In Beyond Expectations, Waterloo Pharmacy’s strategic plan, the Pharmacy team identified a goal of “maintaining an environment and culture that empowers faculty, staff, and students to reach their potential and enables the achievement of the mission and vision of the School.”
Part of this empowerment means ensuring universal access the public spaces that make up the School. As part of their steps toward this goal, Waterloo Pharmacy engaged the services of the Rick Hansen Foundation for an accessibility assessment of the School’s physical spaces.
The Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certificationprogram works to help improve accessibility of the built environment in Canada by sending assessors to review the design of buildings, taking into consideration elements like accessible entrances, parking, seating and much more. In January 2020, the Government of Ontario partnered with the Rick Hansen Foundation to provide complimentary accessibility ratings to 250 organizations in 14 municipalities. Waterloo Pharmacy was a successful applicant, and the assessment took place in late 2020.
A report with recommendations was provided to School leadership and a scorecard is publicly available on the Foundation website where the School of Pharmacy is listed as a certified worksite.
“We are proud to have received favourable assessment and look forward to addressing the recommendations from the Rick Hansen Foundation to further improve the accessibility of our spaces,” says Andrea Edginton, Hallman Director.
The School of Pharmacy is the first unit at the University of Waterloo to complete a Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification. Waterloo Pharmacy is the anchor institution for the Health Sciences Campus in downtown Kitchener.