Can i document type e sign funeral leave policy alaska
Welcome to today's webinar. My name is Michelle Cook. And I will be the moderator
for today's presentation. A copy of the slides
from today's presentation will not be made
available electronically. However, the presentation
will be recorded and archived for later reference. Today's webinar topic is
Use of Service Animals by Persons with Disabilities
in the National Park System. And it's being presented
by Ray Bloomer. Ray has been with the National
Park Service for 44 years. Over the course of his
tenure with the NPS, Ray has served in various
roles at the park, region, and national levels. In 1992, Ray became an
accessibility specialist with the Accessibility
Management Program, PFMD, duty stationed at the National
Center on Accessibility. As an employee of the
National Park Service at NCA, Ray Bloomer is the director
of education and technical assistance. He provides a
wealth of expertise on a wide range of accessibility
issues from the design process to interpretive programs,
publications, exhibits, and facilities,
including outdoor areas and historic preservation. His expertise addresses both
physical and programmatic accessibility. And he is considered
a national expert in disability legislation
and regulations with particular emphasis
on program accessibility. The objectives for
today's training are discuss the legal
definition of a service animal, discuss the NPS policy
for use of service animals at park units, identify the
criteria for service animal training, tasks,
and identification, discuss appropriate interactions
with persons bringing animals into parks, and
identify circumstances where service animals may
be removed or denied access. It is now my pleasure to
turn the presentation over to Ray Bloomer. Thank you, Michelle. And good day to all of you. And thank you for joining
us for today's webinar. It is on the Use
of Service Animals by Persons with Disabilities
throughout the National Park System. It is being provided by the
Washington Accessibility Support Program. What I want to talk
about initially is the policy that was
signed by the acting director of the National
Park Service October of 2018. It was a pretty
long awaited policy. And it essentially identifies
the National Park Service Policy on the use
of service animals throughout the
National Park Service. It provides insurance of
compliance with Section 504. It is consistent with the
Department of Justice service animal regulations that
have been provided. And it means that people using
service animals in the National Park Service will have
consistent policy with areas outside of the National
Park Service when people go to state parks, local
parks, grocery stores, anything like that. It is also aligned very closely
with Directors Order 42, ensure that people
with disabilities can participate in programs and
go into and through facilities. And that they'll
be accessible to and usable by people
with disabilities. I want to identify what
is a service animal. A service animal,
by definition, is a dog that is individually
trained to do work or perform tasks in the benefit of an
individual with a disability, including sensory,
physical, psychiatric, or any other type of disability. Key points. Number one, it is a dog
that is individually trained to perform tasks. It is for the benefit of an
individual with a disability. And it does not make
any difference no matter what that disability is. Now, we identified the
definition of a service animal. That it is a dog. However, it can also be
in the rare instances where miniature horses
have also been trained to serve as service animals. We need to make sure that we
modify policies, practices, and procedures of
our policies in order to allow a miniature horse to
be used as a service animal. However, the miniature horse has
to be, number one, individually trained for the purpose
of providing services for an individual
with a disability. A couple of reasons
why people do use miniature horses rather
than a service animal. What is allergies? There are some people that have
allergies to dogs that do not have allergies to horses. Some people have a fear
of dogs, or a member of a person's family. Or it could be
religious reasons. Another strong reason,
especially in rural areas, where it's more convenient
to have a miniature horse, and that is the longevity of
the working life of the service animal. A miniature horse has a three to
four times longer working life than most service dogs will. Some of the tasks that people
would use a miniature horse for over a dog are things
such as guiding, stability, and in many instances,
the strength of the horse may be critical to the
need of an individual. Again, I said that they're
rare, they're not very common, and you're more likely to
find them in rural areas rather than in suburban areas. I want to talk a little bit
about the training of service animals. First of all, there are
many different professional organizations that do provide
training for individuals with disabilities. However, professional
training is not required. Individuals can train
their own service animal. Even though many people will
have their dogs professionally trained or they'll be acquired
through a professional training organization,
sometimes you'll find that an individual's needs for
a service animal may be minimal. And yet, those minimal
needs are extremely important to that individual. For example, I'm
aware of an example that I received once regarding
an individual, an older woman, that had both hips
