Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I have a nonsense job title which doesn’t describe what I do, so on linked in I self title as a digital accessibility specialist. Prior to getting into this field, I was a physical therapist (technically I maintain my license so I still am, but feels weird to claim when I’m not practicing)
What was your setting? Why did you leave? I'm school-based. Considering leaving - kids are fun but admin sucks and schools are getting more and more chaotic. I'd keep my license to pick up prn hours if needed.
ETA- I have a friend with CP who's an OT. I think OT was so helpful to her as a kid that she was kind of enamored with it. Now, 5-10 years into working, she's finding that the clinic is too physical for her. She'd like to get into accessibility work. How did you make the transition?
I was 90% in SNF and assisted living. I did a few contract rotations that took me to acute. I went through the medicare payment changes which really made clear how admin was just working to manipulate metrics to get paid more (and yet the rehab department was a "loss" because we were a different branch of the company, so staff never got raises, just cuts) rather than accepting recommendations from the treating team. Being in a SNF during the height of Covid (find a side story/complaint below) really finished my burn out.
I went to a coding boot camp, and then got recruited by a friend turned coworker. It's a nice, niche field if you can get into it, but a LOT of it is government work, so how important they find accessibility varies with the election cycle. That said, it's probably a good time to get in. I work under the rehabilitation act of 1973, but a recent-ish ruling based in Americans with Disabilities Act is requiring that State and local government entities with a total population of 50,000 or more also have a baseline level of digital accessibility. Spoiler, most are not ready.
Side story: Covid was announced a public emergency or whatever in March 2020. Our company offered us a "hazard bonus", but didn't specify that their small print was that there had to be diagnosed covid in the facility. They also didn't announce that they were only offering the bonus for six months. So when our building had covid sweep through in December 2020 (before vaccines were available), I was told to be providing physical therapy (close contact with heavy breathing) to people who ended up dying the next day with no vaccines and no hazard bonus. They also decided that some staff was not essential, so I totally got paid physical therapist wages to mop rooms and change linens.
interesting how long did you go from coding bootcamp to getting a job in digital accessibility?
A little over two years. However, I wasn't aiming for accessibility per se. It sort of ended up falling in my lap and being a really good match to use the skills I had collected as a physical therapist.
Is there any certification you needed, or the accessibility training was just rolled up in the bootcamp? We've been doing a lot of training at work here for it (education) and I feel like a mini expert at this point.
Need is a strong word. I was hired without any, but they had been looking for someone for a while and were a touch desperate. I’ve since earned both my JAWS certification and DHS trusted tester. I’ve been “in progress” for the IAAP core competencies for years.
That said I walked in with a (clinical) doctorate degree, years of transferable experience, and a personal reference.
Education and eLearning is a great way in.
Super interesting! Do you work for a government entity? Would that be the place to start looking at opportunities?
Schools have gone the same way. Admin only cares about how much we can bill Medicaid - none of the $ trickles down to us and there's little/no concern for kids who are struggling.
I work for a company that has a government contract (actually they have multiple government contracts, only a few of them in accessibility), but I work super closely with the team that works directly for the government.
Curious, with ur PT background, how do you handle stress or old thoughts that resurface? Trying to figure out how I can work on that for myself....
I've had a cumulative 6-ish years of weekly therapy (over three bouts, with 5 different therapists)