Sensitive and empathetic communication strategies - CDPHE
By CDPHE Office of Communications
At the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), we are committed to directly addressing our assumptions and biases. One strategy for doing this is the use of People First Language (PFL). This puts the person first and their disability second, so you are not defining an individual by their disability. For example, we talk about “people with disabilities” instead of “the disabled” or“people who are blind” instead of “blind people” or “the blind.”
The core principle of PFL is to recognize the fundamental humanity of every Coloradan, which is a non-negotiable priority for CDPHE. You may notice people in the disability community do not use PFLin their communications — this is often intentional as a reclaiming of language by the community. All others, however, should still use People First Language in our communications.
We are also striving to eliminate from our everyday communications certain idioms that can be insensitive to people with disabilities. Here are some examples:
- "Surprised" instead of "blindsided"
- "Insensitive" instead of "tone deaf"
- "Wrong on the merits of the issue" instead of "crazy/hysterical/psycho"
- "Wrong/incorrect/inaccurate" instead of "lame"
- "Watered down/weakened" instead of "crippled"
It’s important to grow and evolve to be more sensitive to our fellow Coloradans and to err on the side of caution when choosing language. Changing language can be challenging, but with intentionality we can work toward removing offensive words and phrases out of our lexicon. For more tips regarding disability etiquette, see this fact sheet.
 TAP wins StateScoop 50 award
Every year, the StateScoop 50 Awards recognize 50 influential people and projects involved in state government IT-related efforts. In 2022, Colorado took home two of those awards, including the State IT Innovation of the Year for OIT’s Technology Accessibility Program.
Since the program’s founding in Oct. 2021, TAP’s dedication to providing accessibility assistance and resources to the agencies and institutions that need them most is impressive by any measure. The fact that this has all been overseen by two people is even more amazing, a fact that StateScoop highlighted in their praise of the program. Through Laurie Kubitz and Theresa Montano’s hard work, agencies have gone from having few accessibility-related measures or plans in place to being just weeks away from submitting plans detailing how to remediate every possible aspect of their digital presence to be accessible to all.
If you benefit from the work TAP is doing or want to recognize the team, please take a moment to congratulate Theresa and Laurie for their accomplishments!
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