[nabs-l] crisis textline volunteering and thoughts on accessible webinar sites?

[Sam Nelson]

Hi everyone, 

 I'm currently involved in a volunteer training for crisis textline, a
nonprofit organization that provides a text services most often used by
teenagers where they can text in and receive emotional support and crisis
intervention similar to a hotline  minus the calling on the phone. 

 Anyway the staff and trainers are excellent and committed to providing
accessible service. 

 Unfortunately this was their first experience using go to webinar, branched
off go to meeting. So they didn'[t know the accessibility nightmare it was.
We found that out quickly! They have no desire to help the blind at all I
and others called and found that out. 

 Luckely the crisis line live platform for actually service to users is
totally accessible as is their website. This is just for the training piece
of it, as all training is done remotely and they train like at least eighty
people at a time. 

 Louckely as well they  can use Uber conference, which works very well but
can't hold the number of participants that go to webinar can and doesn't
have the  ability for trainers to share their webcam. However  in my case
the work around we came up with was for the trainers to be on both uber
conference and go to webinar at the same time so I could verbally talk  to
them, the others wouldn't hear me. Everything else could be done on the chat
part of the crisis text line site which works fine. 

 We fnally figured this out after a nhtmare week! But now I'm extremely
happy and totally impressed with their commitment and resourcefulness. 

 They're looking forward to fixing this issue totally and getting more
blind/ visually impaired people on board which is  partly why I'm writing
this to let you guys know  about the great volunteer opportunity from home. 

 The site is: 

 www.crisistextline.org 

  Lastly and where I need your input, the trainer and I are searching for
more accessible services both for the blind and anyone using them. I heard
about talking communities and sent her info on that. Does anyone have
thoughts on other services or is talking communities the best one out there?


 Thanks so much! 

 Sam 

 

Check out my blog 

 Matterstosam.wordpress.com 

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