and both knees replaced. She trained a large dog to be
able to provide her assistance in doing a few
tasks that she's not able to do herself very easily. One is to get up from
a seated position. The dog will pull
her forward and it'll remain in a standing
position rigid while she maintains her balance. And then she also is unable to
reach down to pick something up from the ground. And the dog will pick things
up and put them in her hand. It really did not take
a great deal of training for the dog to be
able to do that. She was able to
self train that dog to do those minimally but very,
very important tasks for her. Service animals in training is
not considered a service animal until it is trained
and performing the tasks necessary by an
individual with a disability. However, many parks
do allow individuals to come into a park to train
their service animal so that they know that when
it's providing service for an individual
with a disability, it will be able to behave in
a park in an appropriate way. However, it's not a requirement. But I do want to say that there
are several states that already have as part of state law that
service animals in training can go into places where
pedestrians can go, and obviously where
service animals will be able to go themselves. So the recommendation
under those circumstances would be find out what
the state laws are and try to do something that is
consistent within those areas. Again, it's not a requirement. But it would be very beneficial
if there's an expectation within that particular state. I want to begin to address some
of the tasks that are performed by service animals. Number one, these
tasks are going to vary very, very widely. And it must be directly
related to the individual's particular needs. Some of the ones that are
most commonly seen over time that we're familiar
with is guide dogs for individuals that are blind. Navigating in an environment
for the most part is what people who are blind
will need their dog to do. And also dogs that are
trained to alert for people who are deaf or people
that have hearing loss to alert them as to a variety
of different types of sounds. Such, it's the
presence of people that may be behind an
individual or sounds, the direction of someone
that might be speaking, horns, or various
other types of signals. And they're also trained
to notify the urgency of the sounds that they hear. For example, Judy
Kessler, who works in the Alaska regional
office, has hearing loss. And her service
dog, Rasta, here's an example of what
happens when Rasta hears the smoke alarm in the house. Rasta immediately goes
and jumps up at Judy. And then to signal urgency
to that sound, she lays down. Then, gets up and guides
Judy out of the house. So it's important when we talk
about the urgency of the sound to know that there's a
difference between a timer or a fire alarm. We know there's a big
difference between my eggs are done versus my
house is on fire. Other tasks that service
animals perform-- pulling or pushing a wheelchair,
alerting an individual to the presence of
allergens or the fact that a person may be
about to have a seizure. The dog also might alert
a child or an individual that their blood
sugar is dropping and that they need to
take their medication. And I really do want
to point this out, it's one of the reasons why
you'll often see service animals either being
carried by an individual-- and quite frequently,
they'll be small dogs-- or that they'll be in a front
pack rather than on the ground. The misnomer that
all service animals have to be on the ground in
order to perform their tasks, this is a perfect example
of why that's not so. They need to be close enough
to be able to smell a person's breath. A dog may be trained
to alert the person that it's time to take
medication due to something like depression. Helping people
with various types of neurological
disabilities may be because they may
prevent or interrupt certain types of behavior,
such as an individual here that has narcolepsy. And it is to prevent the person
from sliding out of the chair if that person were
to fall asleep. Oftentimes, it
provides assistance with psychiatric or
neurological disabilities, such as providing assistance
for children with autism. Other examples would be things
such as individuals with PTSD, where a person who may
not be very comfortable around a crowd, if they
started off in an area where many people were not
present and then people started to come towards them. Frequently the
dog will recognize that this is a
circumstance that may cause the person a lot of anxiety. And the dog will put
themselves between the person with PTSD and the crowds. Oftentimes, they may
just do something such as go up to the person
and it will help the person to calm down if
they happen to be coming very anxious under
those circumstances. Another component
of service animals and a test that they
perform is to perform what is referred to as
intelligent disobedience. And a really good
example is a blind person getting ready to
cross the street and the service animal
sees a car coming. Even though they were
signaled to go forward, they realize it's
not a safe situation, and they will prevent the
person from going forward simply by standing in place. A person with PTSD that may
not be very comfortable going into an area that there
is something ahead that they know they're
uncomfortable with, the dog will prevent the
person from going forward under those circumstances. Other tasks that service animals
do would be retrieving items. Sometimes, they'll
