Hearing Loss LIVE! Inclusion What We Learned

Chelle and Julia like to follow up at the end of the month a talk about what they learned from their topic of the month. And Inclusion had us learning tons.

Inclusion is figuratively a "seat at the table." That table can be
- your dining room table.
- zoom
- conference table

Inclusion happens but can still cause exclusion at:
-home
- family gathering
- work
- public venues

We talk through it all.

June 6th at 6 pm MT (adjust for your time zone) we will have Tribe Talk. Come and let's just talk.
- What are you doing this summer?
- What do you want to see more of from Hearing Loss LIVE?
- What happening with you and your hearing loss, that you want to tell others about?

Register today and bring it all: hearinglosslive.com 

Transcript

Hearing Loss LIVE! talks what we learned about inclusion. 

Julia: Good morning, and welcome to Hearing Loss LIVE! I hope you've been enjoying our content this month and sharing and liking it. We have been talking about inclusion and what that may look like in certain areas of our lives. We've had a lot of interesting thoughts pop up, I think, especially from our Talk About it Tuesdays that we hold that workshop brought a lot of insight and thought, in questions, some of the questions we can answer and some made us think about, well, how do we handle that? So you've noticed we had in our blog, we talked family. In our workshop, podcast last week, we talked inclusion in general, workplace, we talked on some public venue, we talked about bringing everybody to the table, and I'm not going to lie, that's my big takeaway this month. Bring everybody to the table for the inclusion. Bring the person who needs the accommodation, bring the management bring the people who are offering the accommodation, bring everybody to the table for a better outcome is kind of the bottom line. Chelle share some thoughts on that. Because I think it extends not just in the workplace, or a public venue. Bringing everybody to the table is family oriented, too, I'm gonna say. What that might look like and how that might help. Give us an insight Chelle. Sorry, I surprised you and you were writing. [laughter]

Chelle: I was taking a note. My note was, you know, bringing people to the table does it really have to be a physical table? It could be a quick 30 minute Zoom, Zoom meeting to line things up and get everybody in and onboard.

Julia: In family, I'm gonna go back to family because we talked about that a little bit before we jumped on. You can even have a Zoom meeting. Let's say you're going to have a family reunion. You need to have an inclusion plan that also allows exclusion. But you have to have an inclusion plan, that includes you, right. So how do you you know, so maybe that is a zoom with the host. "Hey, I need." You know, you're going to Aunt Flo's house for your family reunion Aunt Flo has a bit of land. And you know, it's got a swimming pool, and there's going to be kids, they're going to be swimming, there are going to be loud noises. There's always lots of food. But you also know that outflow swimming pool comes with, I call it a changing house. I'm not sure what it is. Where you you know, we're changing to your swimsuit or whatever little, a little guest house or I don't know, I call it a changingroom, changing whatever. Anyways. Maybe you say to Aunt Flo, there's going to be times I'm going to use that. And I'm going to ask Uncle Henry, who I haven't seen for two years, and we're going to go sit down and maybe use that as a quiet space. Or "Aunt Flo, Can I set up kind of an area in your front room where I can take two people inside and sit and talk with them," at a time and then I'm going to just exclude myself and by exclusion I mean, turn off the hearing aids, enjoy the noise, watch people for a minute. And then turn yourself back on, you know, we talk about all these things. We need hearing breaks, we need all this stuff. What are your thoughts on that Chelle? I missed out with family maybe we'll go into work a little and venue How about that? Little bit of everything?

Chelle: [laughter] Well, with my family I know I hold most the gatherings. So I hold the key. I can say what I want and don't want going. Whether it's music, turn off the TV. Turn it down, turn on captions. My home is my setup for me. So it's easy, easier to include myself at home than it is anywhere else. But when I go out, I start thinking about, Okay, what do I need to hear at this event and ask. If I register for something online, or I accept a family invitation, or go to someone, TASH, a family? I haven't seen forever. What do I need for inclusion? And I'll generally write ahead and say, you know, this is this is what I need. This is what works best for me. And you know, honestly, I've never had anybody say, no, they really do want me included. So it's not just about what I wear, when I'm going somewhere, it's how I'll hear. I'm planning ahead, because planning ahead ensures my inclusion.

Julia: True that. I do think you need to allow yourself, especially if you're new to hearing loss, and all that noise is important to you. You do need to allow yourself -- trying to come up with the word you do you need to allow yourself the grief that that's not going to be the same anymore. And that's okay. It's okay for you to be sad, or feel a little excluded, because you don't know how to fix that. It's the getting up every day and working on how you're going to fix that. That's the difference for me. And I It sounds counterintuitive. But it is important to know that sometimes that loud, not understanding everything, yelling at each other, not in a negative way, but in a positive way. That family sometimes that's what family is about. And that's what's going to be missed. And that, you know, that's going to look different and you just knowing it's going to look different. I think that's okay to know. Is that dumb? Does that sound? Am I getting across what I'm trying to say?

