Become a Certified Cultural Access Practitioner
Improve your practice. Strengthen your organization. Transform our sector.
Build the knowledge, tools, and confidence to embed accessibility throughout cultural organizations and help create experiences where disabled people can fully participate, contribute, lead, and belong.
Designed specifically for arts and culture professionals, this is a national, disability-centered professional certification for people working across museums, performing arts organizations, festivals, libraries, public art programs, arts education, cultural agencies, and other cultural settings.
Overview
Certification Overview
Cultural access needs informed, confident leaders.
Accessibility is not one service, one program, or one person’s responsibility. It belongs in an organization’s policies, practices, spaces, services, communications, programs, and everyday decisions.
Led by disabled cultural access experts, this first-of-its-kind national certification combines disability-centered knowledge, legal responsibilities, recognized practices, and practical strategies for creating meaningful organizational change. It is designed both for people entering the work and for practitioners ready to deepen, broaden, and formalize their practice.
No prior accessibility experience, legal background, or technical background is required. Concepts are introduced in clear language and connected directly to the realities of cultural work.
Why This Certification Matters
Cultural organizations have an important opportunity to create equitable cultural experiences where people with disabilities can participate, contribute, and lead as artists, audiences, students, employees, partners, and decision-makers. Doing this well requires informed practitioners with shared knowledge, practical tools, and the confidence to help move accessibility forward.
The Cultural Access Practitioner Certification prepares cultural workers to take meaningful action within their roles and organizations. It strengthens professional pathways, recognizes the value of cultural access expertise, and builds a more informed, consistent, and disability-centered standard of practice across the cultural sector.
What You Will Be Prepared To Do
- Recognize how disability history, culture, rights, and justice shape accessibility practices.
- Identify barriers across organizational policies, physical and virtual spaces, services, communications, and programs.
- Understand key legal responsibilities and requirements.
- Communicate about accessibility with greater clarity, confidence, and respect.
- Apply practical tools and strategies within your own role and organization.
- Complete an accessibility assessment, prioritize findings, and develop an actionable accessibility plan.
- Embed accessibility as an ongoing, organization-wide practice.
Who It Is For
The certification is designed for people working throughout the cultural sector, including:
- Access, ADA, or 504 coordinators and those preparing to step into these roles
- Executive leaders, administrators, operations staff
- Program, education, visitor experience, audience services, facilities, and front-of-house teams
- Marketing, communications, digital, development, and community-engagement professionals
- Accessibility consultants and independent practitioners
New to accessibility? Experienced practitioner?
The course is intentionally built for both.
New practitioners gain a clear, step-by-step foundation; experienced practitioners gain a structured way to deepen, connect, and formalize their knowledge.
The Learning Experience
Interactive, disability-centered, and built for real-world application.
The course is delivered through an asynchronous, interactive online learning platform, allowing you to engage with the material when and where it works for you.
- Instructional videos: Clear, engaging lessons build foundational knowledge and connect core concepts to cultural practice.
- Disabled expert perspectives: Video interviews feature disabled experts and cultural access leaders sharing lived experience, professional insight, and applied knowledge.
- Guided, interactive learning: Guided activities, reflection prompts, practice scenarios, and checks for understanding help you make connections, test your knowledge, apply and retain what you learn.
- Tools for action: Practical frameworks, templates, examples, and planning tools support immediate application within your own role and organization.
- Learning that builds: Seven connected modules move from disability-centered foundations to organizational application, evaluation, and transition planning.
Choose the learning pathway that works for you
Learn Independently
Move through the course at your own pace and on your own schedule.
Join a Facilitated Cohort
Learn alongside peers with added structure, conversation, and guided support.
Accessible by Design
Accessibility is built into the course content and the learning experience.
The course was developed with disabled people and informed by their lived and professional expertise. Content and learning activities were created by professionals with expertise in accessible instruction and instructional design, and the course was reviewed and tested by disabled User Experts. The course is hosted in Moodle and supported by Brickfield accessibility tools. Their platform is designed to work with assistive technologies and offers multiple ways to access and engage with course content.
- ASL interpretation: Every course video includes American Sign Language interpretation provided by Think Outside the Vox.
- Captions: Every video includes captions.
- Audio description and voice-over: Visual information needed to understand the course content is communicated through voice-over and audio description. The National Center for Accessible Media provided consultation on this work.
- Downloadable transcripts: Text transcripts are available to download for all video content.
- Alternative formats: Brickfield tools allow many course resources to be converted on demand into formats such as accessible text, tagged PDF, Word, HTML, EPUB, audio, DAISY, and digital Braille.
- Flexible display and reading options: Learners can use browser and device settings to adjust text size, spacing, fonts, colors, contrast, dark mode, reader mode, and read-aloud options.
- Keyboard and assistive-technology access: Moodle is designed to support keyboard navigation and use with common assistive technologies, including screen readers.
