Reca Working Groups, February 2013

  • Disability, accessibility
  • Cultural development

Employment of Persons with Disabilities Group    has drafted a guide to welcoming disabled workers which has been integrated into the practical guide to accessibility «Culture and Disability» published in February 2007 by the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

The working group operates on the basis of meetings with external stakeholders; it has thus received a social donor, Paris Habitat, which offers financially accessible housing for people with disabilities and the IRH which federates the Cap Emploi (associations working for the employment of disabled people).

The group participates in meetings on the theme of “employment and disability”, such as the annual Journée du handicap organized by the Louvre as part of an agreement with the FIPHFP.

Piloting: Noëlle Barillat-Derlon (BnF), co-pilot the group with Dominique Travet (Musée du quai Branly) and Philippe Thévenon (Centre Pompidou).

The Promotion Group adapted cultural offers for people with disabilities”created a website Ariane-info gathering information for disabled visitors from participating institutions. RECA wants to transform this experimental site. In this context, the working group is considering two options:

  • maintain the RECA framework for this transformation. In this case, the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, especially on the financial level, is essential, both for the redesign and for the current administration of the site.
  • to include in the cultural agenda of Culture.fr a section containing the information of Ariane-infos and taking into account the recommendations established by the group;

The working group also organises the participation of these institutions in specialized fairs such as Autonomic, in the form of a common stand.

Piloting: Catherine Chevalier (National Museum of Natural History) and Tiphaine Jacquet (CRT Paris Ile-de-France).

The New Technology Group which combines the “New technologies and disability” laboratory at the University of Paris 8 with its approach, has initially chosen to focus its work on sign language visioguides and audioguides adapted to visually impaired visitors. He has prepared a booklet of recommendations for the design and use of each of these materials that will be integrated into the practical guide “Accessible Exhibitions” of the Collection Culture-Handicap of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. In 2012, the group wanted to work on the online needs of audiences by type of disability (visual, auditory, mental, motor).

Piloting: Marina-Pia Vitali (Louvre), co-pilot the group with Carole Roux-Derozier (BnF) and Béatrice de Parseval (CMN).

The group “Compliance of public cultural institutions with the 2005 law” was set up in early December 2006. He worked on the diagnosis imposed by the law, the specifications of this diagnosis, the existing providers and the modalities of implementation of the work. A Building Compliance Monitoring Table for RECA members has been established. The Working Group has also developed its concerted action on the accessibility of websites and, more recently, on the redesign of the “Museums and Monuments” evaluation grids of the Tourism and Disability label.

Piloting: Sandrine Sophys-Véret (MCC/SG/SCPCI/DEDAC).

The working group “Appraisal offers and facilities offered to people with disabilities”was created in 2011. This group includes both specialists in mediation with disabled audiences and professionals in surveys of audiences in cultural institutions. The group decided to launch various exploratory surveys in a dozen member cultural institutions of the RECA (museums, monuments, libraries and places of performing arts). Survey programs are broken down by type of disability (visual, intellectual, auditory and motor). They aim to:

  • improve the knowledge of people with disabilities (practices, social composition, motivations, representations, etc.) and analyse their reception of the adapted mediation mechanisms and offers offered by cultural institutions;
  • experiment with survey methodologies through different protocols implemented for each disability, seeking to collect the voice of persons with disabilities.

Piloting: Claude Godard (CMN), co-pilot the group with the Ministry of Culture and Communication (SG/SCPCI/DEDAC and DGPat/DPB).

Steering of the Evaluation WG for the period 2011/2013: Claude Godard (CMN), co-pilot the group with the Ministry of Culture and Communication (Sandrine Sophys-Véret, SG/SCPCI/DEDAC and Didier Gorce, DGPat/DPB).
RECA/MCC Scientific Committee: Christophe Evans (BPI), Claude Godard (CMN), Frédérique Lafon (MNHN), Didier Gorce (DGPat/DPP), Anne Jonchery (DGPat/DPP), Sandrine Sophys-Veret (SG/DEDAC).
- 1st phase of study: Evaluation approach concerning the visually handicapped public in relation to adapted cultural offers in
RECA institutions.
This investigation was the subject of a study contract signed between the Ministry of Culture and Communication and Cindy Lebat, Cultural Mediation Research Officer, who wrote the report. It was led by the RECA Evaluation Group.
  Synthesis, protocol 1, annex protocol 1, protocol 2

- 2nd phase of study: Commitment of Protocol 1 of the evaluation process concerning the public with a mental handicap in the face of adapted cultural offers in the RECA institutions.
 Presentation of the evaluation approach/ Intellectually challenged audiences.

Steering of the Evaluation WG for the period 2013/2015: Fadi Boustani (Quai Branly museum) and Christophe Evans (BPI), co-pilot the group.
RECA/MCC Scientific Committee: Christophe Evans (BPI), Fadi Boustani (Musée du Quai Branly) Frédérique Lafon (MNHN), Didier Gorce (DGPat/DPP), Anne Jonchery (DGPat/DPP), Sandrine Sophys-Veret (SG/DEDAC).
- 2nd phase of study (continued): Monitoring and finalisation of Protocol 1 of the evaluation process concerning the mentally handicapped population in relation to the adapted cultural offers in RECA establishments.

First steps