Enhancing accessibility in parish churches
Tuesday 4th November at 4pm
This webinar will share how your church can use icons and symbols to support disabled visitors
ACCORDING TO THE OFFICE OF National Statistics, around 18% of the population of England identify as disabled – almost 10 million people. For many, deciding to visit a venue they haven’t been to before can be a fraught experience.
Concerns about accessiblity
“Will my access needs be met?”
Visitors may ask themselves this question, searching through a church’s website to see what is said there about accessibility, maybe in small print on a page somewhere in a submenu, or perhaps not listed at all.
A disabled person may dedicate time, energy and effort to getting to the church for the service or event, only to find then that there are barriers to their access or participation – steps in the way, no accessible toilet facilities, no hearing loop, no large print handouts. They may go home tired and disappointed.
Supporting accessibility through clear information
The Disability Project can help all parishes provide clear information about their accessibility features, so that potential visitors can readily search for a local church with, for example, disabled parking, and feel confident that this is a place they can enter and a service they can join in with.
For many years now A Church Near You has given parishes a way to “tag” their accessibility and for visitors to search through these tags for their location.
Excitingly, we are now also offering a pictorial system to allow parishes to add clear and attractive symbols to their own webpages, showing the way they can meet the access needs of different groups of people.
Find out more in the webinar on 4th November
This autumn the Disability Project will be holding a special webinar in partnership with the Diocese of Derby to showcase a new pictorial system of Accessibility Icons. These icons can help provide clear information about your church’s accessibility.
Helen James, Disability Project Manager in the national Church, will be joined by members of the Diocesan Inclusion Action Group at Derby, who will talk about the motivations and purpose of the project and how it is being rolled out in parishes in their diocese.
Discover:
- How your church can best use icons and tags to attract and inform disabled visitors
- Where you can find and download these resources for free
- How visitors can search for a church which meets their access needs
- How to update your A Church Near You site with accessibility tags
Date/time
This webinar will be held on Tuesday 4th November at 4pm.
How to book
To register for this webinar, click the purple ‘Register’ button on the right side of the page.
If you are interested but unable to attend this webinar live, please do register anyway – everyone who has registered will receive a link to the recording and to the resources shared in this webinar. They will also be available on this page after the webinar.
This webinar will have a BSL interpreter.
