At Salt + Light Media, we're committed to removing barriers to those who may otherwise find it difficult to access our TV programming, website, and other ways we communicate. In our operations, mission, and vision, we take to heart the principles laid out in the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) Accessibility Reporting Regulations and the Accessible Canada Act (ACA): we affirm the dignity of all people, we celebrate their differences, we uphold their right to meaningful job opportunities, and cherish their freedom to tell the stories of their lives. We seek to deepen our relationships with disability service organizations, advocacy groups, and all those with varying abilities and disabilities.

Such relationships are at the heart of our plan to improve our accessibility. We hope to listen deeply to everyone we encounter. The first step in every part of our plan is to proactively ask what our partners need from us, and then discern what accommodations we are capable of offering. This includes the potential needs of prospective and current employees, television interview subjects, viewing audiences, and other partners. In addition, we're mindful of the accessibility of our Montreal and future Toronto offices, our procedures for interviews and filming, the presentation of our public-facing TV and online content, and the way we work together internally as an organization.

Feedback

We always welcome comments and suggestions. Here are the ways you can get in touch with us:

Our Accessibility Assistant, Matthew Neugebauer, can be reached at [email protected]. Matthew will receive your feedback, and sort out what to do next.

We will do our best to address feedback as soon as possible, and acknowledge all comments within one (1) workday. If we need more time to resolve the issue, we'll make sure to let you know. We welcome your input and will take it into account.

Please tell us if you experience any barriers during your time with us. If you run into a specific issue, provide as many important details as you can, especially the platform, date, webpage or program, and anything else that might help us locate the concern. Except for anonymous feedback, we'll always acknowledge that we received your submission.

In addition to responding to feedback as it comes in, we'll review this plan on a regular basis. To learn more, visit our Accessibility Feedback page.

Executive Summary

Our goal is to continually review and improve the accessibility of the following areas:

1. Employment
2. The Built Environment
3. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
4. Communication, other than ICT
5. The Procurement of Goods, Services, and Facilities
6. The Design and Delivery of Programs and Services
7. Transportation

We plan to achieve these goals through a range of actions and approaches:

• We are open to more training and skills development for our employees, such as online workshops on bias and false assumptions, and ways to improve our internal communication. 
• We will work to incorporate the latest accessibility standards and best practices in television broadcasting, distribution, and production, web design, and internal and external communications technologies as best as we can.
• We will prioritize partners who also uphold these standards, and seek to tell more stories of those in the disability community.
• We continue to develop a welcoming, team-focused culture, where employees, partners, and friends of Salt + Light Media are encouraged to tell us what accommodations they need, such as building requirements, hardware, software, audio/visual equipment, and other workplace technologies.
• In 2023, we began an in-depth staff consultation process, which will continue and include questions about accessibility and accommodations.
• It's worth reiterating: at the heart of our plan, we will proactively ask employees and partners what they need from us.

We are committed to meeting the requirements of Level AA conformance as set out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We routinely conduct reviews of this page and our website to confirm such conformance, and take the necessary steps to address any issues that we find.

Monitoring Progress

Along with responding to any feedback we get throughout the year, we will review this plan annually every summer. This review will include consultations with partners in the disability community.

Consultations

Canada's Catholic community is blessed with a rich diversity of people, including those with different abilities and accessibility challenges. Thanks to the wide range of Catholic charities and organizations, we also have access to so much expertise and wisdom relating to those with disabilities. We reached out to a number of Canadian Catholic organizations, members of the disability community and their advocates, and met with them online. We also spoke with a former employee of Salt + Light Media who experienced our accessibility accommodations first-hand. We're grateful to everyone who offered guidance and feedback during this process.

When we developed this plan, we also researched what similar Canadian broadcasters do, and that of St. Joseph Communications, a Canadian print and online media company that was owned by our Founder, Mr. Gaetano Gagliano. We also included a notice in our monthly e-blasts with an email address where anyone can send in feedback and ideas.

After consultation and research, we opted to focus our plan on building relationships, taking the initiative to dialogue and ask questions, and committing to adaptability and flexibility. We discerned this was best for us given our current size and scope.

Alternate formats

If you'd like this feedback process description in the following formats, please let us know using one of the “ways to provide feedback” above. 

• Print
• Large print (PDF Document)
• Braille
• Audio

We'll get them to you as soon as we can. If you'd like to request a specific format that we didn't list, let us know as well.