provide physical support for individuals
with disabilities. This is one reason why dogs
are very carefully matched with their handlers or the
individual with a disability. For example, people
who are blind. Because of the height of
where the harness needs to be for the
person who is blind, a smaller dog will be
matched with someone that may be 5 foot tall,
as opposed to a larger dog for someone that may be 6
foot 6, because a person needs to have the handle
of the harness at a comfortable position
when they reach down to best have the dog perform
the tasks that are necessary. There's also for dogs that are
using the dog for stability. Again, you want to make sure
that if you have a larger person that you have a
larger, stronger dog that can hold its position
when a person needs to stabilize themselves or get
up from a seated to a standing position. Some of the other physical
tasks that a dog may do. Here's my favorite. And that's where you see this
yellow lab inserting an ATM card into the machine. I imagine this dog at home
sleeping on a bed of $20's on a pretty regular basis. You can also see
here a dog carrying a bag of groceries and
a dog pushing elevator buttons or an emergency button. Non-qualifying work is also
important to be aware of. And there are things
such as crime deterrent, emotional support,
companionship. These are the things that do
not fall under the definition or fit the criteria
of a service animal. So for example, a dog
for personal protection does not fit the
definition of a dog that is trained to perform tasks
based on a disability. They're not guard dogs. So here's the million
dollar question that everyone wants to ask. So I'm going to ask it for you. Is an emotional support
animal a service animal? The answer is, no. It is not trained
to perform a task. It is not protected by
regulations or policy. But it does provide a function. It's just not trained to
take a specific action based on a circumstance. It does provide a
function, because just by being with an individual
with a disability, it may help that
individual to calm down. It may help that individual
or keep that individual from going into
an agitated state. It's just not trained
to take action. An example. An example with PTSD. The person has a
disability and the animal may keep that person from
going into an agitated state. So there are several key
points that I think it's important for us to consider. There's actually five of them
that I want to point out. Number one, focus on the
behavior of the animal. If it is not a service animal,
and it is an emotional support animal, and it is
behaving in every way that you would expect a
service animal to behave, then consider that. Number two, what would
be the alternative if you remove that person from
their emotional support animal. What would be the outcome? Three, is the happy
quality visitor experience what the National
Park Service is all about? Four, if the veteran
were denied the use of his or her emotional
support animal, would the National
Park Service be able to pass the red face
test if that ended up in the newspaper? And number five, if you
don't have a good reason to remove an emotional
support animal, why do it? Identifying service
animals is important. It's pretty important. And it's also very easy,
because, number one, you can ask a person is
that a service animal? Is it required because
of a disability? And the second question
is, what tasks has the animal been trained to do? They're the only two
questions that can be asked. Not every situation is obvious
as far as service animals. Typically when you see someone
who is blind using a guide dog, it is very obvious. If a person is being pulled
by a service animal and they happen to be a wheelchair user,
again, very, very obvious. But in those circumstances
where it may not be obvious, that's something where it
may be appropriate to ask the question if it's a park
that does not allow pets and you need to let a person
know that pets are not allowed, if the person says
it's a service animal, and the dog is
behaving, you really don't have a good reason to
ask any further questions. If you have a
concern, then you can go ahead and ask those
questions if it's necessary. But again, we really
emphasize, focus on the behavior of the dog. Don't ask questions just
to satisfy curiosity. For example, here's
a picture of Rosie. Rosie is a service
animal for Wendy Davis, who is a superintendent in
one of our national parks. And Rosie is there
to provide support in recognizing and providing
support as a seizure alert dog. And you wouldn't want to end
up grilling what possibly could be your future superintendent. You don't want to ask the
person about the nature of their disability or the
extent of that disability. The questions are simply
limited to what tasks is the dog trained to perform. You cannot require a person
to show any type of medical documentation or any other
type of proof of disability. And this is really important,
you cannot require a person to provide any type of
certification for the service animal or ask an individual to
demonstrate the type of tasks that they do. For example, you wouldn't
want to ask the person who has a seizure disorder to
have their dog demonstrate what tasks it may perform. You also cannot require in any
NPS settings require a person to have a permit in order to
bring their service animal into a national park unit. I'm going to recommend that if
any parks have on their website any type of restrictions,
because that information was put on prior to October of 2018,
