Ready & Abled

A group of Fortune 500s, along with local disability organizations, met today in Windsor, Conn., for a leadership boot camp to examine ways to employ more people with disabilities. The backdrop: Walgreens distribution center in Windsor, which is designed to employ 30% people with disabilities.

Companies attending the boot camp included Walgreens, Ernst & Young, Proctor & Gamble, Clarks Corporation, ESPN, Aetna and Traveler’s Insurance. They shared best practices around training and employing people with disabilities in order to get ready for the next-generation workforce, and also toured the Walgreens campus.

Walgreens is a leader in hiring people across the spectrum of disabilities. Its distribution centers – where goods are packaged and then shipped out to retail stores – employ many people with disabilities. Windsor is one of the discount chain’s highest producing distribution centers in the U.S. (The top ranking goes to its Anderson, S.C., center, where 40 percent of workers have a disability such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism and traumatic brain injury.

Randy Lewis, senior vice president of distribution and logistics for Walgreens, has a son with autism, and he says having a child with a disability has changed his perspective on the employment landscape for people with disabilities. “If my son is like 95 percent of the other kids out there with autism, he’ll never be offered a job,” he says.

Walgreens goal is to hire 1,000 people with disabilities at its centers by 2010 (there are nearly 700 in Anderson) and 2,000 by 2018.

The companies were also joined by several organizations including the Connecticut Bureau of Rehabilitation Services and the U.S. Business Leadership Network.

At the popular Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn., two new programs are helping kids and teens with learning and developmental disorders learn social skills to help them navigate school and beyond.

In Social Species from the Sea to Me, teens encounter a variety of marine animals with varying social behaviors at the aquarium, hear about typical job requirements for high school graduates and learn about the importance of social skills to job market success. They also meet aquarium managers and retail, catering, education, security and maintenance staff while practicing the skills necessary to gain a job in their fields of interest. The program also covers transition planning from high school to a job, interviewing, hygiene, self-promoting skills and completing applications.

Led by Waterford-based Synergy Center Corporation, the programs are designed to give kids “a fun, naturally relaxing, non-school environment, where [they're] exposed to a variety of social settings,” says Synergy Center president Brian Armstrong. The first session of Social Species from the Sea to Me begins on March 17 and costs $480.

Additionally, the Synergy Socials Program is open to children ages 5 to 9 with disabilities such as autism, attention deficit disorder, Rett syndrome, intellectual disabilities or those who may simply have difficulty getting along with other children. Each class begins with yoga or another hands-on sensory experience, such as a touch-and-learn session with some of the aquarium’s invertebrates, which helps the students focus and release anxiety. says Dr. Stephen M. Coan, president and CEO of Sea Research Foundation, a non-profit organization that runs Mystic Aquarium’s educational programs. “These activities are all designed to help build social skills, such as proper greetings, turn taking, following directions and appropriate play interactions,” he adds.

Mystic Aquarium members receive a 10% discount on these programs.

President Obama leads a healthcare debate in Washington on Feb. 25, 2010

I’m watching the healthcare debate on T.V., with President Obama taking a very CEO-roundtable-like style to try to bring together a roomful of lawmakers to agree on a comprehensive $950 billion healthcare bill.

Obama sits at the head of a square conference table, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Lamar Alexander, John McCain and other Republican senators sit to Obama’s left. “We want a discussion, not talking points,” Obama says.

The GOP discussion is namely centered on reducing costs through program spending cuts and holding more doctors and hospitals accountable. The Democrats talk about expanding the system to cover all Americans, including low-income families and people with disabilities.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who is on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, is in the room. Dodd is the second-ranking Democrat on the committee, but has announced that he will not run for re-election in 2010.

Sitting next to Dodd is Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who leads the committee and is an ardent supporter of people with disabilities. Harkin is working to pass the Community Choice Act, which would give people with long-term disabilities the opportunity to remain in their homes and communities rather than have to go into a nursing home.

As it stands now, state Medicaid programs (designed for low-income and people with disabilities) will pay for nursing home but not in-home personal care. Currently, individuals seeking in-home care must apply through a waiver program — but there’s a long waiting line.

Ultimately, a Community Choice Act law is probably too expensive to pass given the need to appease Republican’s cries on holding down costs. Community Choice is estimated to cost between $2 billion to $4 billion a year. Nor was disability even mentioned in Obama’s recent State of the Union speech.

