Julie Sawchuk (Second Episode)
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Julie Sawchuk, B.Sc., B.Ed., RHFAC, is a best-selling author, professional speaker and designated Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification (RHFAC) professional. Julie combines her experience of living with a spinal cord injury with her passion for helping people make smart decisions when planning for accessibility.
After completing the construction of her own fully accessible home, Julie wrote Build YOUR Space - How to create an accessible home for you, your family and your future. Julie’s home is the only showcase of Universal Design that demonstrates how accessibility is not just functional, but also beautiful. Reading Build YOUR Space will help you make decisions about design and construction that allow for reduced physical energy needs, improved safety, increased independence and the preservation of dignity.
In her second best-selling book, Building Better Bathrooms , Julie and her team of Samantha Proulx and Jane Vorbrodt help readers learn the “why” and the “how” for accessible bathroom design and construction.
Julie has consulted and completed RHFAC ratings on a variety of projects including libraries, recreation centres, apartments, restaurants, small town shops and international airports.
Julie also teaches the program Building Without Barriers, the online platform for Accessible Design & Construction. Courses are offered to architects, OTs, trades and homeowners alike and include Accessible Home Design, Accessible Bathroom and Accessible Kitchen Design and Construction.
As a professional speaker and author, she shares her message about accessibility and inclusion with students, businesses and organizations across Ontario. When you work with Julie, you will enlighten your team, inform your designs and build without barriers.
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Julia Sawchuk (Second Episode).m4a - powered by Happy Scribe
Hey, everyone, it's Gustavo, the host of the Enabled Disabled podcast. I am really excited to have Julie Sawchuck back on the show today. In case you haven't heard her episode, please go hear her first episode. But Julie is is a best selling author, public speaker, and an accessibility consultant and expert, and she has been up to so many amazing things. And we're so glad to have her back on the show to talk through what's been happening since the last time she was here. A brief description of myself. I am a middle aged Latin American, light Brown skin. My hair is black, and it's combed to the front, and I am wearing a blue Polo shirt.
Julie, is David Happy back? Yes. I'm so excited. So I am here. I am in southwestern Ontario. I don't know if you can see a little bit of snow out my window, but I'm sitting in my bedroom office. I'm wearing a purple tank top. I have black glasses on, and they have little sparkles on the rooms, which I love. I have blonde hair, and I have some artwork in the background that is by one of the guys that I teach with, actually. And it's a scene with beautiful Huron County skies, blue sky, white clouds. That's me.
Perfect. Thank you. So let's talk about some of the exciting things that you have been working on since the last time you were here. Tell us a little bit about let's start with some of the courses that you started that are on your website. Now. How did that come about and what inspired that? And tell us about what those courses are and who should be taking them.
Yeah. Okay. So pandemic. That's what started them. Right. And that whole downtime of gosh, how am I going to help people build accessible spaces if I can't get to them? And I just thought, you know, books aren't enough. Video is what really helps. Aside from actually being in person, seeing it in relatively real time is what helps people understand space and access. Like even just rolling under a counter and being able to see that. I put my laptop down on the floor so you can see how my knees and my feet clear underneath the sink and have enough space so that I can roll right up to the counter. So making the courses was like an advanced version of a book for me. And it was actually kind of a little bit easier because there's way less editing that has to happen when you're putting together these kinds of courses. So I started with the whole home. So they're called Accessible Design and Construction, and I've got three. One is the whole home, one is the bathroom, and one is the kitchen. And I started with the whole home, and I based it on my first book, Build Your Space.
But just to have that visual aspect of everything inside and out to show that an accessible home doesn't have to be an institutional looking home to show that accessible features work for more than just a person who uses a wheelchair. I forgot to mention that in my description. I'm sitting in my wheelchair. You can't tell on Zoom. I just look like I'm sitting in a chair. Right. And then the second one is about bathrooms, mostly about residential bathrooms. But again, it's showing how a person who is seated in a wheelchair transfers onto the toilet, not being able to use their legs. People have a really hard time wrapping their head around it because they don't think about it. They don't want to think about it, and they don't have any experience seeing it because you tend to not hang out in the bathroom with other people. So I invite everybody to come and hang out in the bathroom with me. No shame.
You've done it on I've seen on your YouTube, too, you've had events where you show people or you're at another facility and you're in the bathroom and you're showing people how you transfer and what could be improved in a certain bathroom, which I think is super helpful for people to see that I'm glad that you're using all of the cool things that you've done in your home in the coursework so that people can see and experience, like you said, just how beautiful and how beneficial a universally designed home is for you, but for everyone.
