CATA’s Commitment to I.D.E.A.

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility

Community Access to the Arts (CATA) nurtures and celebrates the creativity of people with disabilities through shared experiences in the arts.

CATA is an arts organization committed to social change: We strive to expand public perceptions of disability and to open minds to the powerful abilities of people with disabilities.We advocate with program partners and disability-based agencies for the right of all people with disabilities to express themselves creatively and artistically. And we advocate to our cultural partners—museums, theaters, and cultural institutions—for the full inclusion of people with disabilities as artists as well as audience members.

We believe every person, regardless of race, ability, economic status, neurodivergence, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, religion, or any other group identity, deserves self-expression as a human right. Every human being has a deep well of creativity inside them, along with an innate desire to express who they are and what they feel, think, believe.

In order to support people with disabilities and their families, we are committed to building upon CATA’s history of inclusive art practices and to acknowledging the barriers to artistic engagement that many people face due to disability, income, and race. People with disabilities have traditionally been excluded from mainstream arts opportunities—and structural barriers have been even greater for low-income and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) with disabilities and those at the intersection of multiple subordinated group identities.

We put our commitment to under-resourced populations in action by:

CATA is committed to:

• • • Placing cultural equity, anti-ableism, and antiracism at the core of our organizational culture through substantive learning and formal, transparent policies.

• • • Centering the voices of people with lived experience of disability and inequity and making them co leaders in our work through authentic partnerships.

• • • Engaging and recruiting people with disabilities from underrepresented groups as CATA artists, and ensuring that opportunities are provided equitably across all group identities and across the spectrum of wealth and income.

• • • Providing opportunities equitably regardless of ability to pay: We provide all of our workshops at significantly reduced, subsidized fees, and provide programs entirely free of charge when cost is a barrier to participation. Participants receiving EBT, WIC, and Connector Care benefits can attend programs for free. We foreground candid conversations about costs in our ongoing communication with partners, families, and artists so that we can proactively offer to waive or reduce fees where needed.

• • • Building trusting partnerships and relationships with disability agencies, families, and other organizations, encouraging candid feedback, listening carefully, and using feedback and insights from partners and participants to drive growth, adaptation, and innovation in our programs. We value the perspectives of others and work to incorporate diverse perspectives into all facets of our work—our leadership, our planning, our programs—to build a stronger and more relevant organization.

• • • Requiring robust training in cultural competency, diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion for all staff, board, and faculty.

• • • Inclusive curriculum development: Faculty and staff are trained in and apply Universal Design for Learning, autism-sensitive teaching, and trauma-informed teaching so that workshops are inclusive and engaging for all.

As part of our ongoing, proactive commitment to putting inclusion at the center of all our work, CATA recently provided on-site training for our staff and faculty, led by Jenna Gabriel, an expert consultant who specializes in art and disability. Her two-day intensive, “Foundations of Anti-Ableism: Expanding Understandings of Disability and Navigating Complexity,” explored ableism and anti-ableism and explained concepts of disability as a social and cultural identity. Gabriel delved into history to show how ableist ideas are pervasive in the arts, and presented strategies for developing and upholding anti-ableist programming by centering the disability experience in artistic creation. The workshops were followed by small-group and virtual coaching sessions that addressed faculty artists’ specific curricula and practice. This hands-on training was so successful that we expanded it to the entire staff, including all administrative staff as well as full-time resident faculty, and we are now considering providing a separate training for CATA’s board of directors.

We recognize that this work must be ongoing and that the list above is just a beginning. We are committed to leading with our mission, to make good on the promise of inclusion that is at the heart of all we do. The vision of an inclusive, equitable, and just community drives us forward as we continue on this path. We will share our progress and we invite the community to hold CATA accountable and to join us as partners in this vital work.