Unleashing Potential

By Susan Alcorn MacKay and Miriam McDonald

Imagine that you are a person with a disability as a result of a motor vehicle accident, or that you have received a workplace injury. Where, in northern Ontario, do you go for information about products, services or re-training opportunities? Where do you find out about community services, support groups, financial assistance or technological solutions? How long does it take you to collect all the information you may need?

On June 4, 1996, the Special Needs Regional Resource Centre at Cambrian College of Applied Arts and Technology will officially open its doors in Sudbury, Ontario. Part of a three-phase development, the education and training centre will assist persons with learning and physical
disabilities to achieve their goals through adaptive and specialized learning technologies and methods, and a welcoming environment that promotes success.

The Special Needs Regional Resource Centre is the culmination of a decade of services to students with disabilities at Cambrian College. Since 1988, the Ministry of Education and Training has been providing dedicated funding to colleges to provide services to students with
disabilities. The funding totals $6.5-million for all 25 public colleges in Ontario. At Cambrian College, the number of students receiving services of the Special Needs Centre has risen from 17 in 1986 to more than 600 in 1996. Similar trends are seen in virtually every college in Ontario
that has been providing comprehensive services to registered or potential students.

PLANNING UNIVERSAL ACCESS
As existing facilities became inadequate for the numbers of students, Glenn Crombie, President of Cambrian College, established a group to investigate new possibilities. The project architect, Rick Yallowega of the Sudbury firm Nicholls, Yallowega, B‚langer Architects, led an intensive consultation process with current and potential user groups of the centre. On-site and remote reviews of existing centres with similar mandates throughout North America were also completed. With this extensive research, the objective was to learn from others and make Sudbury’s centre a state-of-the-art facility.

Potential service users, individually or as agency representatives, reviewed the working drawings of the centre and evaluated the barrier-free design features in a day-long planning forum. In addition, the experiences of a cumulative Cambrian College student user group of more than
1,000 students with many different disabilities were incorporated into the plan. The goal was to achieve a highly practical degree of facility access using common sense, experience and innovation to conceive barrier-free design solutions above the mandatory legislative requirements governing the project.

A STUDY IN INCLUSIVE DESIGN
Using the most contemporary technologies, the design features of the centre incorporate interior and exterior adaptations and visual, auditory and tactile signals addressing the orientation needs of a diversity of persons with learning and physical disabilities. Some of the design features are: extra-wide doors; automatic door openers; assistance call buttons; colour coding; tactile cues;
detectable warning surfaces; non-slip flooring; hand rails; built-up curbs for direction; pathway grooves; Braille symbols; sensored toilets, soap dispensers, dryers and faucets; personal assistance rooms with lifts; wheelchair accessible showers; rest areas for animal assistants; wheelchair tire inflators; and battery chargers.

In fact, every area of the building takes into consideration that, at any time, employees here may have one or more of a variety of disabilities. One mandate of the centre will be the promotion of persons with disabilities in the workplace, whether through work placements, employment
opportunities, volunteers or as advocates in our business community.

A "TOOL BOX" FOR INCLUSION
The design of the centre permits activities tailored to the individual, including specialized rooms for independent learning, tutoring, testing, studying, distance conferencing, computerized learning, attendant services, learning assessments and orientation. Opportunities to try out new technology will be provided. The centre will model assistive learning technologies and the most contemporary universal building design for demonstration to national and international visitors.

The Special Needs Regional Resource Centre is a "tool box." Individuals are helped to choose the correct tools for the job, trained in their use, advised on personal acquisition and, if they are enrolled as students at Cambrian College, provided with those tools to achieve their educational goals while at college.

The centre will provide resources to persons of all ages and from all walks of life. They may be youths continuing from secondary school programs. They may be elementary school children needing specialized educational assessments. They may be survivors of medical, work, vehicle or sports trauma, needing new skills for new careers or changed lifestyles.

People may use the resources of the centre from their homes, wherever they are, through advanced distance communication technology. All of them will use the services and resources of the centre to help them succeed in education and training programs and eventually attain
employment or increase their quality of life. While this project is about education and training, it is also about the added value of providing a level playing field.

UNLEASHING POTENTIAL
This project has a goal to establish a globally recognized educational centre that will assist persons with learning and physical disabilities to attain relevant education and training through state-of-the-art, digitally based assistive technologies, specialized learning methods and resources, and applied research activities. The centre’s focus is to ensure that youth and adults with disabilities throughout northern Ontario have the best educational opportunities for realizing independence and employment. This project is about "unleashing potential and creating a lifetime of opportunity."

The centre will be of assistance to other northern Ontario educational institutions by providing information and learning assessments in a timely fashion. It will be of assistance to employers who require workplace training in disability issues, employee educational assessments or
employee re-training. It can help other centres achieve improved services to persons with disabilities by partnering in on-site learning assessments, drawing on existing expertise in the Sudbury area to provide dignified, user-friendly services. It will offer professional development
activities and resource information to educators, parents and students of all ages throughout the north.

Finally, through a large and diversified Advisory Committee, the centre will be able to move in the directions required by consumers and be a catalyst for research, pilot projects and product enhancements.

A SPRINGBOARD TO SOLUTIONS
In addition to providing a much-needed resource in educational settings, the centre is also an innovation centre for new learning assistive and adaptive technology, facility access and equipment design. Created by joining expertise and practical application, the setting is conducive
to product development, testing and commercialization geared to finding solutions to the barriers to education and employment. Through the centre, professionals with expertise in a variety of fields, such as electronics, teaching and engineering, work with students, clients and the centre’s personnel to create or adapt learning assistive technology.

Phases two and three, to be completed by the year 2000, include an adaptive sports complex with an accessible gymnasium and a therapeutic pool. This holistic approach to learning and living is the driving heart of the centre. Individuals are unique in talents and abilities; the centre provides the forum for THEM to unleash their potential and create a lifetime of opportunities.

(Susan Alcorn MacKay is Director of the Special Needs Regional Resource Centre in Sudbury, Ontario. Miriam McDonald is Director of the Cambrian Foundation. For more information, contact the Special Needs Regional Resource Centre at (705) 566-8101.)