Yeah. And in my home, too, it's not just me. Right. My husband is 63 and my teenagers are growing by the minute. So specifically in the kitchen, we have a very universal design that works for my tell people and for me. And I want people to see that it's possible and it's relatively easy. I think now that I've done it, it's easy.
Yeah. Once you've done it the first time, it becomes that way. But it's still an awareness problem. Right. Fundamentally, people don't know it exists. And then when they do learn about it, they think it's too expensive. I'm going to have to sacrifice this without truly understanding what the benefits are ahead of time.
And the other thing that I see happening is figuring it out late in the game. Right. So designers, builders that are they've got the walls up, they've got the floor poured, they've got the plumbing in, they've got the electrical in, and then they go, oh, yeah, it's my parents that are living here. We got to make this a rolling shower. And then they call me up and realize that they're late in the game in bringing in somebody who knows about accessibility, but yet they still do it, which is awesome, because really, it's never too late to think about accessibility. But it's always best to think about it when the plans are still on paper. And I think I've said that to you before. Right. Like you can move a line on paper much easier than you can move a bunch of two by fours.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Just to make a space a little bit bigger or to change the location of the plumbing, shifting it over twelve inches. When you poured the concrete floor and the plumbing is embedded in that concrete floor, you can't move it. There are workarounds and there are things to do, but it's much easier to start with accessibility as one of your pillars of your design.
Absolutely. In terms of the course work, who is it for and what is the are they introductory courses? And then you have ones that go deeper than that. Talk us through that a little bit more.
So they are for people who are going to build their own house. Right. Like if you yourself have a disability and want to build your forever home there for you, if you are an interior designer or a contractor or an architect, they're also for you. And from a progression, you need to start with the whole home, because that's where decisions like window height, for example, square footage, location of electrical, all of the things that have to happen anyways, in terms of building a house, all of those things have to happen. But I show you how to put that lens of accessibility on every single one of those decisions. I call them regular house decisions. But what they can see when they do the whole home is how you can just tweak them a little bit and make it work better. So in terms of progression, start there. The bathroom is the most important room in the house. So that's why it's the second one of the courses. And if you're going to do any course at all and you're an architect, do the bathroom course because you learn all sorts of things that you wouldn't have had the experience to learn yourself unless you are a person with a disability.
And then the kitchen is the second most important because it's where accidents happen. Right. Safety is number one in the bathroom and then safety in the kitchen. So that's sort of the progression. They're available contractors. I want everybody who's involved in designing construction or thinking about building a house, building a house for them, building a house for their parents, building a house for the future of their child that has a disability. It's kind of hard to design something for everybody, but I kind of think I have that makes me sound like I have a big head, but I don't know. I'm trying.
Have you run into any products? I know you've done some consulting work with some manufacturers. Has anything new come out to the market that you've been really impressed with?
What I've realized is I need a go to list because people will ask me, hey, Julie, what's the best wall? Hong roll under sink? And I'm like, all right, okay. I remember this one on this site, and I should have taken a snapshot of the manufacturer and the product number because it worked really well. Same with, like, adult size change stables or baby change tables. Do you have a preferred supplier for grab bars? And there's, like, toilets? I had a chat in the bathroom with okay. I'm a member of a group of women who all have spinal cord injuries, and we all do fitness together. And we also talk about life and all sorts of other things. Right. My peer support. I'd love to talk to you about peer support and how important that is. So that's a Sidebar. But we hung out in the bathroom together on Wednesday night in my bathroom here. And we're all at different stages in our abilities, and we all have slightly different abilities with our bodies in terms of how high our level of injury is and all of that. And we get on and off the toilet differently.
We shower differently, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, so we're chatting in the bathroom and one of my friends said, okay, what's the best toilet? How can I find the tallest toilet? And I'm like, right, I need to have to have it. So that's one of the things that I was on my list to develop to have on my website so that people can find the go to tall toilet, the best well hung sink, the best scrubbars, all of those features that are sometimes overwhelming. If you don't exactly know what you're looking for or you don't have a personal experience with them, I want to help people find those right things that's important.
That'd be a great list to compile. Especially how quickly can you see a product and have a good sense of whether or not it's going to work or is it something that you actually have to physically touch and see?
Yeah, I really want to experience it, use it. And it has to be, like in place, too, right? Like the grabber has to be attached to the wall. The sink has to be on the wall because a lot of it has to do with placement, too, and the structural support that's provided behind it and all of that kind of thing. So, yeah, I really want to physically interact with it before I would recommend it.
