Disability Access Affinity Group

(An Affinity Group of the Multicultural and Diversity Committee of the ADTA)

Mission Statement

The Disability Access Affinity Group (DAAG) will serve as a disability-centered and accessible community space to connect and share mutual support with each other. DAAG aims to improve accessibility and inclusion for all dance/movement therapists through interdependent fellowship, education, mentorship, and sustainable advocacy. We celebrate the healing wisdom of all bodyminds and imagine a post-ableist dance/movement therapy theory and practice.

Who is DAAG?

Dance/movement therapists (both ADTA members and nonmembers) who identify as disabled, Hard of Hearing, Deaf, Blind, visually impaired, mad, sick, chronically ill, neurodivergent, crip, and/or live with a disability (visible or invisible, physical, developmental, mental, emotional, or learning), hearing differences, vision differences, chronic illness, chronic pain, neurodiversity, cognitive processing difficulties, mental illness, mental, emotional, or physical health condition, and/or survived or are currently surviving the medical industrial complex.

Organizing Principles

 DAAG dance/movement therapists are helping our field to question the false dichotomy between client and therapist and confront our capitalist conditioning of over-productivity that consistently leads to burnout. DAAG envisions a profession that cares for each other where no one is left behind. We are creating spaces where it is normalized for us to celebrate our resilient capacity to adaptively prioritize sustainable and interdependent care practices for our nonconforming bodyminds. Therefore, we are committed to anti-capitalism, cross-disability solidarity, cross-movement organizing, recognizing wholeness including intersectionality, and collective access and liberation. (https://www.sinsinvalid.org/blog/10-principles-of-disability-justice)

Objectives

1. Collaboratively create and hold community space to share lived experiences of disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent, sick, dance/movement therapists and engage in community care and mutual peer support.
2. Increase disability visibility and representation within the ADTA, including how DAAG dance/movement therapists practice.
3. Educate and support ADTA membership to dismantle ableism within dance/movement therapy theory and practice. Provide non judgemental mentorship or peer support spaces for DAAG members to uproot internalized ableism.
4. Encourage, create, and distribute accessible dance/movement therapy research, resources, and practices to the wider ADTA community to education programs, during the conference, and within the AJDT.
5. Compile and share disability history within the ADTA, as contextualized by the Disability Rights Movement and Disability Justice.
6. Ensure the ADTA is improving accessibility and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance, while also advocating to meet access needs beyond logistical concerns, including intersectional aspects of lived experiences such as language, financial complications due to illness/uphold economic justice, age, need for child care, and impact of systemic oppression (race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, etc). This will be done at a sustainable pace in order to respect and protect the time and energy of DAAG members.
7. Advocate for scholarships or sliding scale dues, acknowledging that health complications can lead to limited dance/movement therapy hours and financial insecurity.

If you resonate with any of the above and would like to join us, please contact: [email protected]