1. Employment

Current state

Our diverse staff is open to accommodating new employees with a range of accessibility needs. We're happy to listen to new and potential employees if they're willing to supply whatever information they think they should, and we're willing to provide reasonable accommodations to anyone who can fulfill our job requirements. We're intentional about fostering an open, collaborative work environment, where we encourage employees to give honest feedback to their supervisors and express their needs.

All job applications are sent electronically, and interviews are done through online video conferencing. We are regulated by Canadian federal law and compliant with their standards.

Our plan

• We will proactively ask prospective employees what accommodations they might need. We will include that request in the job posting and description, during the interview process, and at other times.
• Over the next year, we will explore collaboration with Church partners and other disability organizations to share job listings, identify potential employees, and provide feedback on the accessibility of our working environment.
• In our usual staff consultation process, we'll include the following questions and evaluate what we can do in response to them: If you have accessibility needs, are they being met? Does our workplace culture encourage staff to tell us about their accessibility needs? How can we better foster that culture?
• We're open to more training and skills development, such as online workshops on bias and false assumptions.

2. The Built Environment

Current state

All of our Toronto staff currently work remotely, with the arrangements they have available at home. The one exception is a small number of employees processing mail at a wheelchair-accessible office space. 

Our Montreal-based employees currently have access to a space owned by a Church partner, which is accessible but has a relatively long route through their complex. Montreal-based office staff have the option of a hybrid remote-office arrangement.

Most of our filming occurs on-location, while some filming is done in a studio at the same wheelchair-accessible office space in Toronto. We have experience accommodating production staff and freelancers with a range of accessibility needs.

Our Plan

After the covid-19 pandemic, we learned to value the advantages of working remotely while also enjoying the inclusive collaboration and camaraderie that a shared office space encourages.

• As always, we'll proactively ask employees, guests, and interview subjects what they need from us.
• We're currently pursuing options for a new Toronto office and will ensure that it meets required accessibility standards and the needs of our employees and guests.

3. Information and communication technologies (ICT)

Since we're a media organization, we use digital tools to communicate externally with our audience as well as internally as a staff, as an essential part of the way we work together. We're using that distinction in this accessibility plan to make it clearer for readers.

Current state (external)

Our website has large, clear images, and supports external screen-reading software. The site also features a UserWay widget, which lets users switch different features on or off depending on their accessibility needs. The widget helps our site to be compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards, but more work needs to be done. Our consultation partners told us that UserWay is likely our best option to meet accessibility needs and be free to design our site the way we want at the same time. That being said, an accessibility scanning and monitoring tool raised some areas that require attention. As a first step, we are using UserWay's tool to fix some of the underlying code.

Our Plan (external)

While we were preparing this plan, our web experience expert was in the process of going through all of our pages with this accessibility scanning and monitoring tool. We are committed to bringing our site into full compliance with WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards and will make the necessary updates recommended by the tool. This will happen in a few stages:

• Short-term: we will prioritize our most popular pages, since those are also the ones that members of the accessibility community will likely want to access most; we'll also introduce additions to our workflow such as crafting descriptive text for images in our blog.
• Medium-term: we'll then proceed to pages with less traffic, and incorporate more accessibility considerations into our web and graphic design, such as fonts and colours.
• Long-term, but starting now: we hope to develop the habit of including accessibility needs in our web and graphic design. This includes running a monthly scan with an AI tool that recommends changes, and making those changes as they come up. We'll also find out if some of those changes can be automated to make our site as accessible as possible, as quickly as possible.

All this being said, one piece of advice from our consultations was that descriptive text and other accommodations might hinder accessibility for some readers rather than improve it. We'll be mindful of this possibility and be open to finding compromises and workable solutions. As always, we're open to feedback, suggestions, and new ideas.

Current state (internal)

Our Production team and office staff communicate with a range of mobile and digital tools. This includes Slack, text, phone, email, and regular Zoom and Google Meet Meetings. We're currently moving toward shorter, more streamlined, and consistent departmental meetings.

Much of our working environment is online, including the Google Office Suite environment. These tools conform to the latest web accessibility standards, such as WCAG 2.0 Level AA. and Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Suite.

We currently have a number of large monitors available, either for work-from-home arrangements or in-office.

Our Plan (internal)

We expect that a major request for accessibility accommodations is software and workplace technologies. We've anticipated these requests in our budgeting for office supplies. We continue to be open for employees to express what accommodations they need, and will proactively ask where we can.

We're working towards shorter, more streamlined meetings, which help our neurodiverse employees stay engaged and productive in them. We're happy to receive ongoing feedback about how to improve them, as part of our wider commitment to fostering a workplace culture that encourages employees to express their needs. One possible change is that longer meetings might include breaks and check-ins. We're also looking into recording meetings and transcript technology.