Okay, that makes sense.
And I tell that to people, too. Like, try before you buy as much as possible.
Yeah. Showrooms. I know that the pandemic has made things a bit more complicated, but going to a showroom, seeing the product, trying it out, it's so easy for a photo to fool you or to not show really what the product can do or not do. Right. It's hard to tell from a picture.
Yeah. And that's a big dream of mine is to have a bathroom showroom that is the ultimate set up in a bunch of different scenarios of rolling showers, shower benches, crab bars, tubs, tub lists, different types of taps. How sweet would that be like, picture a Home Depot. That's all just different accessible bathroom designs and accessible bathroom features. You can go to a Home Depot and look at their selection of grabbars and be slightly underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time. Nothing looks like it's exactly what I need, but there's all sorts of things to choose from, and I'm not sure which to do.
I think it will also be interesting to see as travel keeps opening up. Right. To go to maybe a kitchen and bath show in Europe or even someplace like Japan where their toilets are on a completely different level than ours. And to be able to bring some of those products over.
Okay, we're going to have a road trip, you and me.
Road trip sounds fun. Road trip sounds fun. Tell me a little bit about let's talk about the importance of peer support group. It's an important Sidebar. The episode isn't out yet, but I was talking to a foundation in California where they help people who have spinal cord injuries in their rehab process and with their mental health and getting them as fit and functional and capable as they can to get back out into the world and do the things that they want to do. And we did talk a lot about mental health, but we didn't really get into that peer support group that you need just kind of forever. Right. They're beneficial for everybody. Tell us a little bit more about how you found this group and what's made it so beneficial for you.
So my first peer support group happened in rehab, the rehab center where I was for three months. And then I went back more or less weekly to do therapy. And their focus is on spinal cord injury. So I would run into the same people because I was usually there on the same day. And we ended up forming a nice tight bond. And we were all women and we all had about the same level of injury. My level is T four. And we were using the functional electrical stimulus bikes that push electricity into your legs. And then you actually get to pedal. And it's an amazing form of therapy. And you're stuck to those bikes. Right. Like, you're actually stuck with electrodes. So you can't just hop off and you're not there for ten minutes. You're there for an hour and a half. So we would get into some good, deep conversations about life. And when you have a body that doesn't function, quote, unquote normally in terms of, like, bowel bladder kind of stuff, those are always the conversations that come up. And everybody deals with things differently. And it's nice to hear those stories with people that have dysfunctional bladder and bowel, because then you realize that there are different ways you can try things that might make it easier or you realize that people are having the same struggles that you are.
And you literally talk shit for an hour. But of course, the pandemic shut that down. And I didn't realize how much I missed that aspect of peer support until I found it again. And that was with a group called the Disability Icons. And it's a group of women from across Canada and the US, started by Sarah Foley. She's now in Utah, and we were meeting once a week and doing workouts together. And everybody had a spinal cord injury. Everybody's a woman. A lot of them are moms. So we talk about being a mom with a disability. We talk about being a woman with a disability. We talk about being trapped in our homes because of GOVID, like, everything and anything and the support that happens. I don't even know how to put words to it. It's so important. It's so meaningful. And knowing that other people are having the same feelings and just talking through them or even just listening. Sometimes you just listen and you go, right, we're all in this and we're all okay, and we're going to get through it, and tomorrow is going to be a better day. That's sometimes where the conversations go, and sometimes they're really funny, and sometimes we end up talking about bras, like, it's totally random.
It's interesting that you mentioned what it's like to be a mother with a disability, because that's one of the things that I wanted to ask you about that we didn't talk about the last time. How has that changed and how have your kids adapted? What's the dynamic like now that they've seen you're still the same person, but you're not, right? You're a different Julie than you were before and in mostly better ways. But what was that? And I didn't know you before. It's just an assumption I'm making. Can you talk a little bit about what was that like for them and how did you handle it and how has the dynamic evolved as you've gotten stronger, as you've gotten more active in making more of an impact in the world?
It's been really interesting because they were like nine and eleven, I think, when I had my accident and still in an age when they weren't particularly independent. Right. And now they are 15. Oh, no, Oliver is going to be 16 on Monday. So 16 and 18 and gosh, I don't even know. They're less dependent on me, and I'm more dependent on them because they're older. They follow instructions really well now. And their level of empathy, I think because of our situation, is higher than maybe other kids their age. But they're also really sick of me talking about accessibility with us. Our bodies go with us everywhere we go, and therefore, so is our disability and our need for accessibility. And I literally can't go anywhere without working and being that strategist, that problem solver. Like, oh, man, this place needs to fix this. And my kids will roll their eyes and go, oh, here she goes again, but they get it. Oh, here she goes again. God, I'm so tired of it. Here she goes again. And we're going to go along with her. And they're super supportive. They pull my chair in and out of the car when they're with me.
