Director of Inclusive Learning & Accessibility (Volunteer)
About Mentor A Promise
Mentor A Promise is a New York City–based nonprofit serving children and youth (ages 5–18) experiencing housing instability, grounded in the belief that every child is a Promise—full of potential, dignity, and possibility. We deliver consistent, high-quality programming across mentorship, literacy, social-emotional learning, and creative expression in shelters, schools, and community spaces, creating structured environments where students can grow, be seen, and build lasting skills. Through signature experiences like The Imagination Studio, The Kitchen Table, The Sound Lab, and The Story Space, we nurture academic development, emotional well-being, and creative voice, all within a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and accessibility-centered framework. Our work prioritizes dignity-protective storytelling, consent-driven engagement, and deep community partnership, ensuring that how we serve is as intentional as whom we serve. We are not only addressing immediate needs - we are building pathways to confidence, belonging, and long-term opportunity, so every child has the support and foundation to carry their promise forward.
About PromiseLearning
PromiseLearning is MAP's education division, responsible for strengthening learning quality, curriculum, instructional practices, educational innovation, and academic experiences across the organization. PromiseLearning helps ensure that MAP's educational experiences are thoughtful, developmentally appropriate, evidence-informed, engaging, accessible, and responsive to the young people we serve.
About the role
MAP is seeking a Director of Inclusive Learning & Accessibility to lead the development of inclusive and accessible learning practices across PromiseLearning and support their adoption throughout MAP's educational programs. The Director will help MAP design learning environments for the reality of human difference. Students may differ in how they process information, communicate, read, write, focus, move, hear, see, regulate sensory experiences, interact socially, demonstrate knowledge, or participate in groups. Our responsibility is not to create one model of the "ideal learner" and then determine how everyone else can fit into it. Our responsibility is to design learning with variability in mind from the beginning. The Director will help MAP move from Access → Participation → Belonging → Growth → Leadership.
Reports To: Chief of Education / PromiseLearning Leadership
Works Closely With: PromisePrograms, PromiseRise, PromisePublic, curriculum and instructional teams, educators, mentors, program leaders, accessibility professionals, and Executive Leadership
Responsibilities
- Inclusive Learning Strategy – Develop MAP's framework for inclusive and accessible learning; establish practical standards that educators and program teams can implement; identify systemic barriers within learning experiences; help teams design for learner variability from the beginning; develop strategies supporting students with different strengths and learning needs; integrate accessibility into educational planning rather than treating it solely as a response to accommodation requests; help establish measurable organizational goals for inclusive learning.
- Universal Design for Learning – Help integrate Universal Design for Learning principles into MAP educational experiences; support educators in providing multiple approaches to engagement, representation of information, participation, communication, practice, demonstration of learning, assessment and feedback; help teams ask not only whether content is accessible, but whether students have meaningful ways to engage with and demonstrate what they know.
- Curriculum Accessibility – Review and strengthen curricula, lesson plans, workshops, activities, and educational resources; consider reading level, language clarity, cognitive load, visual organization, instructions, alternative formats, captions, transcripts, accessible documents, multimedia accessibility, sensory demands, time expectations, participation requirements, assessment methods; develop practical tools educators can use before materials reach students.
- Neurodiversity & Learner Variability – Help MAP strengthen educational practices for neurodivergent learners and students who may experience differences involving attention, executive functioning, communication, sensory processing, literacy, learning, or social interaction; promote strengths-based approaches while recognizing that individual students may still require specific supports; ensure a diagnosis never becomes a prediction of a young person's potential.
- Digital Learning Accessibility – Partner with appropriate technology and accessibility teams to strengthen accessibility across digital learning experiences; areas may include learning platforms, digital documents, videos, presentations, online workshops, forms, educational websites, interactive content, virtual programming; help teams understand accessibility considerations involving keyboard navigation, screen readers, captions, transcripts, contrast, structure, alternative text, and other relevant practices.
- Instructional Practice – Help educators, mentors, facilitators, and volunteers create inclusive learning environments; develop guidance around flexible instruction, clear directions, scaffolding, visual supports, differentiated learning, student choice, predictable routines, sensory considerations, participation alternatives, strengths-based feedback, accessible assessment, appropriate pacing; ensure accessibility strengthens teaching for everyone rather than creating an entirely separate educational system for particular students.
- Educator Training & Development – Develop training and professional-learning opportunities for MAP educators, mentors, facilitators, curriculum designers, and program leaders; topics may include inclusive teaching, Universal Design for Learning, disability awareness, neurodiversity, accessible educational materials, digital accessibility, inclusive communication, recognizing learning barriers, appropriate accommodations, strengths-based educational practices; translate principles into things educators can actually do differently.
- Student & Family Voice – Develop respectful mechanisms for students and families to communicate learning preferences, accessibility barriers, support needs, program experiences, feedback, recommendations; ensure students and families do not have to repeatedly prove that a barrier exists before MAP takes it seriously, while protecting privacy and avoiding unnecessary collection of medical or diagnostic information.
- Cross-Division Collaboration – Partner with PromisePrograms to strengthen accessibility within direct youth programming; partner with PromiseRise to make career-readiness and experiential-learning opportunities accessible; partner with PromisePublic's disability justice and accessibility leadership on broader organizational accessibility, disability inclusion, public engagement, and disability justice; partner with appropriate technology teams on digital accessibility; partner with PromiseMeasure to understand participation and educational outcomes; the Director owns the educational and instructional dimension of accessibility, while accessibility remains an organization-wide responsibility.
- Inclusive Learning for New Programs – Serve as an educational accessibility partner as MAP develops new initiatives, including academies, workshops, curricula, digital learning experiences, and youth-development programs; be involved early enough to influence design rather than being asked to repair preventable barriers after launch; recognize that accessibility is most powerful when it begins before the barrier does.
- Accommodation & Support Frameworks – Help establish clear processes for responding when individual learners require additional support; clarify appropriate educational responses; coordinate with families and authorized MAP leaders where necessary; identify when specialized expertise is required; protect student confidentiality; document supports appropriately; avoid requiring unnecessary disclosure; help distinguish general inclusive design from individualized accommodation; note that the Director should not independently diagnose students or provide clinical services outside their professional qualifications.
- Research & Evidence-Informed Practice – Monitor developments in inclusive education and accessibility; review relevant educational research; evaluate emerging instructional approaches; translate research into practical MAP guidance; distinguish evidence-informed practices from trends or unsupported claims; help MAP continuously improve its educational model.
- Leadership Boundaries – Recognize that this role complements, rather than replaces, MAP's broader disability justice and accessibility leadership; PromiseLearning owns inclusive educational design, curriculum accessibility, and instructional accessibility; PromisePublic may lead broader disability justice, public engagement, organizational accessibility strategy, and disability inclusion; technology teams remain responsible for implementing accessibility within the systems and products they own; program leaders remain responsible for accessibility within their programs; the Director provides expertise, standards, guidance, training, review, and leadership—but individual divisions remain accountable for implementing accessibility within their work.