Chelle: Yeah, there are definitely times that I have to let go. Because it is too large of a group. I can't find who's speaking to locate them and use my lip reading strategies with them. So I just do I let go of my gosh, okay. Let me just, you know what I love to to watch body language and facial expressions. So that's what I actually sit there and do a lot of I start watching people. I'm a big people watcher, even as a kid, before hearing loss, I was people watching. So it's one of my might be side things to do to keep myself entertained. And then when the group whittles down to so many, I can I can include myself again, but this is as Julia said hearing breaks. This allows me to conserve my energy and, and recharge before I get back into the group again, too. So I absolutely look at that I do need to conserve my energy at times. 

Julia: Thank you. Um, I think we covered work pretty well last week. No? Do you want to talk more about work and inclusion? Yeah, I'm good with that. I'm good. I mean, we discussed some stuff. I thought it was pretty. I don't know. Give me your thoughts, Chelle.

Chelle: Maybe we did. I'm thinking of the blog, which we were like, Oh, my God, we could not include everything in the blog.

Julia: No. Can you imagine how long that blog would have been? Had we gone over it? We did. Well, I covered work some and maybe it's just fresh in my mind, because I've been working on some of the outtakes on it. But your employer really does want to include you. I can't help the one off employer who doesn't and is a pain. But the truth is they invest money in you to be the best you and bring your stuff to the table. But sometimes you just don't know. And I think sometimes because you don't know what you need, you think maybe your employer should know and they really don't. And so I just want to, you know, make sure people know there's a lot of places that employers can go and look up information and they should know that, especially the human resource. There's JAN, job something network. I can never remember what JAN stands for? J-A-N--

Chelle:Job Accommodation Network.

Julia: There you go, there you go. They, they do have some really good understanding and some outlines. ADA is old. But really and truly, there are some good guidance there about when to hire CART and captioning versus a notetaker. And you can't-- those are conversations that you can sit down and have with your employer. I am not going to lie. Every employers job is the bottom line. What is the most cost effective way, in your business, to provide an accommodation, meet the law.

But you also need to know they want to include you. If at the end of the day, they tell you they can't or won't, that is something you are going to have to sit down, because it is much more involved than you or I shall I can, you know, guide somebody. Sometimes they get a little lost in the law. And I don't think they do it on purpose. And I think sometimes we feel like they do. I think they just get lost. And so I'm a firm believer, you can catch more flies with honey. Or sugar-- or what is that you can catch more flies with sugar than I won't go there. Anyways. So. And I know for myself, if you tell me what you're going I'm going to do for you. And I threatened you know, I'm threatened with lawsuits. I'm gonna like try to decide if you're an employee I want what's gonna to happen next. I don't want to be accommodating when I'm having somebody

be-- I don't want to use aggressive because I want people to ask for their truth. But there's a way to go about it that brings inclusion to the table. Okay, I'll let you turn it over, Chelle. I think I finally got through. [laughter]

Chelle: Yes, I will try everything before I go to the most expensive thing, okay. I do, I want to work with people. I want to try. I'll go okay, I want an agenda. I want to be able to follow the topic. I want assistive listening, that's fairly easy. I can even provide it myself now with my Roger On technology. I want - I'll try speech to text captioning. But sometimes that speech to text can have bad hearing days like I do. [laughter] So I will go through the whole list and I have in the past. Okay, I've done everything I can to be able to participate in your event. But in the end, everything I have was not possible. My only option now is to get CART captioning, live captioning and participate. And oh my god, what a difference that makes. But I did exhaust all other possibilities first. And I'm very good about listing reasons why it didn't work and how my hearing doesn't, how my hearing works. So it's impossible to fill in holes at times and I share all this information. O probably overshare information. But I would rather them have that and pick through it, then they would be frustrated on the other end. So they because they don't understand where I'm coming from.

Julia: Well, and it sets the groundwork, right, so the next hard of hearing person who comes in and is a little lost and employer can go, "oh, we've been through some of this. Let's pull some things out and see what can work and try." I said it. I think last week. I keep saying it. Employers are investing in you. They're not going to hire you to not invest in you. It's too much money to hire somebody only to lose them because we refuse to accommodate them. This is where I'm on the fence line with all the people who say don't disclose all your stuff before the interview. Wait till you have the job. I'm not sure how I feel about that. And so I'm not going to go there. I don't know that I agree. I personally would like to know what it is you need to do to do the best job for me, because I want to, I want to retain you. That's enough of me as an employer. But I think our biggest inclusion hurdle and I don't know that I have all the answers for this one is public venues. Public venues will

follow what they feel and their lawyers feel is the letter of the law. And they will do it for the least amount of money. They may or may not have a financial gain by you visiting their venue. I don't know how else to say that right now. Some of their abilities are going to be dependent on how well their grant writers are, they depend a lot, especially if it's an organization on grant money. Some are very open to everything and providing everything but most are just going to do, what will not