They're now strong enough to lift me if I am in a precarious position and I need assistance to get back into my chair or to get from my snow cart back into my wheelchair. So it's super fun. I regret the day when they leave home. I'm going to regret all of the days after they have left home because I often take advantage of them, like, hey, can you go and get something from the pantry for me? Because then otherwise I don't have to get up and go and get it right if I'm in my lazy boy, for example. But I don't know. They're just wonderful people, and I love them to death. And they have grown up in the past six years with a different life than what was laid out for them.
But the empathy thing is huge, and I'm sure that they see that helps them treat and deal with other people in a much better way than they would have otherwise. And I'm guessing that if anything, they look up to you and respect you and admire you even more. Now.
I hope that's the case. And the other thing is I have a very different circle of people that I interact with than I did before. Most of my friends were teachers and teacher friends. And now a much bigger part of my circle of friends and people that I interact with are people with disabilities. And had I not been in this situation, they would never likely have met these people, let alone hung out and spend time with them and developed the patience that is required to listen to a person that has difficulty speaking, for example. That part of it is pretty cool.
I think it's amazing. I think it's going to help them a lot. I hope that that happens, too, with my brother's kids. But we'll see they're still young, so it's hard to tell where that's going to go. But Uncle Gossip, Uncle Gus. Exactly. It's great to hear that because they're going to welcome differences and different people different abilities. Variation is, to me, one of the things that keeps life so interesting. And they're going to be more open to that than most other people.
Absolutely they will, no doubt. I love listening to you have conversations with other people because I feel like I know you really, really well. And I'm sure people say this to people that host podcasts. They feel like they're their best friend because you're just listening in on all their conversations, but knowing that it's one way you speaking to me and with your guests. But I learned things about you, and I love the way you allow space in your conversations. I know some other podcasts would clip out anything that was time to think about an answer. And I love how you give your guests that time and you save that time for your audience as well, because I find that beneficial. When I'm listening to a conversation, when there's a pause, it's a little bit of processing time. Anyways, I'm happy that you do that. I think it's great, Julie.
I really appreciate that silence is an awkward thing, but I have learned to embrace it and to let it, like you said, create that space because we don't want to. It's also interesting. Like, I hear podcasts where some people do, some people don't. But when they do, you're right. It gives you as a listener the time to process it yourself and think, well, what's the person going to say? Or what would I say? Or how do I think about this? So hopefully it pulls people in more.
And one of the conversations that you had recently talked, oh, gosh, there's a couple of things. So you talked about the three buckets. I want to talk about that. The question of if you could eliminate your disability tomorrow and carry on but not know all of the things that you've learned, would you do it? I answered that question really quickly, and it really surprised me. So I'm just going to go ahead and answer that question right now, even though you haven't asked me because I'm fascinated by it. And then I had a conversation with my husband about it. So if I were able to get my body back to not having a spinal cord injury tomorrow and forget everything that I've learned in the past six and a half years, I wouldn't do it, which is nuts to me. The logical part of me is like, no, I want my body back. I want to be able to pee when I want to pee. And walking would be an awesome thing to get back to my sports and get back to being outside. But I have learned so much and that so many amazing people that have allowed me to grow as a person that I'm flabbergasted that I would say, no, it's so bizarre.
It's a hard question. Yes. And a powerful one that Kim had asked. It is bizarre. And I think it's probably more bizarre for you than it is for me because I was born this way and this is all I have ever known. And it's easy in a way to see somebody who is non disabled and say, well, they're moving easier than me and they can do certain things that I can't do. It's almost like a trap to say, sure, why wouldn't I want that? But I would also not be the person that I am today. And I worked really hard to be this human being, and I don't want to give that up. That's how I kind of rationalize it is that similar like thought process with you or is there am I missing?
No, you're right in that I am a different person. I'm in a different place in my head than I was six years ago. I'm in a different place in my relationships. My relationship with my husband, with my kids, with my community. Reading, sitting pretty, and seeing Rebecca's perspective of growing up with her spinal cord injury and using a wheelchair gave me a whole nother insight on being a wheelchair user and seeing that my perspective is also complete, even though we are in exactly the same situations, being women who are mothers with wheelchairs. Mine only started when I was 41, and that just gives a whole nother. I have two sides of a coin, and if I were to flip it, I think I would stay where I am on a day like today makes me second guess that because I want to go skiing like the sun is out, we have amazing snow, and I was a skier, and it breaks my heart to not be out there and doing that. But I feel like I am making even more of a difference in the work that I'm doing now than when I was a teacher.
