Presentation at the Illinois Library Association conference in Rosemont, IL in 2016. Functionally Diverse in the Library is about disability and accessibility.
2. What kind of language do we
use when we are referring to
people who may be having a
mental health problem?
3. A few words on language…
What’s the difference between handicapped, disabled, and functionally
diverse?
• Handicapped – derogatory, focuses on the deficiency of the person
• Disabled – more politically correct, but enforces ableist binary
• Functionally Diverse – more inclusive, disability is a spectrum, part of
the population and not separate from it
• People First is a good general rule (people with disabilities NOT
disabled person)
4.
5. What is disability?
Lenn, K. (1996). Library services to disabled students: Outreach and education. The Reference Librarian, 25(53), 13-25.
6. American Disabilities Act of 1990
“Physical, sensory, mental, and emotional disabilities are all
covered by the ADA. A mental impairment is defined by the ADA
as: ‘any mental or psychological disorder, such as mental
retardation, organic brain syndrome, emotional or mental illness,
and specific learning disabilities.’ Thus, mental illness is recognized
by the law as a disability, with the same protections as other
disabilities such as paraplegia, blindness, or hearing impairment.”
Hecker, T.E. (1996). Patrons with disabilities or problem patrons. The Reference
Librarian, 25(53). 5-12.
8. Some Numbers
• 1 in 5 adults (18.6%) have a mental disorder of some kind in a given year
• 57.4% of the population will experience a mental disorder during their
lifetime.
• In any given year:
2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Mental Health Findings
9. What is the average time between onset of a
mental disorder and seeking assistance?
About 10 YEARS
Mental Health First Aid Association. (2013). Mental Health First Aid.
10. Hello, My Name Is…
• Complex PTSD
• Strong “knee jerk” reactions, especially to perceived threats
• Sensitivity to sound
• Sensitivity to crowds and people in general
• Miss a lot of social cues
• From traumatic events to therapy, 25 years.
11. This feels kind of overwhelming.
How do we assist our patrons with disabilities
when there is so much variety to what their needs
might be?
13. 2. Get More Educated!
• Training such as Mental Health First Aid
• Read a book! Making the Library Accessible for All: A Practical Guide
for Librarians (2014) Jane Vincent – excellent primer
• Creative use of communication strategies
• Non-verbal communication like having people write on the board, email you
in real time, have a chat client open, communication boards
• Clickers or some other real time surveying software
• Understand how assistive software works like JAWS, Kurzweil 3000,
Zoomtext, etc.
• Compassion and Empathy
14. Compassion vs. Empathy vs. Sympathy
• Compassion: The motivation we feel when others are hurting to reach out
and help them, to reach them where they are, a physical interaction
• Empathy: Understanding what someone is feeling, to identify yourself with
their feelings and experience, an emotional state
• Sympathy: Feeling pity or sorrow for another, “I’m so sorry” or “That’s
horrible”. It’s an othering technique that creates distance between two
people.
Brown, B. (2015). Rising Strong. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
16. 3. Have a conversation – be willing to:
• Push on the boundaries of our own comfort
• Think about being an Ally/Advocate – what’s the difference?
• Ally – a person who is committed to educating themselves about oppression,
challenge their own prejudices, learn the skills of anti-oppression, interrupt
oppressive remarks, behaviors, policies and institutional structures. (Cultural
Bridges, 1995)
• Advocate – a person who represents and works with a person or people who
need support and encouragement to exercise their rights, to ensure that their
rights are upheld.
• Engage in self-reflection and forgive yourself when you make mistakes
18. Take Care of Yourself!
• If you have had an interaction with a patron that upset you, talk to
your supervisor/another librarian.
• If the situation was violent or overly emotional, as soon as you can,
write up everything about the encounter that you can remember.
This will help you remember for meetings/police
reports/trainings/etc.
• Get help – no shame in talking to a therapist (of whatever flavor you
prefer).
19. Conclusions
• This is the tip of a very large iceberg. Not discussed were things like
web accessibility or OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
• Many of our libraries conform to the letter of the law for physical
disabilities but mental disabilities are often ignored.
• Compliance means minimum.
• We can do a lot better and we should.
20. Works Cited - Statistics
• Mental Health Association of Maryland, Missouri Department of
Mental Health, and National Council for Behavioral Health. (2013).
Mental Health First Aid USA, Revised First Edition.
• National Alliance on Mental Illness. “Mental Health by the Numbers”
http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers
• National Alliance on Mental Illness. “Press Release – Veteran
Resources” http://www.nami.org/Press-Media/Press-
Releases/2007/NAMI-Launches-Veterans-Resource-Center-on-
Mental-H
21. Thank you!
UIUC has a new disability resource.
http://guides.library.illinois.edu/alacwgdisabilitytoc
Have Questions?
JJ Pionke
pionke@illinois.edu
Editor's Notes
Ask group question and if possible write on whiteboard their responses. Ask about what commonalities do they see in their word choices.
Handicapped
Disabled
Functionally diverse
People first
Audience participation! Who are these people? (Giles from Buffy, Librarian from Ghostbusters, Librarian from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
What do they all have in common? They fulfill the stereotype of what it means to be a librarian.
What is the stereotype of the library?
How do the stereotypes effect our patrons? Especially vulnerable populations, like those with disabilities?
Perceptions of disability used to focus on the physical.
Greater awareness of mental health concerns as a disability
Especially true for the library which has focused on physical accessibility
ADA turned 25 in July 2015. Can we say that our libraries or archives accommodate all of these concerns?
Ask the question then segue to mental health.
Mental health issues is a more serious issue than people realize.
It’s an issue that is more prevalent than people understand.
Any guesses about the length of time?
Why do you think this is the case?
The effect on libraries is substantial because we often see the severely mentally ill in our libraries.
We more often than not don’t have training to work with this population.
So what does a mental disability look like?
Complex PTSD
Strong “knee jerk” reactions, especially to perceived threats
Sensitivity to sound
Sensitivity to crowds
Miss a lot of social cues
What’s the point in revealing this information?
Walk the building
Compassion: picking up the phone, going for a walk together, holding hands, etc
Empathy: feeling pain or upset or joy or whatever as a response to the emotion that the other person is feeling, not feeling their emotions for them
TBI – Traumatic Brain Injury
Almost a third of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq confront mental health problems.
Approximately 30% of veterans treated in the Veterans health system suffer from depressive symptoms, two to three times the rate of the general population.
In 2007, the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives told NAMI’s annual convention that more Vietnam veterans have now died from suicide than the 55,000 who were killed directly during the war in the 1960s and 70s.
- See more at: http://www.nami.org/Press-Media/Press-Releases/2007/NAMI-Launches-Veterans-Resource-Center-on-Mental-H#sthash.sDELCIlf.dpuf
