Accessibility Statement
Our commitment to an inclusive digital experience for everyone.
Empower and Link, Inc. is committed to ensuring that our website is accessible to all visitors, including people with disabilities. We believe that every individual deserves equal access to information and services, regardless of ability.
Standards We Follow
Our website is designed and developed to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These guidelines are the internationally recognized standard for web accessibility and are referenced by accessibility laws and policies around the world, including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Accessibility Features
We have implemented the following features to support accessibility across our website:
- Keyboard navigation — All interactive elements (links, buttons, form fields, menus) are fully operable using a keyboard alone.
- Skip to main content — A skip navigation link is provided at the top of every page so keyboard users can bypass repeated navigation.
- Color contrast — All text and interactive elements meet or exceed the WCAG 2.1 AA minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
- Semantic HTML and ARIA — We use proper heading hierarchy, landmark regions, ARIA labels, and roles to ensure screen readers can accurately interpret page structure and content.
- Form accessibility — All form fields have associated labels, required fields are clearly indicated, validation errors are announced to screen readers, and error summaries receive focus to guide users to corrections.
- Responsive design — Our website is usable at all screen sizes, from 320px mobile devices to large desktop monitors, without horizontal scrolling or content loss.
- Focus management — Visible focus indicators are provided for all interactive elements. Our mobile menu traps focus appropriately and returns focus when closed.
- Decorative content — Images and icons that are purely decorative are hidden from assistive technology using
aria-hiddento reduce noise for screen reader users. - Reduced motion support — Animations and transitions are disabled for users who have enabled reduced motion preferences in their operating system, supporting individuals with vestibular disorders.
- Text resizing — Our website remains fully functional when text is resized up to 200% and content reflows correctly at viewports as narrow as 320px without horizontal scrolling.
- Language identification — The page language is declared in the HTML to ensure screen readers use the correct pronunciation and reading rules.
How We Test
We test our website using industry-standard tools and methods, including:
- axe-core by Deque Systems — the same engine used by the US government for Section 508 compliance testing
- Google Lighthouse — automated accessibility auditing across all pages
- Playwright — automated keyboard navigation, form interaction, and responsive layout testing
- Manual review — keyboard-only navigation, screen reader testing, and visual inspection at multiple viewport sizes
Known Limitations
We know of one deviation from WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and we made it on purpose.
Success Criterion 1.3.5, Identify Input Purpose — help-request and contact forms
On the Get Help form, every field that asks for your own details — your name, phone number, email, address, county and household size, and the box where you describe your situation — is set to autocomplete="off". That means those fields do not tell your browser what they are for, which is the thing SC 1.3.5 asks for.
The menus and the checkboxes carry no autocomplete setting either way: the urgency menu, the boxes for what you need help with, and the two menus inside the optional Current situation section (your living situation, and how often food has been short). The criterion works from a fixed list of purposes — names, contact details, addresses, dates of birth, payment details — and nothing in it describes those questions, so there is nothing there to identify. The Yes / No questions are buttons rather than fields, so autocomplete does not reach them at all.
The contact form on our Contact page is the same, because people asking for help write to us there too.
We do it because an autocomplete token is also an instruction to the browser to save what is typed and offer it again later, on any website. Somebody who only starts our help-request form on a shared or monitored device would leave their name, phone number and home address in that device’s saved entries. That risk falls on people who are often the least able to carry it, and it lands whether or not the form is ever sent.
Everything else the criterion is meant to deliver is still there: every field has a visible label joined to it in code, required fields are marked, and errors are announced. The referral form keeps the proper tokens on the referring worker’s own name, email, phone and agency, because those are that worker’s details and nobody is put at risk by identifying them.
If autofill is how you complete forms and this makes ours hard to use, please call or email us and we will take your information that way instead. Our number and address are below.
We are not aware of any other accessibility barriers on our website. If you encounter one, please let us know so we can address it promptly.
Reporting Accessibility Issues
We take accessibility feedback seriously. If you experience any difficulty accessing content or functionality on our website, please contact us:
When reporting an issue, please include the page URL, a description of the problem you encountered, and the assistive technology you were using (if applicable). We will respond within 5 business days and work to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Review and Updates
This accessibility statement was last reviewed on August 19, 2026. We review our accessibility practices regularly and update this statement as improvements are made.
See also our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.