- Structured, reviewed course content: Course content uses meaningful headings, descriptive links, image descriptions, and accessible document practices. Brickfield tools support ongoing accessibility review and improvement.
- Flexible participation: Asynchronous access, self-paced navigation, clear instructions, and multiple ways of engaging with information support different learning needs and schedules.
Need another access support?
We recognize that access needs are individual and that no platform or set of features can anticipate every learner. Participants may contact Open Door Arts (theHub@OpenDoorArtsMA.org) before enrolling or at any point during the course to ask questions, share feedback, or request an accommodation. We will work with participants to identify an effective solution.
The Curriculum
Module 1 - Part 1
Disability History, Culture, and Justice
Build a disability-centered foundation for cultural access work by exploring history, rights, culture, language, identity, intersectionality, and disability justice.
Module 1 - Part 2
Accessible Policies, Practices, and Procedures
Examine legal responsibilities and the organizational systems, decision-making practices, and everyday procedures that shape equitable participation.
Module 2
Accessible Spaces
Understand physical access, the built environment, wayfinding, sensory considerations, and planning for inclusive cultural spaces.
Module 3
Access Services
Explore services, supports, and effective communication practices that expand participation, information access, and choice.
Module 4
Accessible Communication
Strengthen communication across formats, digital platforms, marketing, registration, and visitor touchpoints.
Module 5
Accessible Programming
Embed accessibility throughout program planning, design, delivery, engagement, and evaluation.
Module 6
Accessibility Evaluation and Transition Planning
Learn how to complete an accessibility evaluation, prioritize barriers, and translate findings into a realistic, actionable transition plan.
The Credential
Complete the course. Demonstrate your learning. Strengthen the field.
After completing all seven modules, participants take a final exam. Successful participants receive certification and shareable digital badge recognizing their learning and commitment to advancing cultural access.
- Final exam: Demonstrate understanding across all seven modules.
- Certification: Earn recognition as a Certified Cultural Access Practitioner.
- Shareable digital badge: Share the credential across professional profiles and networks.
Also pursuing ADA Coordinator Certification?
Participants who are completing ADA Coordinator Certification through the ADA National Network (ACTCP) can use this course toward elective credit.
Course Tuition
Self-Paced (begin anytime)
A special introductory tuition rate of $650 is available through November 1, 2026. Tuition includes the complete seven-module course, guided learning activities and checks for understanding, practical tools and resources, the final exam, a professional certificate, and shareable digital badges.
This option is ideal for participants who want to begin right away, work fully independently, and move through the course on a schedule that works for them. A course dashboard makes it easy to track progress and pick up where you left off.
Expert Facilitated (begins January 2027)
A special introductory tuition rate of $850 is available through November 1, 2026. Tuition includes the complete seven-module course, guided learning activities and checks for understanding, practical tools and resources, the final exam, a professional certificate, and shareable digital badges.
Participants also meet virtually eight times over eight months with an expert facilitator and a cohort of peers. These sessions provide opportunities to discuss and apply course content, ask questions, receive personalized feedback and support, and learn alongside others working toward similar goals. Recommended pacing, regular meeting dates, completion guidance, and dashboard tools offer additional structure and accountability.
This option is ideal for participants who value shared learning and conversation or benefit from clear milestones, regular deadlines, and additional guidance as they progress.
Participants must register by November 1, 2026. Spaces are limited. Participants will be notified of their status by November 15, 2025.
Tuition Assistance
We do not want cost to be a barrier to participation.
Tuition-assistance awards are available as funding allows through a brief application process, with priority given to individuals and organizations with limited professional-development resources. Applications are reviewed during two cycles each year, and submitting an application does not guarantee funding.
The Instructors
Learn from disabled experts and leaders working across disability, accessibility, arts, and culture.
Guest speakers
Throughout the course, disabled artists, advocates, cultural workers, and accessibility leaders bring the curriculum to life through interviews grounded in lived experience and professional practice.
Emily Ladau is a passionate disability rights activist, writer, and communications and cultural access consultant. Her career began at the age of 10, when she appeared on multiple episodes of Sesame Street to educate about her life with a physical disability. Emily’s book, Demystifying Disability, was published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and was named one of the best books of 2021 by NPR. As an ardent lover of the arts, Emily has provided cultural access consulting and editorial support for entities including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, the Friends of the High Line, and The Architectural League of New York. Central to all of Emily’s work is her belief that by sharing our stories and making the disability experience accessible to the world, we will reach a world that is accessible to the disability community.
Kim Charlson is Executive Director of the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library in Watertown, Massachusetts, and a nationally and internationally recognized expert in accessible library and information services, braille literacy, arts access, assistive technology, civil rights, and audio description. She was the first woman president of the American Council of the Blind and has held leadership roles with the Braille Authority of North America, World Blind Union, World Braille Council, and ACB Audio Description Project. She also consults with Boston-area theaters and museums, helps advance professional certification in audio description, and chairs the Watertown Commission on Disability.
