11 minutes

Your inclusion check for events and engagement

Six lines you fill in before the invitation goes out, plus what to do with the parts of the plan that are not yours to change.

What you’ll be able to do

Complete an inclusion check for one real event or engagement you are planning, naming the date check, the hosting decisions, the ways in, who shaped the plan, how they were paid and what happens afterward.
Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What do you do with the two items that are not yours?
Draft a planning check for one event or engagement for your work, including purpose, and who must be able to take part, date, time and the calendars you checked, place, room and hospitality.

Run it early, and run it with someone else

The check below takes about twenty minutes for an event you already know. It is worth almost nothing after the invitation goes out and almost everything before. Once a date is announced, a room is booked and food is ordered, every improvement turns into an exception that somebody has to request, and the people most likely to need one are the least likely to ask.

Run it with one other person, ideally someone whose working life is not much like yours. You will not catch the thing you have never had to think about, and neither will the colleague who sits next to you. Where the event is about a community, ask an advisor from that community to read the plan, and pay them for the time exactly as you would pay any other reviewer. Reviewing a plan is work, and asking for it free is one of the quieter ways public agencies push cost onto the people they are trying to reach.

Then keep the finished page with the event plan rather than in your own files. Most of what you learn running one session is reusable — the venue with the unreachable restroom, the caterer who labels properly, the community organization that asked for three weeks of notice rather than ten days. Left in a personal folder, all of it has to be discovered again by the next person.

A planning check for one event or engagement

Six lines, filled in before the invitation goes out, kept with the event plan so the next person to run this inherits what you learned.

Purpose, and who must be able to take part A regional session on how a waiver service is working. The people who must be able to take part: disabled Minnesotans using the service, family members, paid community advisors, provider staff. If any of those groups cannot be there, the session does not do its job.

Date, time and the calendars you checked Checked while the date was still a draft, against a published multi-faith calendar, the school calendar and the last accessible transit run. Avoided the fasting month and the sundown hour. Second session at a different hour on a different weekday. Written and phone routes open for two weeks after.

Place, room and hospitality Step-free entry, a reachable restroom on the same floor, a named quiet room with a chair and a door, movable seating for interpreters and wheelchair users, no scent-heavy cleaning before the session. Food labeled by ingredient, several marked options covering common dietary practices and common allergy needs, no alcohol.

Invitation, and the ways in that carry equal weight Plain-language invitation four weeks out, in the languages the communities invited actually read, with the agenda attached as real text. One open line: what would help you take part fully, with a named person and a reply-by date. Room, phone and written comment described as equally weighted, because they are.

Who shaped the plan, and how they were paid Two community advisors and one disabled Minnesotan who uses the service read the draft plan and the invitation, three weeks out, and were paid at the standard reviewer rate. Their changes: the date, the second session time, and the removal of the dietary-restriction box.

Afterward: what people are told, and by whom Within two weeks, one plain-language message to everyone who came or sent comment: what was heard, what is changing, what is not changing and why, and what happens next. Sent by the named session lead. The finished check filed with the event plan for the next round.

Copy these six lines into your own event plan, fill them in before the invitation goes out, make every change that is inside your own control, and take anything that is not yours to its named owner with one specific ask.

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First fixes that need nobody's permission

Check the date against a published multi-faith calendar while it is still a draft, not after it is announced.
Put one open line in every invitation — what would help you take part fully — with a named person and a date they will reply by.
Label every dish by ingredient, in large plain type, and stop asking people to declare restrictions in advance.
Name a quiet room on the agenda, confirm it can be reached without stairs, and require no one to ask for a key.
Send the agenda and materials as real text at least two working days ahead, in the languages the people invited actually read.
Give written and phone routes the same weight as the room in the notice, and mean it when the comments are counted.
Send one message afterward to everyone who took part, saying what happened to what they said.

When part of the plan is not yours to change

Bring one item, not the whole check

A full page invites a conversation about the page. One item, with the effect named and a specific ask attached, invites a decision. Keep the rest for the owners it belongs to, one at a time.