I recommend that you go back and examine your
policy and make sure that your policy is consistent
with current NPS policy as it relates to
service animals. You cannot required that a
person using a service animal wear any type of vests,
capes, harnesses. There is no
requirement for that. It's the preference
of the handler, the person with the disability
that has the service animal. Where can a service
animal be used? Anywhere where
visitors are allowed, anywhere where
pedestrians can go, an individual using a service
animal can go into those areas. One issue that I think
is important for us to consider in national
park service settings, and it's a question that
comes up fairly frequently-- And I'm going to
talk about something that occurs at Joshua Tree,
because Joshua tree is a desert environment-- we
have a lot of parks that have similar environments. Is it safe for both the
handler and the service animal? For example,
surface temperatures could be extremely hot
for a service animal. You also need to make sure that
additional water is provided. You want to make sure
that if the dog has to have some type of
booties to protect its paws, that that information should
be available on websites and other publications, and when
a person arrives at the park, so that they can
take the precautions. Bring additional amounts of
water that may be necessary. It's really important that we
inform rather than restrict individuals with disabilities. Because again,
the service animal can go anywhere a
pedestrian can go. But we want to make sure that
that is done in a safe way. Service animals must
be harnessed, leashed, and/or tethered unless
any of those devices may interfere with the
tasks that the dog is trained or needs to perform. Here's an example,
a service animal that may need to go to a
certain area such as a phone to let the person know
that the phone is ringing. Oftentimes, people with PTSD
may have a service animal that will go into an area that
a person is unable to see, such as a historic
outbuilding that may be dark. A service animal will
go into that area, come back, and let their
handler know that it is safe. Or the example here, where
you've got a snowy path, and it goes around the bend,
and the person cannot see around that bend. They want to be able to know
that it is safe before they physically go there. The dog will go around
the bend, come back, and let their handler know it
is safe to go down that area. Those tasks need to
be done off a leash. However, after the task
has been performed, the dog goes back,
returns to the person, and stays with them. Any dog that is off
the leash because of a variety of reasons,
including the possibility that a person that
may not have stability could be pulled over as a
result of being connected with a leash, the
dog still has to be under control of the handler
by either voice signals or some type of hand signal. But again, the important
thing is it must always be under control. The dog cannot be running
around when it's not performing the task. It has to remain with the
individual and under control. Control does not necessarily
mean just because it's attached to a leash. You may have leashes
that could be quite long and that may not
relate to the task that a person may have
trained their dog or the dog may be trained to do. The dog has to remain
near the individual. Can you remove or
deny a service animal? And the answer is, yes, because
a service animal can not be out of control and disrupting
a program or other visitors. So for example, the animal
has to be under control or the handler must be able
to bring the animal back under control if for any
reason that occurred. If that happens, if the
animal is not under control, it's not housebroken,
it's disturbing a program, then that dog can be removed if
it's growling, it's snarling, it's barking, it's
running around, it's threatened
visitors or other dogs. You always want to give
the person the opportunity to bring their
dog under control. However, if that
does not happen, the dog can be removed
from the program. But we still must make sure
that we enable the individual with the disability to
remain in the program or get the benefit of
whatever opportunity is available to visitors. Are there limitations on
the use of a service animal within a park? If having the service animal
changes the fundamental nature of a program, then in
that particular area, not in the entire park, but
in that particular area, a person may be denied the
use of the service animal in that area. Or if it raises some type
of legitimate safety issue. One example, if you
have an area, such as, here's an example of breeding
grounds for piping clovers. And a dog obviously would
be frightening those birds. It would disrupt that
particular program. So only in that area, and only
during the times of the year when breeding takes
place, it would disrupt the fundamental
nature of that program. And therefore, a person can
be restricted from bringing service animals into that area. I want to go over a couple
of frequently asked questions that come up in many
of our national parks. If you have staff
members or visitors that have a fear of an
animal or an allergy, can you refuse service
in that area because of an allergy or fear of a dog? This is one where the
service animal handler, because they are an
individual with a disability, their rights come first. And most of the time
accommodations can be made. This is something that I would
recommend that people think about in advance so
that you think of things such as a person
