Spotlight: Quiet Rooms
For many disabled people, a quiet space to lie down is essential for them to participate in events.
At a festival, conference day, or series of events or workshops, many disabled people would struggle to attend for a full day. If a quiet room was offered, it would mean the difference between being able to stay for a few hours or having to go home and missing out. Quiet room provision can mean disabled people have the kind of event experience non-disabled people take for granted.
If possible, have a separate quiet room for authors and audience to prevent audiences seeing the shared space as an opportunity to talk with authors. Ensure you mention the quiet room provision in your invitation to authors.
Reference: Jeda Pearl, Jamie Hale, Elspeth Wilson, Khairani Barokka
Here are some tips for making a quiet room useful for people with various needs:
Have a range of lighting: ideally providing the room with the main lights off, and low lighting, lamps, lava lamps, fairy-lights etc, while retaining the option to make the space brighter using the main lights if people need it.
Provide camp beds, pillows, and blankets (some neurodivergent people can feel better if they can wrap a blanket around themselves).
Provide comfortable chairs and cushions which can be moved to either be gathered or create individual nooks.
Make yoga mats available for stretching and meditating.
Provide ear defenders.
Make stim toys available, including paper and pencils (drawing/scribbling can be a stim).
Provide easy access to water.
Have a charging station with appropriate wires (being able to charge noise-cancelling headphones and mobiles can be vital to disabled people).
Use signs inside and outside saying ‘no photography’ and ‘no unnecessary conversation, as this is not a social space’.
Have good ventilation for pandemic safety.
Have staff available to monitor the room.
Ensure the Quiet Room is a short distance from accessible toilets.
If possible, provide a space that people can enter and lock for privacy, for carrying out medical procedures such as medication, injections, blood glucose testing, ventilation and suctioning etc. Organisations shouldn’t expect people to use the toilets for this, as it’s unhygienic.
Reference: Jamie Hale