Ask About - The Northeast ADA Service Animal Toolkit

In this episode of Ask About the ADA, Christopher Sweet of the Northeast ADA joins Joe Zesski in talking about a service animal resource created by the Northeast ADA center, Service Animals in Public Spaces. For a transcript of today's episode, please visit the Ask About the ADA podcast feed on BuzzSprout.

This resource is for businesses and individuals who use service animals so that each know their rights and responsibilities to access in public places. The toolkit can be found on the Northeast ADA website or at www.serviceanimalquestions.org.

Transcript

JOE ZESSKI: Hello. Welcome to Ask About The ADA, the podcast where we answer your questions about the Americans With Disabilities Act and how it affects your everyday life. On this edition of Ask About The ADA, I'm joined by Chris Sweet, technical assistance and outreach from the Northeast ADA Center. We're going to talk about a new product developed by the Northeast ADA. 
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Chris, thank you for joining us here today. 
CHRIS SWEET: Thank you. 
JOE ZESSKI: Now, I know we've touched on service animals in the past. How often do you get questions about it at the Northeast ADA Center? 
CHRIS SWEET: Well, we honestly probably get anywhere from four to five, six calls a week coming from a wide range of constituents. It might be somebody who's looking to get a service animal. It might be somebody who's a business wondering what their rights and responsibilities are, as well as just general questions might be from a college with an inquiry around service animals in campus housing. 
JOE ZESSKI: So it's a lot of different settings. It's not just from individual people, but it sounds like from different types of organizations and groups and businesses, like you were saying. 
CHRIS SWEET: Yeah, no. That's correct. That's correct. And you know, a lot of it is just people living out in the world, and service animals are becoming more prevalent, and people are curious. 
JOE ZESSKI: I think that helped lead us at the Northeast ADA to develop a toolkit. And I know you actually were the primary writer for the toolkit. It's something that just went live on our website over this past summer in 2022. 
And for those people who are interested, you can either go to our website to click on the toolkit, or-- which is called Service Animals and Public Spaces-- or you can go to serviceanimalquestions.org to visit it. Maybe, Chris, could tell us a little bit more about what's in the toolkit. It sounds like, from what I've read and seen, it's a pretty thorough and comprehensive toolkit, but also pretty compact and pretty navigable. 
CHRIS SWEET: Yeah, it's really meant to be user friendly. And it has four different tools, one being what is a service animal, so just identifying what a service animal is. And that's a broad question for a lot of folks. 
JOE ZESSKI: It is. And I know there's a lot of confusion around that. We know we've talked a couple-- asked about the questions around trying to understand what a service animal is and is not. 
CHRIS SWEET: Exactly. And what the toolkit does is it offers a playbook, which is going to give you the primary information that you need. It offers you some scenarios, so that you can maybe get a better understanding of what kind of things might be happening in the community or what you might come upon, especially if you're a business, which is this was geared toward. 
And then it has a test. And then with the other modules, you have service animals in the community. And it talks about what the rules are. What are the responsibilities of a business owner or an employee, and then what are the responsibilities of a service animal user. 
And then we have the case of a business success, so talking about what the economic engine is for people with disabilities. That they are valued, that they are customers, and that you opening up your business to them and understanding what service animals are and not turning them away, how that's going to be valuable to your business. And then etiquette. How do you interact with these service animals while they are in your establishment. 
JOE ZESSKI: You mentioned along the way that there was a test in the first section. Are there tests at the end of each of those different sections you highlighted? 
CHRIS SWEET: Absolutely. There'll be a test for each section. And the good thing about this toolkit is it really can be a training tool for your employees, not just the business owner themselves. And so if you are hiring folks and you know you have service animals in the community and you want to make sure that your staff understand what their responsibilities are and how they are going to interact, you can use this as a training tool. 
JOE ZESSKI: That's wonderful. And I think it's going to be a very useful tool for a lot of different people. Again, you can find it on the Northeast ADA website, northeastada.org. Please come and visit it and check it out. Chris, thanks for introducing this to us, and I'm sure a lot of people are going to find it valuable. 
CHRIS SWEET: Thanks, Joe. Happy to be here. 
JOE ZESSKI: And if you have any other questions that you'd like to have answered about the Americans With Disabilities Act, please feel free to call us at the Northeast ADA. You may well speak with Chris himself. Our phone number is 1-800-949-4232. 
And you can also visit our website, northeastada.org, to send us an email and get in touch. And of course, you can follow us on social media. Thank you to Peter Quinn, who is editing this podcast. And thank you all for listening and being part of our program. Let's continue the conversation. 
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