Accessibility Statement

First Friend Ireland is committed to making firstfriendireland.ie usable by everyone, regardless of ability. We built this site to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Level AA.

What we've done

• Semantic HTML landmarks and heading structure throughout the site.
• A “skip to main content” link on every page.
• Visible keyboard focus indicators on every interactive element.
• Colour combinations checked against WCAG AA contrast ratios (4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for large text and UI components).
• Forms with associated labels, clear error messages, and no reliance on colour alone to convey meaning.
• Support for prefers-reduced-motion — animation is minimal and can be disabled at the operating-system level.
• A mobile navigation and all interactive components built to be operable by keyboard alone, without a mouse.
• Accordions and disclosure widgets built on native HTML (<details>/<summary>) so they work even if styling or scripting fails.

How we've tested this

During development we tested with automated tooling (Lighthouse and axe-based checks), manual keyboard navigation, and browser zoom up to 200%. We have not yet carried out a manual screen-reader audit (e.g. with VoiceOver, NVDA or JAWS) or a review by people with lived experience of disability — both are listed as outstanding items in our project documentation and are a priority before the site is considered fully verified.

Known limitations

As a newly built site, some content areas are placeholders pending real content (for example, sample stories and future event listings). We'll re-check accessibility as real content, images and any video are added — particularly to confirm meaningful alt text and captions.

Feedback

If you experience any accessibility barrier on this site, please tell us — we want to fix it. Contact info@firstfriendireland.ie and describe the problem and the page it's on; we will do our best to respond promptly.