get him sued, okay, or if you know, I don't know how to say that. But what I want to know, because it's very disheartening. I think this is something we witnessed this last month. When it patron tries to-- patron Patreon, however, you say that-- asked for their accommodation, because they want to be included. And they want to intend that event. And the venue says, "sorry, this is all we have to provide you, too bad." And I don't want those people don't walk away and say I banged my head against the wall for no reason. Because, I know this is tiring-- oh, I'm sorry. We ran out of time fast. How did they do that? Sorry, guys. I know it's tiring. But I do want you to know, at the end of the day, because you banged your head against the wall, maybe the next person who comes up behind you and bangs their head against the wall will make a difference. And maybe it's the person behind them that makes the difference. When we speak what we need, and we and when we feel nobody's listening, which can happen quite often, right, we set up a better

next time. I really do believe that the end of the day, that's going to make a difference. It is going to help. Chelle You said this this month, it doesn't need to be at a legislative level. It doesn't need to be you as a lobbyist going in. It needs to be you as a person. Letting people know what you need to be included. And and then go to your tribe and talk about the frustrations share it with somebody in a safe space so that you can you know whatever because maybe it didn't work out at the end of the day. And and get back up and write that person on why it didn't work. Thank you. But no thank you. I probably won't participate in the future until you can figure out how to change this. Then the next person who walks in and says this is great, but it's not what I need to be included.

And does it

trickle effect right it continues down and down and then maybe you're lucky and somebody gets replaced. And they go wait a minute. I heard about a grant somewhere. It's looking like Chelle's got a story. [laughter]

Chelle: I do. You know that this is the Salt Lake acting company. Five Six years ago I attended and I tried to advocate for myself. Sit up front hoping I could lipread some of the actors but when their back is turned to you, or they were wearing masks for that play. I was like crap there's no lipreading a play. There isn't and the most I got at that time was oh, well let you read the script after, you know after I'd already seen the play and I did to make the point and I went in, made a made an appointment and sat down and read the script. But it's not the same as when it's happening. So actually I never went back. I was like, no, this is inaccessible to me, I did attend another theater, the Eccles Theatre here who does Broadway musicals, and they caption one showing. So I did that for a little while. And when people do that, and I attend I share on social media, I share with friends, I this place is accessable. So back Salt Lake Acting Company. All of a sudden, they did have open captions showings. And it's because somebody else came in and took over. And they attended workshops on accessibility work, not just hearing loss, but all kinds of different things. And a pandemic came along and gave her time to pursue grants. And so now, I'm back at Salt Lake acting company, I liked their place better. I'm not a big musical person. Maybe it's because the, the lyrics are always hidden behind the music. So I can never really truly understand the music. And so I like Salt Lake Acting Company, I share them. I'm I will do I will work with them. However I can I support them. I buy season tickets, because of that inclusion. So maybe if one place isn't doing it, try another and again, like Julia said, maybe they'll hire somebody else. And all of a sudden, it will be assessable. 

Julia: Thank you.

And that wasn't even us, like letting them know, gee, we wish he had that. In fact, I think when you first tried Salt Lake Acting Company, live theater captioning was still still new to the whole industry too, at the same time. That's a lot of what venues did. They have FM systems. And you guys aren't a fan of their FM system. And not I'm not degrading it. It's it's, it's just doesn't work for you for that venue. Which is fine, That, that, you know, again, that's where everybody has their own hearing loss truth. You could have the exact same hearing loss as your best friend, but your ability to hear on this system versus theirs is going to be different based on a whole lot of stuff, right? Anything else before I close this out? Okay, appreciate it. We went a little over, we're sorry. But we're not sorry. Because we feel there's so much information that we can share on inclusion. We could probably do a full year. Just talking inclusion, we didn't even realize, well, we've had a bunch of this every month. We're like, oh, we could go on and on and on and on. But we hope you're -- enjoying our series, we have decided we need to be a little more laid back next month, we've been pretty intense with this workshop series. We want you to join us on June 6-- hold on, we're all gonna get our calendars and I'm gonna put my glasses on so I can actually see. Yep, June 6th. And now I'm gonna knock stuff over. So I'm sorry. Try this again! Join us June 6th at 6pm Mountain Time, so you have to adjust for your timezone. And we are going to have a tribe talk is what I'm going to call it. I want to sit down and find out your thoughts on what we did so far this year for these first 6 months. What do you want more of in the future? Maybe what is it? What is it you're up to this summer? What what do you want tribe to maybe? What questions do you have for us? What advice for what you're doing and how you're going to do it? And your thoughts? Maybe it's just questions about our classes and what we're going to be doing this fall or Chelle's new hearing aids? Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, I saw her point to her feet. Oh, I saw her point to her ear. So everything. Everything. For those of you watching on this route, we're assigning to each other by the way. And sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't. But [laughter] speaking for myself. So we hope you enjoy us. Remember to share and like. Look for classes coming out this fall. We're going to add a couple more. We want you to learn better lipreading skills, and we'll have more classes on that. So. Thanks for watching. Bye!!