going into a theater and someone says there's this
animal there and I'm allergic. Make arrangements so that
one of those two people sit in the front left. Somebody else sits
in the back right. The same thing with
any type of an area. Most of the time we've
had very few instances where these circumstances
can't be easily worked out. If it happens to be
on a walk or a tour, to have one person in the
beginning of the tour, and the person who is allergic
towards the back of the tour. Are restaurants, or
bars, or any other area where food is
served, does the dog have to be allowed
to sit at the table or even be fed at the table? And the answer is,
no, service animals have to remain on the floor,
unless in the rare instances where a dog needs to be
near the person's face. And they still cannot
be fed at the table. A service animal cannot be
denied access to places where food is served, such as
a salad bar, or a buffet. And under those
circumstances, again, the dog does have to remain
on the floor. Can a hotel or a
lodge limit the rooms that a person using a service
animal can be offered? And again, the
answer there is, no. People with disabilities
that use service animals have to be able to access
the various types of rooms that are offered, such as
a suite, room with a view. They can't be restricted
only to the rooms where pets are traditionally
given in places that are pet friendly. A person with a
disability has to be able to go with
their service animal in all of the types of
rooms that are offered. It also means that a person who
uses a service animal cannot be charged extra because they
have a service animal just because something like somebody
may need to do a little bit of extra cleaning because
of dog hairs in that room. However, a person
with a service animal would be responsible
for any damage that would be considered
out of the ordinary as a result of
them using a room. Now, the use of a
service animal-- and I do want to bring this
up-- the use of a service animal is a civil right. However, many people
with disabilities, because they have
been challenged in so many circumstances,
people with disabilities quite frequently have
become rather defensive when interacting with people
because of their service animal. I would like you to
consider this scenario, a person decides they're going
to come to a national park. On the way, they stop by a
local fast food restaurant. As they walk in, they're told
you can't bring a pet in here. And the person says, no,
that's my service animal. And right away, they know I
can ask you the two questions. So they have to
answer those two. After they leave,
on the way, they remember they have to pick
up some type of an electronic for their technology. And when they go into
the department store, the greeter says, eh, you
can't have a pet in here. They say, no, that's
my service animal. Again, here goes
the two questions. On the way back to the
electronics department, they encounter another
employee who also brings up the issue along with the
person at the electronics area of the department store. By the time the person has
come to the National Park, they're feeling a
little bit defensive. So when they see that
uniformed ranger, possibly a law enforcement person with
their equipment on their belt, and possibly a stern
look on their face, that person is rather defensive. We can turn that scenario
from a defensive, negative circumstance to a very
positive encounter simply by something that we the
National Park Service are famous for. And that's that smile. Think of that ranger
looking at that dog and say, wow, that's
a nice looking dog. My mother has a dog
very similar to that. And the person says, yeah,
that's my service animal. If it's not necessary to ask
any further questions, don't. And you might also
say, if you don't mind, I'm going to let some
of the other rangers know that I've had this
encounter with someone that's got a nice yellow
lab, a person wearing a red jacket and blue pants, so
that they don't have to ask you those same kinds of questions. We have now created a
very positive experience out of what could have been
a very negative experience that a person has. People that use service
animals use that service animal because it creates a high
degree of independence. And they may not have had
that independent experience without the use of
a service animal. It's really important
that we enable that person to
experience our park in a friendly, welcoming way. Keep in mind, one thing
that we have in common with National Park Service
and service animals is the word service. And we now open the
webinar up to questions. Michelle? Right. Thank you so much, Ray. The question and answer sections
of the webinars presented in May of 2020
have been recorded in a supplemental download
document available on the NPS Common Learning Portal. Questions related
to the differences between emotional support
animals and service animals, behavior and tasks performed
by service animals, potential threats to natural
resources and exhibit areas, wildlife encounters, and other
webinar content reinforcement questions are contained in
the supplemental Q&A document. The NPS Policy Memorandum
and FAQs on service animals are also available for
download in the same location. I will turn it back over to Ray
for some concluding remarks. Thank you, Michelle. And I want to thank all
of you for taking the time to participate in
this webinar, and also on behalf of all of our
visitors with disabilities who will benefit by
the time that you have taken to join us today. Thank you very much.