However, Harkin is working on an other bill that does have a chance, even if cloudy: The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which was sponsored by the late Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The CLASS Act would create a new, nationwide disability insurance program, financed through payroll deductions, with opt-out enrollment at a cost of around $65 a month for most Americans. Democrats see this as a way for middle-class families to plan for a disability or a chronic illness, like cancer.

All of the above is just gravy, really, because without overarching healthcare reform then million of Americans, including those with disabilities and pre-existing conditions like cancer, epilepsy or diabetes, may be turned away by insurance companies. And that’s a fact, not a talking point.

I got two press releases yesterday. One from Hotels.com, and another from Expedia.com, both claiming that they have renovated their websites to let people with physical disabilities search for accessible hotel rooms. While this seems like good news, here’s what they didn’t say:

1. Customers can search for, but not book, accessible rooms. I thought the point was to be able to book them? Look at the booking engine for Expedia below. I did a mock booking of a hotel room in Boston, and Expedia lets you “select” your “options,” but this is deceptive. Because an Expedia customer service rep has to then call the hotel to confirm availability of say, a roll-in shower.

2. There’s no guarantee you’ll get an accessible room. Expedia says that if a room is available, you will receive a confirmation email. If it’s not, well, you are going to have to book a different room, at a potentially higher price. Says Expedia: “Accessibility arrangements are not guaranteed and may incur additional fees.” They also forgot to take out the old “Special requests” window, which is where disabled travelers pleaded their case before the lawsuit came along.

3. Yes, there was a lawsuit. Expedia.com of Bellevue, Wash., and its subsidiary, Hotels.com, are making these concessions as part of a Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit settlement. In the class-action lawsuit, which was filed in Oakland, Calif., the plaintiffs say they traveled often with a dance troupe for people with and without disabilities and found that wheelchair-accessible rooms weren’t guaranteed.

4. The ADA already covers most of these accessibility feaures. Telephone equipment for the deaf? Handicapped parking? Does Expedia really believe that without their efforts, we wouldn’t be able to find either of these in our hotels? The ADA requires hotels to have telephone kits for the deaf, and handicapped parking is, well, ubiquitous. What about the more hard-to-find features, like short stature accessibility kits that are in use by some Wyndham chains. Or lowered peep holes for guests in wheelchairs. There is a value in being able to search for rooms with roll-in showers as some of the boutique or older hotels don’t have these yet. But I suspect all the big chains, like Hilton and Marriott do — so just book there.

5. The accessibility box is hard to find. On Hotels.com, I have to scroll down and I can’t even make out what these features are: What’s “Accessible path o…?” I wrote to Dan Guarino, the PR person for Hotels.com to ask about this, but he never got back to me.

Overalll, I think Expedia satisfied the ramifications of its lawsuit settlement but I would like to see them work with hotels to integrate accessibility booking right into the search engine. I’d like to see more features and explanations of what each feature offers to a guest. I’d also like some rankings of which hotels do better than others in terms of accessibility. That, would be a value-added service that people with disabilities would truly embrace.

Now that the thrust of the holiday movie season is upon us, let’s talk about something not so cheerful: Going to a film and not being able to hear it. Thousands of people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing miss out because they can’t follow dialogue on the big screen.

Big chains like AMC Entertainment and Regal Entertainment, having been sued countless times for not having captioning systems, have agreed to settle lawsuits by installing some caption systems, in some cities. As a result, a few movie theaters in Fairfield County (and beyond) have this technology in place.

The bigger nut to crack is finding a particular film, when you want it, where you want it. It’s almost fanciful, like trying to catch Santa in your chimney on Christmas Eve. Movie chains say they don’t want to disrupt their hearing audience, so they tend to run captions on just one or two new films — of their choice — each week, often at odd hours.

For example, this week’s film at AMC in Danbury is “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” That’s it. If you drive 35 miles to Stratford you can see Invictus, but only at 3:20 p.m. or 9:50 p.m. That’s fine if you’re a night owl, but most people would like more choices.

People who are deaf and hearing impaired would also benefit from a complete, searchable list of what’s playing around town. Forget the movie chains’ rambling hotlines or their websites, unless you want to spend hours hunting for films on their “accessibility” pages and finding very little.

A great new website, Captionfish.com, does the work for you. It’s a local movie directory of all captioned films playing for the day or week in your area. You can get email notifications when Captionfish finds a particular film in your area, or set up an RSS feed. It also plays captioned trailers, a great feature that doesn’t exist on any other movie site I’ve ever been on. And Captionfish also lists movies with have descriptive narration voices, for people who are blind or visually impaired.

