DDA Chats with Disability Advocate Spencer van Vloten

Success will come when advocating and fostering change in prevailing attitudes when it comes to disabilities. In this episode of DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast, we chat with well-known disability advocate Spencer van Vloten who prides himself on being a champion for the disability community.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

DDA Chats with Disability Advocate Spencer van Vloten

 

00:06

So welcome to another DDA Encouraging Abilities podcast. I'm your host, DDA Communications Manager, Evan Kelly. Today we're joined by Spencer Van Vlaten. Now, Spencer is a very well-known and outspoken member of the disability community.

 

00:20

He's the editor of BCDisability.com, a chair of Community Living BC in the Vancouver Council. He's a nationally published writer and advocate who has written or talked, rallied about countless issues that affect the disability community here and abroad. He is passionate about community living and social policy. He has been awarded the Medal of Good Citizenship by the province of BC, the City of Vancouver Excellence Award, as well as being named

 

00:50

the year, not to mention he's very active online on Twitter where we often connect. So thanks for joining us today Spencer, really nice to have you here. Yeah thanks Evan, I really appreciate the opportunity. And I have to add that it's you know in the days of post-COVID it's nice to have someone in the studio for the first time utilizing the equipment that we have here. Absolutely. So right off the top just tell us a little bit about yourself, like why are you such an advocate in the disability community?

 

01:17

Well, I'm from Vancouver and I also spent some time in Lannley growing up. I first became interested in advocacy as a kid. I have a cousin with cerebral palsy who is a few years older than me. And so I saw growing up the barriers they faced. And that led me to want to work within the disability field when I got older. And so I've done that with organizations like Easter Seals and Community Living BC.

 

01:48

As I grew up, I also began to notice more of the interconnections between issues. So, that disability justice isn't just about disability, but it also involves issues like housing and poverty reduction. Housing also involves issues like mental health. And so I became very interested in the way so many things in our society and so many of the outcomes we want to see are linked.

 

02:17

And so that led to a sort of general issue in community affairs. And at the moment, as you mentioned, I run bcdisability.com. I also run umebc.ca. I love writing on a range of different policy issues out there. And yeah, I just have a passion for inclusive communities, and I hope that's reflected in my work.

 

02:43

your own education has gone into that route as well? Oh absolutely, so I studied, well in university I studied political science. I was particularly interested in how to use you know advocacy within political channels to to achieve the outcomes we want to see and that's become a big focus of my work and I think I think ultimately you know a lot of the things that advocates are pushing for.

 

03:12

are ultimately achieved through political ends. We want our policy makers and our lawmakers to enact a certain bill that will bring into effect the candidate disability benefit or more support for youth with Down syndrome. And so my studies of political science are really linked to what I do now. I also studied sort of general studies in issues of equity.

 

03:40

and how to create inclusive communities. And so I'm really pleased that I was able to actually study in an area that I not only had a great interest in, but I've been able to work in as well. Because so many people, they do their studies in university, and they go off, and they happen to get a good job, but it's not related at all to what they studied. And so thankfully, I've been able to incorporate my education with my work. That's good. I mean, that's reaching the goal. Now just sort of jumping right into.

 

04:09

policy and things. I mean, there's a lot of things going on in Vancouver right now. There's a lot of housing issues. There's...

 

04:17

substance abuse issues, how are we doing in terms of, in those fields in your mind, in terms of even accessibility? Well, on accessibility, I think we're thinking more about accessibility lately, which is a good thing. We had our first ever, ever provincial accessibility legislation brought in just not too long ago.

 

04:47

been working on its accessibility strategy and is about to go through phase two of the consultations for that. Yeah, we're involved in that as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I know that that proce