Accessibility by Design: Real-World Lessons with Louise Bark

🎤Special schedule for September 22!

For this meeting, our PM Forum comes first.

6:00–7:00 PM EDT: PM Forum with Louise Bark
7:00–8:00 PM EDT: PMUT Toastmasters club meeting

Online | Guests attend free
Guests are welcome to attend the Forum, the Toastmasters meeting, or both.

***

“You can’t fix it if you don’t know it’s broke.”
Louise Bark has spent decades learning what happens when barriers are overlooked until after a building, service, system, or process is already in use.

On September 22, she will bring those experiences to Project Managers United Toastmasters and ask a project-management question:

What could have been designed differently from the start?

### Synopsis

Accessibility problems are often obvious after they have been built.
An accessible entrance button is mounted where a wheelchair user cannot reach it. An accessible washroom is designed so that opening the door blocks access to the toilet. A hotel reservation system includes accessibility information, but another part of the booking process fails to protect the accessible room for the person who needs it.

By the time someone encounters the barrier, the project may already have been designed, approved, built, tested, and declared complete.

In this interactive PM Forum, Louise will use photographs and stories from her decades of accessibility advocacy to examine real-world barriers across transportation, hospitality, public spaces, digital services, and other environments.

But this will not simply be a presentation about what went wrong.

After several of Louise’s examples, participants will have an opportunity to discuss the problem from a project-management perspective:

If you were the project manager, where could accessibility have been built into the project earlier?

Through these real-world scenarios and small-group discussions, participants will explore questions such as:

• When should people with lived experience be involved in planning and testing?
• Where can accessibility fail between different parts of a system or project?
• What can real-world testing reveal that a checklist may miss?
• How can accessibility be treated as part of project quality from the beginning rather than an adjustment made after completion?

Louise will also share resources that can help project professionals identify and prevent barriers before they become part of the finished project.

Design access from the start.

This presentation is also an important Toastmasters milestone for Louise. A dedicated Toastmaster, she will be delivering this keynote-style presentation as part of her final work toward earning the Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) designation.

### About Louise Bark

Louise Bark became an accessibility advocate in 1995 after developing a disability that required her to use a wheelchair. She quickly discovered not only how many barriers existed, but how easily new barriers could be created when people did not recognize or report the problems they encountered.
Through Independent Living, Louise was introduced to blind lawyer and disability-rights advocate David Lepofsky, who taught Louise and other people with disabilities how to advocate with government for systemic change.
Louise went on to launch Human Rights cases involving a public transit provider. Her approach to advocacy eventually led to an invitation to train bus drivers and later to serve on Ontario’s Accessibility on Public Transportation Advisory Committee while the province was developing standards for the Integrated Accessibility Standard.
She has also served on ACAT, the Advisory Committee for Accessible Transit, and continues to advocate directly with disability-related service providers when she encounters barriers that could be prevented or improved.
Her work combines lived experience, advocacy, policy knowledge, and a practical conviction that progress begins by recognizing what is not working.
Louise is also a dedicated Toastmaster, and this presentation represents an important milestone in her work toward Distinguished Toastmaster.

### Welcome to Project Managers United Toastmasters

Project Managers United Toastmasters (PMUT) offers a unique blend of Project Management and Toastmasters, helping people interested in project management strengthen their communication and leadership skills.

Guests are always welcome, whether you are new to project management, developing your professional skills, or looking to expand your network.

Our two-hour meetings normally include:

• One hour of a traditional Toastmasters meeting.
• One hour featuring a PM Forum speaker.

For this event, the order is reversed to better accommodate our speaker’s accessibility needs:
6:00–7:00 PM EDT: PM Forum with Louise Bark
7:00–8:00 PM EDT: PMUT Toastmasters meeting

Please join the Zoom call by 5:55 PM EDT. The Forum begins promptly at 6:00 PM and the full meeting concludes at 8:00 PM.

After most meetings, several members remain online for a few minutes to answer questions about becoming a paid member of Project Managers United Toastmasters, Toastmasters Educational Pathways, and their own experiences with the club.

Paid members receive quarterly consolidated PDU Claim receipts to simplify tracking meeting attendance and roles for submission to PMI. Each full two-hour meeting is worth two professional development units.

There is no fee for guests to attend.
RSVP on Meetup to secure your virtual seat and access the Zoom link.