A quick Captionfish search found all captioned movies playing within 60 miles of Greenwich. Still, the results can disappoint. To see Avatar this weekend you’d have to drive to the Connecticut Post 14 Cinema de Lux in Milford — the only place, locally, to see this flick with captions. Ironic, as Avatar is about a man with a disability.

Another website, Fomdi, provides a similar directory, but is more barebones. Also, WGBH Boston’s National Center for Media Access, which developed a proprietary captioning system called Rear Window Captions, has listings of theaters that have bought their system. In Connecticut, this includes the AMC in Danbury and the Connecticut Post cinema in Milford, as well as three Showcase Cinemas in Buckland Hills (Manchester), North Haven and Southington.

If you’re in need of a captioned film, definitely check out these websites. You’ll save time and frustration — and if you’re lucky just might find the flick you’re looking for.

It was a roller-coaster ride that sparked Chuck Bergen’s interest in helping kids with disabilities. Many years ago Bergen and his family attended a theme park in Pennsylvania and stood on line for a roller coaster. The ride was accessible, in the sense that people who used wheelchairs could transfer from their chair to the coaster car on a separate platform, which seemed like a reasonable arrangement to Bergen until the ride operator cried out: “Will ANYONE give up their seat so the disabled kid can ride?”

Besides the shear embarrassment Bergen says he felt for the young girl in a wheelchair, he was even more shocked at how many people refused to give up their seat so the girl could ride with her companion, who happened to be her mother. “It pretty much hit me that a virtual reality roller coaster ride for special-needs individuals would be a nice alternative to the awkward situations some theme parks put people through,” Bergen says.

A software developer by trade, Bergen knew he had a unique opportunity in front of him. He founded VTree in 1999 and began creating virtual reality education software such as I-CE-ME, which packages entertainment with education – from soccer and volleyball games to memory and word-matching challenges — to help special needs kids both learn and play.

But he still kept thinking about that roller coaster, and wanted to give kids an imitable experience though video games. “One thing that struck me was that almost all the popular software video games were strictly designed and developed for the mass market, which excluded physically and developmentally challenged individuals and families,” Bergen, president of VTree, says. “I decided I wanted to break through this wall.”

Ultimately, Bergen and his team settled on a making a football video game for kids with physical and cognitive disabilities that would look and feel almost exactly like the traditional titles. After all, football is the most popular sport in America, and games like Madden NFL and NCAA Football are proven bestsellers.

The next challenge was getting the idea to market. Luck played a role when Bergen attended a trade show in California for accessibility technology, where he had the opportunity to meet video-game maker EA SPORTS’ Chief Technology Officer Rob Moore. He pitched his idea to Moore on the spot, emphasizing the need to help kids as well as the thousands of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan whose serious physical or mental injuries now prevent them from enjoying the video games they grew up with.

Moore got the green light for VTree to redesign all of EA Sports video games for gamers with physical and cognitive disabilities. VTree’s first title, ‘My Football Game’, was released last month. Up next is ‘My Golf Game’, due out in early 2010.

‘My Football Game’ is a CD-based game for the PC that can be played on any desktop or laptop with a Windows XP or Vista operating system. The game is compatible with a USB XBOX 360 game controller, a keyboard and most USB adaptive devices. ‘My Football Game’ is $39.95 and VTree offers free shipping through the end of the year.

“’My Football Game’ proves that you can make a game for the special needs community that looks and feels like a traditional game,” says Mark Barlet, founder of AbleGamers, a website that ranks video games for accessibility. “The game does everything right, from the design of the box to the features that it has built in. It’s almost exactly like Madden NFL,” he says.

Features include 20 customizable playing speeds to allow nearly everyone to play the game, regardless of disability. There’s also a skill drills feature that allows the gamer to practice running, passing, tackling, and kicking at a comfortable speed to improve their skills before moving into full game competition, providing positive feedback and instructions along the way.

Personalization is another option, with gamers being able name their player avatars. U.S. Armed Forces members, who have access to the games at VA facilities, can create teams with authentic uniforms for each branch of the military service and special units such as Seals, Rangers and Special Forces. And a My Championship Ring feature takes cues from real-life football to help players earn a full set of diamonds as they master their playing skills.

