for those with disabilities. So, thank you again, Caren, for joining us. Taylor.

CAREN
Thanks for having me.