I think it's interesting to think about the things that we lose, not just regardless of whether you have a disability or not, but the things that we lose just as we age. There's things that I could do when I was younger that are not so easy to do today. And my body is not in that place anymore. And it feels a little bit like that, except with age, it's much more gradual. There's an element of that that I see, too, where I would love to go out and play tennis the way I did 15, 20 hours a week. But I'm not in that place. My body is not going to hold up anymore with that, but I miss it in a way. It's also part of just being a human being and living for longer periods of time.
And don't you see that people with disabilities embrace aging a little bit more readily than people that don't have disabilities? I just keep seeing this as like a pattern when I'm helping people design their own personal spaces. Right. Their own homes. People who are building their retirement home don't necessarily want to have that conversation about wanting to have a zero step shower or a roll under workspace in the kitchen. I'm never going to need that. I'm not going to need that or building their house. So it slab on grade and they don't have any steps. Let's build this whole retirement community with five steps. Everybody has to walk up steps to get into their house, really, because people don't want to have conversations about aging. But what I find is when I talk to people with disabilities, they know that their body is going to decline in its ability because they're already in that situation of the body not working the way it's intended to work. And I wish that were different because I think we get trapped in this. This is the way we've always done it. This is the way we will always continue to be able to do it, which is to our detriment and in the end is going to cost us more money or cost us injury that may not have needed to happen because of the way we have designed spaces.
Yeah, I see that too. You're right, it makes sense. But you see that as well. We'll with now we're getting philosophical here, which is great. You see that with men and women as they age, right? They are coloring their hair or they're doing Botox. They're taking whatever they can take supplement wise, that this is going to slow down the aging process. This is going to keep you young. This is going to keep you fit and looking like you were in your 20s. And there's this whole escapism from what's happening with your body as you get older. Some of it's good, but some of it isn't. And then people avoid the things that can make their lives a little bit easier or a little bit more comfortable or healthier because they don't want to admit that these things are happening. You're right. And people with a disability, at least with me, just make the best of it. We've already evolved and adapted and problem solved. So we just keep doing that and see where it takes us. And when I'm feeling my strongest, I feel like the only thing that's going to stop me is when I die.
Whatever else comes, like, I'm going to deal with it. It's going to be fine. I don't know if you feel that way too.
When I'm my strongest, yes. I feel like I can manage anything. Throw a UTI at me, though, and I'm like, no, this is ridiculous. I cannot continue to do this. So, yeah, it depends on what's going on. But those are less frequent these days, which is nice. Go to bed exhausted, wake up feeling still a little bit tired, but it's a fresh day.
Life takes a toll on our bodies. I mean, look at how much we work, how much we travel, how much the toll that it takes over time. I see it too, with clients that they have these steps in their homes that don't make any sense. There's no handrails. If they drink too much one night, they're going to fall one day and hurt themselves pretty badly. And then you want to see the designers and the architects and the builders step up and say, hey, why are these steps really here? Is this really enhancing some aesthetic in your space? Have we thought this through? Why are we really doing this? Is there another way we could do this where we don't have to risk you or your parents or whoever some friends one day slipping and falling and really hurting themselves because it looks cool to have a couple more steps in this living room.
Yeah. There's some pretty scary statistics about falls and elderly people falling and ending up in hospital. And I wouldn't want to give you the numbers because I'm terrible at remembering numbers. My friend Jason at Healthcraft would be able to rhyme these numbers off just like that, because that's what they do is they are fall prevention, but the incidents that lead to hospitalization and then not being able to come home, it's phenomenal mind blowing numbers. And so whatever we can do to help people understand, to design for safety is going to save everybody heartache and money. Government paying for hospitalization for people that shouldn't have been in the hospital in the first place. If we had designed our spaces better, full circle.
I want to talk about and if you have more questions, we have the time. But I wanted to highlight something pretty amazing that you have just accepted. So I will let you tell us what that is. But I think this is absolutely phenomenal. You are going to be working with the government in Ontario. Please tell us about how that happened and what it is and what you're going to be doing.
