Disabilities | Free Full-Text | Perceived Barriers and Facilitators to Implementation of Inclusive Policy, Systems, and Environmental Changes

Capabilities Knowledge Exposure to existing adaptations for inclusion “…I got to see a lot of things that made working out in a gym a lot easier that were not hard. You know, I never thought about those great big ropes that you shake up and down, well they have them up there! They have them upstairs and I never even thought about taking them downstairs for people in wheelchairs. So it’s so nice because I would have never thought of stuff like that…” Increased knowledge of inclusion issues “I think the major thing that I saw and was really a little shocked by is that when we did the CHII assessment after going back and looking at them and viewing them, seeing how negligent—we hadn’t done a better job of inclusion in our community” Behavioral regulation Identifying ways to include disability “it really dawned on me that a lot of the other projects I’m currently working on; I could easily look at accessibility when I’m out in the community. And I didn’t do that before.” Cognitive and interpersonal skills Previous experience “But [coach] had been involved in doing those kinds of assessments before so she really understood it. I think someone who had never seen an assessment like that before would be a little overwhelmed” Opportunities Environmental context and resources Technical assistance “the ability to communicate you know, our state expert coach has been amazing. You know, she is readily available for questions at any time I can email her at any time and get a pretty you know immediate response from her but I I’ve gotten that same-same thing from NACDD and from NCHPAD. They have been willing to answer questions, provide information guidance, so I don’t really know that anyone is more valuable.” Existing community initiatives “…I was pondering how we were going to lay out our project and then kind of a dawning on us that we had three major community undertakings underway” Social influences Existing relationships “we in our community have great working relationships and strong coalition so I think already having those established relationships because I think every one that we did, we knew somebody from that organization that we could make a phone call to. And that’s probably why we’re so successful in getting in there. We weren’t just making cold calls, we actually knew these people that were calling and we had prior working relationships with them on you know, whatever project” Local champions “…you still get some communities where somebody just has a burning desire, as you do, you know, in your belly for this work. And so it makes it easier if you have a champion…Our champions have been a lot of elected officials.” Openness to engage in conversation “I think the CHII assessment process was very useful in making connections with organizations and figuring out, it was basically a good foot in the door to have conversation about what they might be open to doing with our project and you know helped us get a better sense of their readiness to engage with implementation so it seemed to work well as a step I think.” Willingness to learn “The biggest thing would be, what’s the openness to, you know, see what changes needed to be made or what changes could be made to impact others. And so as long as they were open to talking to us, and looking at what information we had, we could do great things” Motivations Reinforcement Experiencing positive outcomes or feedback “You just talk about it for a few minutes and it’s amazing for people who are going, ‘Oh yeah, I should be doing my part’” Beliefs about capabilities Perceived self-sufficiency “But since then, you know, that was at the beginning of the project, we really haven’t had a huge need for technical assistance…and process probably gave us a better idea of what-what things we need to look into a little bit more, but we’d already had some tools that we were comfortable using as resources.” Realistic goals and expectations “I think we just set realistic goals. We knew what we could accomplish within our community.” Optimism Beliefs about PSE change sustainability “I think that the PSE changes that we are hoping for will be really sustainable. And I think we have the capacity to be able to push for those changes after the grant period is over.” Belief of overall positive community impact “I think the changes are going to make the whole community healthier and not just affect people with disabilities that make everybody healthier.” Beliefs about consequences Positive outcomes for the community “I think it’s prompting a bit of a shift culturally” Importance of conversations “I think the way you approach the assessment overall has a lot to do with it. You know we weren’t coming out to do anything punitive, to tell them ‘you are going to be fined for this because you are doing something wrong’. It was really more of like, this is educational, we just really want to see what you are doing here and what could be improved in order for you site to be more accessible to our community members who are living with disabilities” Social/professional role and identity Previously established roles “Probably because we both lived here our whole lives… we have served on so many committees and boards and we are present in the community ourselves so it just kind of makes it easy.” Passion for work “you know, we—we have, I think, a good amount of passion for the work. And I think that we have that fire in our bellies that we want to continue the work” Intentions Intentions to work towards project goals “…to continue with some of the additional ideas and improvements and suggestions that we are going to be looking for funding for …projects that we can, as a coalition continue to rally around and work towards that common goal” Intentions for long term change “…we saw the state working with the county, the projects kept changing. So our focus was, regardless of what they end up with, how are we going to affect change on projects like this in our community for the long-term…” Goals Setting clear goals “…a couple of simple ones I think we will be able to get done in the not so distant future….there is staff right at [city department] that is kind of looking into the recommendations and doing a cost analysis to see what some of those, sort of quick wins might be”