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Leader in Disability Inclusion

Children’s Mercy awarded Seal of Accomplishment from CDI

Four people in business wear stand together, smiling and holding a trophy that features the Center for Disability Inclusion logo and reads: “Children’s Mercy Kansas City: In recognition of outstanding achievement for 2024 Leader in Disability Inclusion.”
(From left) Zach Rose-Heim, MEd, BA, Director, Office of Equity and Diversity; Stacey Koenig, MS, CCLS, Senior Director, Patient and Family Services; Amy Mesplay, Project RISE Manager; and Jesus Vazquez Alvarez, MBA, Director, Language and Accessibility Services, accept a 2024 Leader in Disability Inclusion Seal of Accomplishment award.

The Center for Disability Inclusion (CDI) awarded Children’s Mercy Kansas City a 2024 Leader in Disability Inclusion Seal of Accomplishment at the CDI Annual Awards Event Luncheon on Dec. 5, 2024.   

One of only 16 organizations to achieve the designation, Children’s Mercy collaborated with CDI to continue advancing its disability inclusion efforts. A team of representatives from many different Children’s Mercy departments partnered to tackle inclusion goals throughout the year. 

“This award is such a strong reflection of who we are as an institution and what values are important to us as we serve the community,” said Tom Wright, Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer.      

“CDI helped us identify areas we really thrived in as an organization and then areas that we could improve,” said Amy Mesplay, Project RISE Manager. “From feedback, we picked out core areas to focus on through 2024.”  

The team completed four important milestones this past year:  

  1. From 2022 to 2023, Children’s Mercy installed 21 automatic door openers across three campuses. Additionally, we added four adult changing tables and two fully accessible restrooms, one at each of our main campuses. In 2024, we further enhanced accessibility by installing eight more automatic door openers and adding one new adult changing table.  

  2. Collaborated with Disability Support Services departments at 13 area colleges to raise awareness of opportunities at Children’s Mercy.   

  3. Created an internal Accessibility Benchmark Survey to help collect data and inform our ongoing commitment to being an accessible organization for all team members, patients and families 

  4. Offered a variety of system-wide disability inclusion team member education opportunities to improve understanding and awareness.  

In addition to identifying and accomplishing these milestone goals, the team also attended monthly networking meetings and educational opportunities, completed the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation’s Employing Abilities at Work Certification, and met with CDI every six weeks for guidance and feedback.  

The team will continue cooperation with CDI in 2025. “We want to be the best we can be for our team members, patients and families,” said Amy. “We already hit the ground running to start the 2025 process!” said Amy. 

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