Bring the effect, not the frustration

“This venue is terrible” is a complaint. “Eleven of sixty attendees could not reach a restroom without crossing the building, and four left early” is a finding. The second version can be acted on, and it does not require anyone to accept blame before they can help.

Ask for something inside their authority

A quiet-space and reachable-restroom line in the venue booking standard. One added line in the invitation template. A three-week notice minimum for community partners. If the change needs approval further up, ask who to approach and whether they will come with you.

Know which door a question belongs to

Religious accommodation in employment, civil rights complaints, contract terms with community partners and official public notice requirements each belong to a specific DHS office. Anything involving Tribal Nations or tribal human services goes first to the Department of Human Services offices that handle tribal matters and to the Minnesota Office of Indian Affairs, rather than being decided inside a program team.

Change the default, not the exception

What you can change

You control the order of your own planning: date checked as a draft, room and food decided before the form goes out, advisors paid and consulted while the plan can still change.

What to watch for

Do not build an event that works for everyone only if the right people ask in time. That design puts the cost on the people least able to carry it, and it fails invisibly — you find out by who did not come back.

Your next step

Run the six-line check on the next event you touch before the invitation is drafted, fix what is yours, and take one item to its owner with a specific ask.

Your finished check shows five items. Three are inside your control; two belong to other units. The most serious one — an unreachable restroom at a booked venue — is not yours. The session is five weeks away. What is the most effective first move?

Send the whole check to leadership in both other units and ask for the items to be assigned to the right owners.

Fix the three items inside your control now, arrange the best workaround you can for the venue this time, and take each of the two remaining items to its named owner with the effect measured and one specific ask.

Note the venue problem as a constraint in the event record and proceed, since the booking cannot be undone at this point.

Postpone the session until the venue standard and the invitation template have been revised.

Try a situation

You have filled in the check for a regional engagement session five weeks out. Most of it is yours to change. Two things are not. The venue was booked months ago by another unit: it has no quiet space and its only reachable restroom is on the far side of the building. And the statewide invitation template is owned by a central communications group; it has no access-and-participation line in it at all.

What do you do with the two items that are not yours?

Record both as constraints in the event plan and run the session as booked. You cannot fix another unit's decisions five weeks out.

Work around both inside your own control now — confirm a quiet, reachable space in the same building and name it on the agenda, and put the access-and-participation line, with a named person and a reply date, into your own confirmation and reminder messages — then take each item to its named owner with one specific ask: a quiet-space and restroom standard for the next booking cycle, and one added line in the template.

Postpone the session until the venue standard and the template have been sorted out properly.

Carry this forward

Nearly all of the check has to happen before the invitation goes out. After that the date is public, the room is booked and the food is ordered, and every change becomes an exception someone has to request.
Run the check with someone who does not share your blind spots, and pay community advisors for that time the same way you would pay any other reviewer. Reviewing a plan is work.
Two lines matter more than the rest: an open participation line with a named person and a real reply date, and a message afterward telling everyone who came what happened to what they said.
Fix what is inside your own control first, then take each remaining item to its named owner with one specific ask. A venue standard or a template line, changed once, works for every event after this one.
The check belongs with the event plan, not in a personal file, so that whoever runs this event next inherits what you learned instead of starting from nothing.

A completed inclusion check for a real event, a scenario about the parts of a plan you do not own, and a private reflection on accountability and repair.

Fill the check in for the next thing you host or convene, make the changes inside your own control before the invitation goes out, take the items that are not yours to their named owners with a specific ask each, and keep the finished check with the event plan.

Your next step

Which of these will you actually do this month?

Name the event, and the date you will run the check by — before the invitation goes out

Name the person outside your unit whose eyes you want on the plan, and how their time will be paid

Name the item that is not yours, its owner, and the one specific ask you will make

Name what you will send afterward, to whom, about what actually changed

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Mark this lesson complete

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.