Kim is the author of Drawing with Your Perkins Brailler and a contributing author to Making Theatre Accessible: A Guide to Audio Description in the Performing Arts. Her advocacy has earned numerous honors, including the Kennedy Center’s LEAD Award, the American Foundation for the Blind’s Migel Medal, the American Printing House for the Blind’s Wings of Freedom Award, ACB’s Durward K. McDaniel Ambassador Award, and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners’ Anna Eliot Ticknor Award.
Sarah J. Hom (she/her) Sarah is passionate about and dedicated to increasing accessibility and meaningful inclusion in the arts from backstage to the front of house and everything in between. She serves as Roundabout Theatre Company’s Director of Culture and Engagement, Audience Strategies. She is also a frequent guest speaker and independent consultant on disability inclusion and fostering belonging and engagement in cultural organizations. Notable accomplishments and awards include “Theatre Workers to Know” in American Theatre Magazine (March 2021), co-founder and co-producer for Reverb (2021) an online festival of works created by disabled artists, and recipient of The Access/VSA International Network and Kennedy Center Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD) Award for Excellence in Accessibility Leadership (2025). She currently serves on the boards of Hands On and Consultability.
Keith Jones is an African American disability rights advocate, artist, educator, and entrepreneur with cerebral palsy. He is President and CEO of SoulTouchin’ Experiences, an organization dedicated to advancing access, inclusion, community empowerment, and systemic change. For more than three decades, Keith has worked nationally on issues including disability rights, independent living, housing, education, healthcare, voting access, and racial and disability justice. He is also a sought-after speaker and trainer whose work centers the full, intersecting identities and experiences of disabled people.
As a hip-hop artist and spoken-word poet, Keith uses art as a tool for connection, resistance, and social change. He is a co-founder of Krip-Hop Nation, an international collective supporting and promoting disabled musicians and artists, and was featured on “Rising Phoenix,” the title track for the acclaimed Netflix documentary about the Paralympic movement. His advocacy and leadership have been recognized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, and the Disability Law Center.
Dr. Tina Gonzales Childress is an audiologist, advocate, and Director of Accessibility at InnoCaption, bridging audiology, accessibility, and lived experience. A late-deafened adult with bilateral cochlear implants and ASL fluency, she connects the Deaf/Hard of Hearing and hearing communities. As an international presenter, adjunct lecturer, and mentor, she is a recognized expert in assistive/access technologies, advancing inclusion by serving on various boards and committees and by creating widely used resources found at https://TinaChildressAuD.com
Frequently Asked Questions
The course is designed for staff members working in all types of cultural organizations across a variety of different roles, from leadership, to facilities, visitor-facing, or program staff. It is especially helpful and relevant to staff members who serve as the Access/ADA/504 Coordinator of their organization, or are planning to do so.
No. The course builds step by step from disability-centered foundations to practical application. Experienced practitioners will also find opportunities to deepen, connect, and formalize their knowledge.
No. Legal responsibilities and technical concepts are explained in clear, practical language.
The course is hosted on an asynchronous, interactive online platform. Participants may complete it independently at their own pace or join a facilitated cohort for added structure, conversation, and guided support.
The seven modules address disability history, culture, and justice; accessible policies and practices; accessibility of spaces; access services; accessible communication; accessible programming; and accessibility assessment and transition planning. Legal responsibilities, recognized practices, and practical implementation strategies are woven throughout.
The experience includes instructional videos, interviews with disabled experts and leaders, guided activities, practice scenarios, reflection prompts, interactive checks for understanding, and practical tools that participants can use in their own work.
All course videos include ASL interpretation and captions. Visual information needed to understand the content is conveyed through voice-over and audio description, and downloadable transcripts are available. The Moodle platform and Brickfield tools support assistive technology, keyboard access, flexible display and reading options, alternative content formats, and ongoing accessibility review. Participants may also contact Open Door Arts to discuss access needs or request an accommodation.
Participants will be better prepared to identify barriers, understand key responsibilities, communicate informed recommendations, apply practical accessibility strategies, and complete an accessibility assessment and transition plan within a cultural organization.
Complete all seven modules and required learning activities, then pass the final exam to receive a professional certificate and shareable digital badge.
Special introductory rates of $650 (self-guided, start anytime) and $850 (expert facilitated) are available through November 1, 2026.
Yes. Tuition assistance is available through a brief application and is considered during two cycles each year. Current eligibility information and deadlines are available with enrollment details. Use this link to learn more and apply for tuition assistance.
Most participants should expect to spend approximately 15–20 hours completing the required course content and activities. However, we know that each person will have a unique learning experience and actual completion time will vary based on individual pace and engagement with optional resources.
Participants have up to one year from the date of enrollment to complete the course and all certification requirements.
Ready to Enroll?
Lead cultural access with confidence.
Join a growing community of practitioners working to turn commitment into meaningful, lasting change. Enroll before November 1, 2026 for special introductory rates!