JASON E. KAPLAN When you talk about universal design, how would you define that term? And how does that play into creating better employment outcomes? I think that if companies truly are using universal design, that’s not just for people with disabilities, it’s for really any minoritized population. One way to normalize disability is, in the interview or the onboarding process, to talk about all of the supports or different development that a company can provide or does provide already. That could be saying, “We have an EAP program, we have Excel classes, we have a sign-language interpreter for any employee who needs one, we have different computer equipment for people who need it.” You take away the stigma and say, “This is just a normal part of what we do, and here’s the list of things that we provide to employees.” If you phrase it in that way, you don’t make it this thing where employees have to self-disclose because they need an accommodation, right? Are there universal design principles that play out in the way that Relay Resources is run, or that you’re looking at implementing? We are really in the beginning stages of expanding our employment. One of the things that we’re looking at is implementing universal design in everything we do. We’re also really looking at how can we be a place to convene for employers to get best practices — whether it’s in universal design or in any other type of approach to become more disability-inclusive. I’ve got some really cool ideas, one of which is to create an area where we have a simulation space. The best way to do this is not to simulate the disability — like putting a cloth over someone’s eyes to simulate blindness — to change the environment so that a nondisabled person feels like they don’t belong in that environment. So for example, if we were to have a space where the ceiling was five feet tall, the doors were maybe twice as wide as normal doors and there were no chairs in this space. That would be perfect for somebody in a wheelchair. But for someone like me — I’m 5-foot-8 — my back would start hurting, I’d be looking for a place to sit, it just would be very uncomfortable. So that’s a way to kind of drive the point home, about making spaces universally designed for a variety of people. I think creating spaces that typically abled, nondisabled people find uncomfortable can really help people understand that, for many people who identify with a disability, it’s not the disability that restricts them. It’s the environment and the attitude of people that is restrictive. So we’re looking to that to teach others what we do. What do you do when you’re not at work? I love basketball. I’m adopting the Portland Trail Blazers as my basketball team, though I’ve been a Warriors fan my entire life. I’m getting more involved in soccer — I just love watching sporting events. I have a cat — it’s actually my son’s cat; his roommate is allergic. So I like to hang out with my son’s cat. My husband’s a special-ed teacher, and so we work with a lot of different families to really help them advocate the IEP process in schools. There are a lot of college programs for people with intellectual disability. So we help a lot of families navigate that admissions process and the process of having their child, perhaps away from home for the first time, taking different classes. We do a lot because we love this population. We really take the work that we do seriously. But to have fun, I definitely watch sports. 15
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