Calling Up Justice was hired to provide Disability Justice Consultation for NPN’s 2021 Annual Conference. Below is a rough description of our initial scope of work. NPN is a national arts service organization, grantmaker, and movement-builder working to create a more just and equitable world — one that champions freedom of expression, liberation and anti-oppression, and building and claiming collective power for radical systems change. Through national programs, investments in our communities in the South, and engagement in global movements, we seek to build artists’ power, advance racial and cultural justice in the arts, and foster relationship-building and reciprocity between individuals, institutions, and communities.
Organizational and program design
❖ Articulate guiding principles that center wellbeing and holistic inclusion
❖ Center access in the conference’s overall design (i.e., how artists are contracted, how
panels are designed, planning the conference schedule)
❖ Orient NPN staff and conference planning team in a way that informs and empowers
them to centers disability justice as they carry out various conference planning roles
❖ Orient volunteers, hotel staff, & off-site venue personnel
❖ Provide info/materials to presenters and content organizers that informs and empowers
them to center inclusivity and access in their presentations (Idea Forums, plenary
content, artist presentations, etc.)
Technology
❖ Assessable conference website
❖ Assessable conference registration process (i.e., providing option to register online & by
phone)
❖ Assessable announcements & conference promo on social media platforms
❖ Ensuring that emails, virtual meetings, orientation calls, webinars, etc. utilized during
conference planning allows for the full participation of everyone involved (i.e., voice
recorded options, automated or live captions, interpreters, etc.)
Provided transportation
❖ Venue selection & room set up (maps, room layouts, etc. provided ASAP)
❖ Prior communication regarding onsite accessibility
❖ What are some best practices to implement on our end so that we are not expecting
artists and attendees with disabilities to navigate their full participation?
NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK
❖ What statements can we include on the website/during registration to signal attendee
participation around our goals (“our event strives to be scent-free”, etc.)
❖ Making printed materials accessible and/or providing information in digital formats that
can be used with participant’s own assistive devices (signage, forms, handouts,
programs, schedules, etc.)
❖ ASL interpreters and live captioning for plenary all sessions as possible – where else?
❖ Intake process to assess the following (but not limited to) participant needs
The Disability Justice Consultant also assisted in addressing the following questions:
The following includes additional overarching questions I hope to address as well:
How best to navigate accessibility needs that can be addressed automatically versus needs we
will ask participants to make us aware of, for example:
● Assistive listening devices
● Note-taking services
● Braille
● Supporting an accompanying interpreter or assistant
● Foreign language support
● Dietary restrictions
responding to on-going questions such as
- How best to navigate accessibility needs that conflict with one another?
- Are our emergency preparedness and “rapid response” processes also accessible?
- What are some creative and imaginative ways to provide care, beyond access, to participants and attendees?
- Where are opportunities to bring in other artists to inform or facilitate this work? Focus group?
- What will be the best way to orient the staff and conference planning team? Board orientation prior to conference?