Readers, I’m giving away a copy of VTree’s ‘My Football Game’. Send me a comment about this story, and I’ll choose a winner at the end of today. Be sure to also check back later this week for my list of the best accessible video games and other holiday gifts for people with disabilities.

Planning a vacation for the holidays? Sure, you can get great inside tips from online travel sites — TripAdvisor and Travelocity come to mind — but for the disability community, resources are scarce. However, a few avid travelers with disabilities have been paving the way with new websites, search engines and wikis.

Enter Disabledtravelguide.co.uk, a new, U.K.-based website that lets disabled travelers rate and review worldwide destinations, towns and cities on accessibility, consideration, and attitude towards travelers with special requirements. What’s more, travelers can do all this before they’ve reached their destination, saving them potential frustration and havoc that could ruin their trip.

Users of Disabledtravelguide.co.uk can offer personal reviews that reflect the reality of traveling with a disability — regardless of any claims made by hotel properties, tour companies or government agencies. They can also review their own home town or city, and view policies of major airline companies and discover what, if any, assistance is available to them.

“The thing that people fear the most is the unknown,” says Disabledtravelguide founder Sean Gorman. By allowing disabled travelers to share their own expert knowledge and experiences regarding destinations around the world, they can anticipate difficulties and retain their independence to enjoy their travels, he says.

Gorman, 36, knows a thing or two about disability travel. He was diagnosed with multiple Sclerosis in 1999, and developed the idea for a website while on a recent vacation to California with his wife, Sara. The couple reside in Kenton, England.

Gorman’s site, which is nonprofit, is one of a few good sites that serve up candid reviews of travel locales, both domestic and exotic. Dr. Scott Rains, a travel consultant who uses a wheelchair, has a blog called Rolling Rains Report that provides resources on inclusive tourism. He also runs a social networking site, Tour Watch.

Another unique place for travel tips is Theglobalidea.com, a wiki started by Jakob Vendle, who has multiple sclerosis. Vendle’s idea came while he was traveling in Cambodia and visiting Angkor Wat, which he says was very difficult to walk. Users can add their own reviews; a sample review for Honolulu reads: “The sidewalks in Chinatown are rather narrow and not in the best of shape. The Maunakea Market Place is wheelchair accessible but very crowded, a good place for lunch.

Earlier this year, Craig Grimes launched Accessible.Travel, an instant online booking engine for disabled travelers. Grimes, a seasoned traveler and a paraplegic, has spent the last few years living in Nicaragua navigating the country’s inaccessible roads and stores via a wheelchair. He also operates AccessibleNicaragua.com and AccessibleBarcelona.com, two ventures that he began after realizing the dire lack of information about accessible adventurous vacations.

Nate and Nancy Berger of West Virginia have published a free e-book that gives good details on places that will accommodate disabled’ travelers needs. The site provides an assistance directory as well as tales of travel obstacles, such as when the couple traveled to India to see the Taj Mahal and found the palace was virtually inaccessible to Nancy’s wheelchair.

Even if you’re not going that far (and who is, these days?), check out these sites for the disability travel scoop.

I mentioned in my earlier post that I would be blogging about the Halloween party at Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Westchester County. The party was hosted Wednesday by the Greenwich Jaycees, of which I am a member. I dressed as a witch, and brought dirt cupcakes for the kids, which were a hit. The recipe is easy: Buy chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Get a box of Oreos and smash them up to make “dirt,” and let the kids top the cupcakes with gummy worms and sour patch worms. I also found a big bag of candy body parts at CVS for $3.99, which included ears, fingers, teeth and other gory parts but according to the kids, “tasted rubbery.”

Blythedale is a hospital that serves kids with trauma and serious medical conditions, including cancer, brain injuries and organ defects. Our party was hosted for about two dozen of the 92 kids who spend their days and nights in the hospital. Some came to the party in wheelchairs, and one boy came in his bed. We had face-painting, candy, rub-on tattoos and arts and crafts.

I met a lovely little girl who brightened the room with her smile. Unable to speak — or even eat any candy — she was thrilled when one of the volunteers, Aisha Patel, painted flowers on both of the little girl’s hands. Aisha got a big thumbs-up from her customer for the handiwork.

There was a sense of serenity in the room that you normally wouldn’t get when passing out free candy to kids 12 and under. These kids have been through a lot, and they enjoyed the company more than anything else. They probably won’t be heading out tonight for trick or treat, but it was great that we were able to bring Halloween to them.