Yeah. So I'm still a little bit in shock about it all and curious about how it's all going to roll out, but I'm going to be the chair of the design review committee for okay, so in Ontario, we have the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, similar to the Ada, but just for our province. And within that act, there are six or seven different sort of bodies of regulation. One is about communication, one is about transportation, and one is design of public spaces. So parking lots, sidewalks, recreational trails, information kiosks, service counters. There's all of the outside spaces that aren't incorporated into the interior building code. But then there's a little tiny bit that is also a part of the interior building code. So there's a little bit of crossover. Anyways, those regulations the government has committed to reviewing every five years. So the review is now two years overdue because of covet. And I have been asked to chair the committee that is going to do that review of the design of public spaces document. This is an example of it. It's like 110 pages. But the exciting thing for me is that I am bringing a rural perspective.
And as the chair, as a person with a disability, I get to help select the people that are going to be on the community, and I get to help guide this process of going through this entire document to see where it's being helpful and where it needs to be improved. And if you notice the way I said that, both of those things have a positive tone to them, where it's being helpful and where it needs to be improved, not this sucks. And that's my approach, Gustavo, is I am a positive person, and I want to bring the positivity to the table first before we look at okay. And these are some ways that these are some things that need to be improved. And in all of my six and a half years of living with the disability, I am still in kindergarten. Right. In all of my experience, the approach that is the most effective is that this is what you're doing. Well, here are some areas that need to be improved, so I'm really excited about it. Willing, unsure, because I feel like I have a massive learning curve of the political process that I need to understand.
Who is the acronyms that are used in this world of accessibility and government oversight and regulation? The acronyms alone, like, I need an entire dictionary. And I want a little flow chart of who is responsible for which aspect of design and accessibility, because in Ontario, it falls to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, it falls to municipalities themselves. Then there's the governing body, like the Minister himself, which is the Ministry of Seniors in accessibility, transportation comes into it. There's all sorts of ministries with fingers in their pot. And I mean, as you know, accessibility is literally involved in everything that we do. So where does this committee review, like, where are the sidelines where when we get off the field, we don't actually have any say in the game that's going on on the field. But I'm also excited because I think there can be some valuable conversations about education and about funding. And although those aren't a part of the actual act in the Design of Public Spaces Act, I think that we can influence the conversations about helping College and University programs incorporate accessibility into the teaching that they do. And we can help the ministries see that funding has to be available, whether it's, like, outright funding, like grants, or whether it's tax credits for improving access and giving a tax credit for the expense of putting a ramp in or redesigning a bathroom and cutting some of the red tape, like, oh, if I change this bathroom in my restaurant, then I have to get the health unit involved.
Well, really, let's make that an easier process so that people aren't so afraid of making change. I had quite a few conversations with the staff at the Ministry to find out really what they wanted me to do and what I was getting myself into. And one of the things that was on my list of this has to be a point of discussion or I'm not going to do it is the loopholes. Right. The grandfather clauses of spaces that were designed prior to this year, they don't have to meet those standards because that was when they were built so they can sweep it under the carpet. And so when you talk about the three buckets who are you having that conversation with?
That is a good question. It might have been Diego.
No, it was a woman. It was either Kim or. So the idea of the three buckets, from what I remember, your conversation was there are three ways that we can help people with disabilities. One is through legislation. Right. One was for providing opportunity like employment and making that more available by designing accessible spaces and creating accessible communications and support accommodations for people in their workplaces. And then your third bucket was changing conversations about empathy and understanding and bringing people with disabilities to the table, to the discussion. Help me out here. What else?
Right. It's changing the hearts and minds of the people who don't have who are non disabled, about who we are, what we can do, what we can bring to the table.
Right. And the point that you guys made in that conversation that really struck home with me was if you don't have that third bucket filled, these two other buckets, people are going to find work around people that aren't committed and understanding are going to continue to take advantage of a loophole in a building code, a grandfather clause. And that's why the discussions that you have are so incredibly important when you talk to Steve about his vestibular disorder and the fact that he has been lying on the couch because he hasn't invisible disabilities is something that I was definitely not aware of for a very long time. The more conversations that you have with people that have invisible disabilities, the more enlightened I feel. And I love you for that because it's so important. I was talking to a group of high school students yesterday. So one of the other things that I do is I teach high school students that are involved in a program here in the province. And I said to them, I'm glad that I am here representing people with disabilities and helping you guys have a new lens of what accessibility is and everything that goes along with that.