4. Communication, other than ICT

For this section, we understand that it's mainly about the ways we communicate externally with our audience, but in this case focused on marketing and fundraising tools like social media, emails, print mailings, swag and other materials that we bring to in-person events. We also include the internally-managed aspects of our streaming service, Salt + Light Plus, where subscribers can watch our programs live and on-demand.

Current state

Our English and French programming on Salt + Light TV is entirely closed captioned. Most of the videos on our online streaming service, Salt + Light Plus, have closed captioning. Our marketing emails and social media posts combine evocative images with our plain-language text.

We offer a wide range of ways to provide feedback. Click here to find out more.

Our Plan

• We're currently reviewing and refreshing our email marketing strategy. We will include accessibility standards and concerns in that review.
• We're also developing new swag and print materials for mailings and events. We will explore options for wider audiences, including those with different accessibility needs.

5. Procurement of goods, services and facilities

Current state and plan

Our procurement mainly includes licensing and purchasing shows for broadcast and streaming, software, computer equipment, TV production equipment, office and studio space, and other services. We're also working with a third party to develop a new page for Salt + Light Plus and an app for various phone operating systems.

• When we're choosing between different vendors, and their products and services, we'll use vendors' own accessibility standards as a primary consideration.
• We'll make sure the new Salt + Light Plus page and apps are compatible with the accessibility features of the various phone operating systems (for example, see Apple's features here), and comply with accessibility standards.
• We'll do an accessibility scan of the Salt + Light Plus page and apps alongside the ongoing monthly scan of our main site.
• When we license shows for broadcast and streaming from other production companies, we always look for them to provide versions with closed captioning or described video if they have it available. If those versions aren't available, we do the closed captioning ourselves.

6. Design and delivery of programs and services

Current state

Programming

Our engaging, plain-language programs use large, clear, and simple images and graphics, and on-screen text on our TV broadcasts are also simple and clear. We tell relatable, inspiring stories, and sometimes host more in-depth conversations. We also make SLHour, our audio-only podcast featuring stirring messages, insightful interviews, and uplifting music.

We have acquired and produced programs about members of the disability community and their advocates, many are still available in our Salt + Light Plus catalogue. Two examples from the last year are the documentary we acquired called Claire Aime ou la joie de vivre, and a segment from one of our own shows about building Church communities that welcome those with disabilities.

Scheduling

We're especially mindful of the viewing habits and needs of elderly viewers. We recently responded quickly and concretely to feedback from viewers in seniors' residences and others about our daily schedule. The changes we made to our schedule were gratefully received by our audience.

Closed captioning and described video:

All English and French programming on Salt + Light TV has closed captioning, and complies with Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission (CRTC) standards. Come September 1, 2024, Salt + Light TV will begin offering at least 4 hours per week of described video programming. We can include closed-captioning on our streaming service if we have the file available. 

Our Plan

We're always looking for new stories to tell about the diverse range of Catholics in Canada and throughout the world. This includes communities of those with accessibility needs. We're also always open to feedback through the contact info listed above. 

As we continue to build relationships across the Catholic media landscape, we hope to open up new opportunities for organizations to partner with us. We commit to dialogue with all our interview subjects and the communities they represent. Here are some ways we plan to do that:

• We will proactively ask interview subjects and community partners what they need from us, so we can tell their stories in more authentic and inspiring ways.
• We're developing a page on our website for independent producers and production companies to pitch programs, submit story ideas, and let us know if they have a program that can air on our channel. Members of the disability, Black, and Indigenous communities are very welcome to connect with us there.
• We will continue to be on the lookout for compelling stories featuring members of the disability community for our in-house programs and third-party acquisitions.
• We will reach out to partner organizations and potential story and interview subjects for more ideas and feedback.
• We will invite accessibility and disability organizations to assess this accessibility plan every year, which we hope will deepen our relationships with them and open up opportunities to develop content.

7. Transportation

Current state

We understand this section to mainly apply to organizations that include transportation services as an important part of what they do. This isn't a major part of what we do, except for a van that we occasionally use to transport production teams to filming locations. It is large enough to fit a walker or other foldable mobility aids. Also, the production team includes transportation in their plans for filming on location.

Our Plan

• As mentioned in the “Built environment” section, we will ensure that our offices and any filming locations have accessible parking as much as possible.
• If we have an employee that needs accessible transportation to a filming location or an external event, we will include that in our planning for those. We will make sure any other staff traveling with this employee are trained and able to help.