How can businesses and government offices create truly welcoming and useful spaces for employees and visitors with disabilities beyond the minimum accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act? Ask Colorado State University alumna Suzie Scher (M.S. occupational therapy, ‘07), and she’ll tell you that universal accessibility means more than just removing barriers – it can take inclusion to the next level.
Scher is working to educate clients on the enhancements that can be made when looking at spaces through the lens of universal design practices with her consulting business Scher Spaces. Scher Spaces focuses not only on enhancements to physical spaces but also looks at the needs of people with non-apparent disabilities such as traumatic brain injury.
Better for all
Both accessibility and universal design are increasingly important as society sees an increase in the number of people with disabilities joining the workforce. For people with a physical disability, accessibility, and universal design both focus on the user and creating a space without barriers to access. Universal design, however, expands the idea of accessibility to encompass not only people with disabilities but also to serve the greatest number of people in all populations regardless of disability status. While some organizations implement accessibility measures to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, universal design rejects the one-size-fits-all mentality, instead emphasizing flexibility and usability across the board.
Universal design is all around us. Think about sliding glass doors at the grocery store, curb cuts, or an elevator located next to a set of stairs. You may have never thought twice about the features, yet these options, part of universal design, meet everyone’s needs regardless of disability status.
Building spaces
Scher Spaces is a universal accessibility design consulting agency based in the San Francisco Bay Area. For Scher, the business is truly a dream come true. Growing up attending a unique elementary school that catered to students with multiple disabilities in each classroom, Scher began honing her ability awareness. “Opportunities to experience being a wheelchair user and a visually impaired person for a day were parts of my early education experience and stoked a lifelong interest in equal access, inclusion, and diversity,” Scher said.
Over time Scher’s interests became more specific and she earned her undergraduate degree with a double major in psychology and sociology from the University of California at Davis where she also volunteered in the disability community. She went on to join AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps and then became a Project Manager at KaBOOM!, a non-profit that facilitates community-built playgrounds, where she coordinated the construction of 91 ADA-compliant playgrounds throughout the United States and Canada.
Scher then came to Fort Collins to pursue her master’s degree in occupational therapy. While enrolled at CSU, Scher served as president of the Student Occupational Therapy Association where she gained crucial experience in a leadership role with her OT peers. In her time as a graduate research assistant in CSU’s Center for Community Partnerships, Scher worked on a Universal Design for Learning project which played a part in exposing her to universal design concepts and expanded her views of how design can be more inclusive of all participants. Scher also worked with Guide Dogs for the Blind as a puppy raiser where she raised her puppy Atley. Atley chose a different career path and joined Scher in her school-based occupational therapy positions for the first five years of her career where together they provided animal-assisted therapy to K-12 students in the Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco areas. Scher worked as a school-based occupational therapist for 15 years, the last three of which she was also a clinical supervisor for a therapy placement agency.
“I’ve dreamed of doing work in the accessibility space for many years but hadn’t felt like the time was right,” said Scher. “The conversations and movement around the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion topic has shifted to include accessibility in the last year or two. The timing felt right to pursue this new career between that shift and my own personal desire to take on a new challenge.,”
Share the space
Scher Spaces is ready to help support businesses reimagine a workplace that is fully accessible to everyone. But the services don’t stop with simply redesigning the physical space.
Clients benefit from facility assessments to determine elements that can be enhanced to improve accessibility. In addition, Scher also offers training and education to raise awareness regarding accessibility and how it fits into both physical spaces as well as business practices at all levels of a company or organization. The company believes in providing resources and data to improve a business team’s awareness of apparent and non-apparent disabilities.
The Ram way
Scher traces her career success back to her experience at CSU in the OT program. From a trip with faculty and other students to the department’s sister school in Yamagata, Japan, to the support she received from faculty while she held a demanding job as a puppy raiser during her schooling, Scher is grateful for the faculty and staff.
“The support and encouragement I received while I was in the CSU OT program helped me to be tenacious in my career. Also, the courses in the OT program and intentions of the faculty and staff helped me to be a creative problem solver and out-of-the-box thinker which are really important as an OT, especially in my current career,” said Scher.
When looking at the future of her profession and students looking to join the mission of universal accessibility, Scher offers this advice.
“I advise that students get experience working in any of the settings they are interested in and really pay attention to the barriers in the physical world that they observe,” said Scher. “Finding opportunities to think about how they would modify the physical environment for their clients and also the larger population is valuable.”
Studying the lived experiences of the disability community is key to recognizing these barriers. First-person narratives in books, social media, and seminars are all important resources to utilize. Scher also recommends students get familiar with the ADA and the state building codes where they live so they can stay up to date on current needs and regulations.
While the support of faculty at CSU spurred Scher’s drive to accommodate the population as a whole, it is her own drive that keeps the proverbial fire burning for equal access for all.
“My dream is to increase access to the physical world outside of people’s homes so that they can easily participate in their community and complete activities of their daily lives as independently as possible.”
The Department of Occupational Therapy is a part of CSU’s College of Health and Human Sciences.