But I wish that you didn't see me as I am as a wheelchair user, because me representing people with disabilities gives the impression that everybody is a wheelchair user. Right. And you forget about all it's not even that you forget because you've never known about it in the first place, about all the other shit that people are dealing with with their bodies that you can't see. Mine is the most obvious disability that there is. I mean, it's the international symbol of access. Right. So doesn't everybody with a disability use a wheelchair? No, it's like 20%, 30%. So those three buckets, I'm going to create an image of that somehow to incorporate into the speaking that I do because that visual it's even better than the visual of equity and equality and the people standing on the box, to look over the fence, to watch the baseball game like that's what is needed.
It's a fascinating. That's a fascinating point. I'm really, really happy that you feel that way, that it struck home and resonated with you. And it's interesting because I think it's correct. And I think you're taking it further with the visual. I think you're right that we can turn this into something visual that has more of an impact so that people get it. But I also think it's incredible that the city of Ontario has brought you in as the chair. It's the person with the disability. It's what the activists talk about all the time. If somebody with the disability is not at the decision making table, it doesn't count. And you are leading the decision making table, which is phenomenal. And I know you're going to figure it out. It's going to be a learning curve, and it's going to be politics or politics and they have their own dynamics. But just the fact that you're at the table and you're able to pick your team and you're able to have this influence is really exciting. I'm sure there's going to be some good things that come amazing things that come out of it. How are you thinking about avoiding or getting people to disincentivizing them from taking these loopholes?
What's the initial strategy that you're thinking about there?
I haven't even got that far yet. Honestly, the thing that I am thinking about. Oh, yes, that was the other conversation of yours, the dealing with conflict. Who were you having the discussion with about dealing with conflict? Oh, my God. Listening to Derek talk about conflict and like hostage negotiations, that's what made me think. Or that conversation made me realize that setting up the very initial conversation with these 23 or 25 people. Right. And starting it on a note of we are in this together. We're going to share our personal experiences and the reframing questions from yes questions to no questions. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. And I actually wrote stuff down after I listened to you guys because I was going right into a conversation that I wanted it to be. I want them to say yes. Right. But I figured out how to reframe it so that it was. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because I don't really know what I'm talking about. But go back and listen to the conversation that Gus had with Derek because frame it will start to reframe how you think about asking people for help on your side.
I'll send you his book. So we have some books that we still haven't completely given away yet. So I'll send you a copy of his book. Derek is amazing. And yes, then no oriented questions are really powerful because people don't feel the pressure to answer yes to something that they may not be ready to commit to. It's always like when you say yes to something, the idea is, what have I just stepped into that? Maybe I don't want to step into. But if you reframe it as a no oriented question, it's easier for them to say it's easier for them to agree with you or to say no to something in a way that is affirming. Or if they say yes to that, then, you know, oh, this person is uncomfortable going here. Let's figure out why.
Yes. When this committee comes together, the mandate is that 50% of the committee, at a minimum, are people with disabilities. All of those people have their own lives that they can share with everybody else. That comes to the table as my number one goal is to elevate the consciousness about living with a disability for those people who are at the table that don't have disabilities. As an example, perhaps a city engineer who is representing the engineers of Ontario may not be a person with a disability and may not have experience with first hand accessibility. So my alter goal is simply educate and inform and enlightened so that that person then takes that develops a higher level of empathy, and that becomes a trickle down into the Engineering Society of Ontario or whatever it happens to be. But yeah, I'm dreaming big.
You should. You got the opportunity. It's incredible. I wonder when you talked before about your approach being from a place of positivity, this is what we're doing. Well, this is what we can improve upon. If that was if that comes from your background as a teacher, did you approach students that way, too?
I liked to. I can honestly say that I didn't always. And there are conversations that are stuck in my head that happened with students. And this is one of the reasons why I say I would not want to unlearn. Everything I've learned in the past six and a half years is because I remember when I was a student teacher giving a student feedback about their handwriting because they couldn't read what they were writing. And on my student teacher evaluation form that the kids did after I was finished my three weeks into teaching them, I'm pretty sure it was that same student said, I'm trying as hard as I can to make my handwriting neat. And I was like, oh, my God, of course they are like, why did I not know that? And that was 23 years ago. And that sticks in my head and has come up more in the past six years than it did in all of the years that I was teaching, in the 15 years that I was teaching, that people are doing the best that they can and are dealing with way more than I can see and understand.
How would you approach that student today?
If I were in that same situation today, I would have a conversation with them about it, to see if there was something that I could do to help them and then be way more accepting of them, of their abilities and look past that handwriting to what the handwriting is saying.
It's easy to start from the assumption that a student who's not performing some task the way we think they should, that they're not trying hard enough. Right. So that's great. That it's easy to say, oh, that person is slacking off. They're just being lazy. They don't want to do the work. And now you'd start it from let me assess this better to see what's actually going on.
