Envisioning a more accessible creative sector in Greater Philadelphia
A Commitment to progress
The Philadelphia Agreement is a shared commitment between the disability community and cultural organizations in Philadelphia. It is a commitment to community-driven change. This agreement is the catalyst that will make Philadelphia the most accessible city for independent arts engagement in the United States.
Creating a culture of access
Adopt meaningful change by embedding access and disability inclusion into company culture. Dismantle ableism, value lived experience, and build a workplace that welcomes aging adults and people with disabilities as integral to the community.
- Embed accessibility in organizational mission, values and strategy.
- Create an inclusive employment process by using accessible hiring strategies, offering hybrid options, and transparent accommodation decisions.
- Establish accessibility working groups and advisory councils with disabled leadership that emphasizes lived experience.
- Recognize that rest and care are access by providing established time between events, meetings, and programs along with dedicated spaces for rest and care to take place.
- Provide annual community accountability sessions, anonymous feedback avenues, and public reports as you progress through your access initiatives.
- Reject any and all subminimum wage practices and ensure fair pay for disabled staff, consultants, and artists.
- Include or establish an accessibility line item in the overall organizational budget to fund access initiatives for internal accommodations, and to provide resources to external facing programming and events.
Centering the human experience
Embrace human-centered design across all institutional activities. Amplify guests’ personal dignity and deliver empathic solutions for systemically excluded communities.
Universal access
- Ensure that all contractors have experience in accessibility implementation or plan to supplement any gaps in knowledge with local access professionals and/or disabled community members. Go beyond ADA standards; flexible pathways, tactile/multisensory navigation, adult-sized changing tables, accessible transport.
- Share pre-visit priming tools like Know Before You Go guides and be transparent about barriers that exist so that community members can independently choose in advance whether to visit your site.
- Conduct annual accessibility reports or join regional efforts to complete sector-wide accessibility reports that include community member feedback and input.
- Support people with disabilities who rely on a Personal Care Aide (PCA) by eliminating any and all fees for PCAs.
Engaging people with disabilities who are d/Deaf or have low hearing
- Develop partnerships with local providers for American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and provide a straightforward and simple process for requesting ASL services.
- Provide basic ASL training to frontline staff and support them with additional text-based communication devices.
- Invest in assistive listening devices and sound amplification systems where appropriate.
- Ensure that all digital presentations and videos are captioned and live performances are supported with Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) Captions.
- Make written scripts available when captioning is not possible.
Engaging people who are blind or have low vision
- Improve navigation and wayfinding by providing tactile tools and add high contrast elements that aid visitors at your site.
- Enhance sensory and multimodal engagement by introducing touch tours, verbal description, and other elements in your exhibits, performances, and public programs.
- Provide large print interpretation and materials where necessary to ensure communication access.
- Ensure that all digital images in presentations, exhibitions, online, and elsewhere have alt text to make them screen reader accessible.
Engaging people with physical or ambulatory disabilities
- Ensure an accessible route, unsegregated from other main entrances to the site that provides barrier-free entry.
- Plan for accessible seating and/or flexible seating at every program, performance, or public event.
- Improve stages, performance spaces, backstage areas, and preparation areas so that they are accessible and welcoming to disabled artists.
- Create accessible spaces that are readily accessible, regularly evaluated, and maintained to meet basic human needs (restrooms, changing areas, etc.)
- Ensure that permanent and temporary installations maintain accessible routes throughout your space and minimize protruding objects.
- Create a plan for accessible evacuation and provide areas of rescue for people with disabilities during emergencies. Once established, alert local emergency personnel of known areas of rescue that pertain to your site.
- Maintain ample accessible parking or accessible drop-off areas along an accessible route to your site.
Engaging people with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities
- Incorporate plain language into all communications, materials, exhibitions, performances, and public programs.
- Provide visual supports like Know Before You Go guides and social stories to help people navigate uncertainty in public spaces.
- Create sensory-friendly programs and communicate to participants in advance if there are elements in a space that could be overwhelming, so that attendees can choose independently whether or not to engage.
- Open quiet spaces and low-stimulation areas for people who are overwhelmed.
Digital accessibility
- Ensure accessibility information about your organization is available on your website and that it is accurate, updated often, indicates a specific point of contact, and is within two clicks of your home page.
- Uninstall your web accessibility overlay tool and update your website to the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
- Run quarterly checks on your website using web accessibility checkers to maintain its accessibility and screen reader navigation.
- Ensure all digital images, charts, and other items have alt text so that they can be identified by a screen reader.
Embrace access as a human right
Cultural engagement is essential to community justice, and authentic disability representation fosters belonging. By partnering directly with the disability community, institutions can co-create inclusive experiences that celebrate disabled life and expand participation through new stories, spaces, and perspectives.
- As the most disabled city in the U.S., disability is woven into the fabric of civic life in the region. Weave access work into your planning, execution and evaluation.
- Remain accountable to the community and consistently anticipate access as an integrated part of your work. Access is paramount as we create the most accessible city for arts engagement.
- Understand that accessibility is about how disabled people interact with the world around them, and their right to access takes precedence over organizational finances.
- Trust the community when they give you feedback on barriers that need to be removed for access to be achieved.
