Centering Employees with Disabilities: The Disability Experience Survey

This workshop walks participants through Multnomah County’s Office of Diversity and Equity partnering with disabled employees and employee resource groups to deepen trust, elevate lived expertise, and embed disability equity into organizational systems. Anchoring this process was a benchmark recommended by a disability workgroup: the creation and bi-annual dissemination of a Disability Experience Survey (DES). The Survey Advisory Group - composed of employees with lived disability experience and interest in data equity - co-designed the survey from the ground up.

In 2024, the DES received more than 400 responses from employees who identified as having a disability. This session will share how the survey was designed, what questions were asked, themes emerging from the data, and what organizational lessons were learned. Participants will gain insight into how intentional collaboration between data collectors and the population being studied produces richer, more authentic, and more actionable results.

Ashley Carroll has served as the Disability Equity Policy Analyst Senior for Multnomah County's Office of Diversity and Equity since 2020. In this role, she works across a 6k employee enterprise to improve the process for requesting and receiving accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Training is a large part of Ashley's career, most recently designing and delivering countywide training on the rights and responsibilities under the ADA. Lastly, Ashley works on larger disability equity issues, such as accessibility practices, employee engagement and data dissemination.

Prior to this role, Ashley worked in the domestic and sexual violence field for ten years, primarily coordinating cross-system collaboration, implementing federal grant programs, and creating training curriculum. Ashley has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work from Portland State University. Outside of work, Ashley aims to manage her own mental and physical health through rest, connection, excitement and movement. Ashley is an avid Trail Blazers fan (basketball) and enjoys spending precious time with her husband and teenage daughters.

Ashley can be reached at: ashley.carroll@multco.us

Ashley Carroll has been an active trainer and facilitator since 2012. Ashley spent her first ten years working in the domestic violence field, presenting at local and national conferences on topics such as: elder abuse, human trafficking, trauma informed care, and the Family Justice Center model. Ashley has led collaborative training teams with such specialized delivery to populations like law enforcement, social services workers, judges, board members, and advocates. 

Since 2016, Ashley has worked for Multnomah County with an emphasis on working with people with disabilities. She has presented at regional equity conferences, Multnomah County department conferences, and social service provider conferences. Ashley has presented twice before at the NWPEDC (2019, 2022) and recently delivered the proposed training at the Pacific ADA Center’s annual conference “Beyond Compliance: Equity, Access, and the ADA!” and will present the same content at the annual Disability Management Employer Coalition (DMEC) conference in Nashville this August.