What's going on.
Yeah.
So that we can help or just give space for it. Right. My son is almost 16. He's a boy. I was never a 16 year old boy. And I say that with like sounds like venomous, but I don't mean it to. It's just different than experience from when I was 16. And I am learning and practicing, giving him space to be who he is and to try and stop my mom version of what I want him to be or what I think he should be or the way I think he should be doing something. I'm just trying and practicing. And I say I'm practicing. I'm saying that on purpose because I don't get it right a lot of the time. Yeah.
That's courageous to say that's hard parenting is. I'm not a parent, but I see it. It's one of the hardest things that we do.
Yeah. And this is like a catch phrase. This has been a hard parenting season, this whole pandemic thing. But it has it's being hard and hard for no matter what age your kids are at, it has its challenges that we never thought we would have to be up against. Yeah. We could talk about that all day.
When do you start your role here?
So the goal is to start, I think, before the mid March. So the committee is being listed in terms of who are people we will approach. And that's the thing. Right. Just because we've got them on a list of people that we would like to ask doesn't mean they're going to say yes. So we may have a list of 30 people and 20 people might say no, and then we'll have to find other people that we would like to fill those roles. So I'll be a part of those discussions. I have a few ideas of people that I would really like to have at the table or skill sets that I would really like to have at the table. But I have a lot of reading to do things that have transpired in the past, reports that have come out in the past, the public feedback that has come back about the design of public spaces in Ontario. There's a lot of public feedback already. So I want to be very familiar with that, to see where people's biggest concerns are. And I'm looking forward to seeing where my concerns align with other public feedback.
I hope that in the next maybe I don't know what, let's give ourselves a good time frame. But hopefully in five years or three years, whatever it is, you can come back for whatever the 6th, 7th, 10th time on the show and you can come back and say, you know what? Ontario is now one of the most accessible cities in the world. And we've done all these amazing changes not only to the public spaces, but to residentially. And all of these avenues have opened up and we're just inviting more people to come and experience what a city can actually be if it's designed with accessibility in mind and inclusivity of more people.
Yeah. And I just have to correct you just because Canadians listening will be like Ontario is not a city. Ontario is a province, province.
The most accessible province.
I would love to be able to come back in two years when this process is done, to say this is what the regulations are like now and then, maybe in two years after that, to say this is how things have changed. This is what I am starting to see. And would not just be the Bee's knees.
Absolutely. Well, I would love to offline any kind of masterminding throw ideas at me, any brick walls that you run into, like let me know. I'm here to help. And I think that your project is incredible and I want to see it succeed as much as possible.
Thank you so much. I think we have lots to talk about. I especially am interested to know what happens with Ada and Loopholes because I'm sure there must be. So that will be another conversation you and I can have at some point, or you can help me connect with people. That is their thing.
Absolutely. I can definitely do that. Again, it's always a pleasure to see you, to talk to you. I think you are incredible human being. It's an honor to have you on the show. Tell us one more time, how can people connect with you? How can people find you, purchase your classes, get your books?
Yes. So Juliesatchuck CA is where you can find everything. And Satchuk is spelled Sawchuk and that's dot CA because I'm in Canada. So look me up there and I'm trying to do better at posting more on YouTube because seeing it is understanding it. At least I think it is.
And your YouTube channel is Julie Sasha.
Yes. So find me there. My most recent post is my new snow cart, which is like it's like a snowmobile, but it's electric, it's battery powered, so it doesn't pollute. And it's a little bit easier for me to get on and off of. And it doesn't go a million miles an hour. It goes like I think the top speed I got it up to was 17 km an hour, which for you is like, I don't know, maybe 8 miles an hour, like slow, so safe. But it gets me out in the winter and it gets me out in the snow and I only got stuck one time when it was really deep. My husband says, okay so don't go where it's deep. What do I do? I go down and I go back into the trees where it drifts and I get stuck. It's a good thing I had my cell phone in my pocket. My daughter answers the phone. Hey, mom, are you stuck?
Well, I definitely want to see videos of that. Hopefully as you get used to it and you get better at it, they'll come up with ones with bigger batteries that can go a little faster. Yeah, that's very cool.
Thank you so much, Gustavo, for having me. Thank you for all of the amazing podcasts you have done and all of the amazing guests that you have had. Everybody has a story that is so valuable for everybody to hear. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Julie. Thank you for listening and for giving me such amazing feedback and it's always a pleasure.
Thank you. Take care, everyone.
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