Learn to better serve people with disability in your sector
Travellers Aid’s Accessibility Awareness Workshops offer in-depth, hands-on learning that meets your specific needs.
Our half-day programs cater for workplace groups in a range of sectors, and are delivered at a time and place that suits you.
Who should do an Accessibility Awareness Workshop?
Our flexible workshops are the ideal option for organisations wanting to improve infrastructure, service and project design and delivery.
The program suits:
- event organisers
- tourism and hospitality venues
- businesses
- councils
- policy makers.
“City planners, developers, designers and architects out there should consider connecting with this great not-for-profit organisation to learn first-hand about the challenges of the city.” – Steven Weir, Social Impact Manager, Lendlease
Why is accessibility awareness training important?
Awareness builds inclusion. Our training builds awareness by giving participants a real-world sense of the challenges faced every day by people with disability.
Learning through experience is proven to have lasting impact (1). Traveller’s Aid’s Accessibility Awareness Workshop is carefully and respectfully designed to give insight into how people with disability might experience your spaces and services.
Experiential disability awareness training that is co-designed and co-delivered by people with disability is a powerful way to better understand disability. It can set off a lightbulb moment that sparks the passion and compassion required to make a change in your sphere of influence.
It will help you see ways you can improve the design and delivery of built environments and services for better access and inclusion.
You will also make connections within the disability community that can be invaluable in helping you apply your learning to future access and inclusion strategies within your organisation.
“There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, but through the training I learnt there are more opportunities to subtly improve how we architecturally design equitable spaces.” – Mia Willemsen, Senior Architect, Hassell Studio
What happens in an Accessibility Awareness Workshop?
When you participate in a Travellers Aid Accessibility Awareness Workshop you will get a taste of the lived experience of those with disability.
Through simulated disability – such as using mobility aids or wearing glasses that approximate vision impairment – you will gain some insight into what it’s like to navigate commercial or public spaces with impairment.
After completing the simulation activity, you will join other participants and facilitators to reflect on what you’ve learned and how it can be applied in your business and community.
More than a simulation
Disability simulations show only a fraction of the picture. We know that living with disability is a complex intersection of impairment, public policy and community attitudes.
Travellers Aid’s range of disability awareness training programs are informed and co-facilitated by people with lived experience of disability.
During your workshop these facilitators will share their experiences, taking you beyond a simulated experience to gain deeper and more useful insights to take back to your organisation.
Share your learning with online disability training
Embed awareness within your organisation by combining your in-person experience with online disability training.
Management or leadership staff who undertake our in-person sessions are well-placed to share their experiences and support colleagues who complete self-paced online learning.
Online training is a also great addition to your workplace onboarding schedule to ensure new staff understand the value your organisation places on accessibility and inclusion.
Booking Information
Travellers Aid runs Accessibility Awareness Workshops at a place and time that suits you.
Contact us to discuss how we can help you achieve your organisation’s access and inclusion goals.
For more information or to book your next disability awareness training session email training@travellersaid.org.au or call us on (03) 9654 2600
You can view our Cancellation Policy here.
Travellers Aid is an Australian registered charity and an accredited social enterprise.
Reference:
- “Experiential methods have been particularly productive in the affective domain where attitude recognition prior to change is imperative and where sensitivity and support on facilitators’ part is essential” (Andresen, L., Boud, D. & Cohen, R. 1995 Experience-based learning. In Foley, G. (ed.) Understanding Adult Education and Training. Sydney: Allen & Unwin).
