Welcome to our July 2016 newsletter.
Accessible Arts would like to congratulate Mr. Colin Allen who was recently appointed the Chair of the International Disability Alliance (IDA), from Australia. Colin Allen is a leading advocate for persons with disabilities globally, including as President of the World Federation of the Deaf since 2011. IDA is an alliance of alliances. They work with their members to empower persons with disabilities through the United Nations.
Those of you in NSW who would like to be part of the FACS Digital Accessibility User Network, FACS would like to hear from you. The Information Access Group is working with FACS to establish the Digital Accessibility User Network – this is a group of people who will meet regularly (usually once a month) to discuss web accessibility and to support FACS as they make changes to their online offering. If you are interested in taking part, apply via the FACS website.
As the NDIS begins to ramp up in Australia an interesting article has just been published discussing how the NDIS views music therapy. It is still unclear how music therapy will be funded under the NDIS, and while the spokesman said funding for music therapy would be assessed on a case-by-case basis, anecdotal reports suggest assessment for funding varies greatly between regions, rather than individual cases Read the full article online here.
Lastly, if you use emojis you will be pleased to learn that Scope UK released a new set of 18 emojis featuring people with disabilities. Read the article onlline at the Scope website.
Accessible Arts offers four open sessions per year in disability awareness training for managers, policy makers, frontline staff, cultural advisers, small businesses, and creative practitioners.
The information and skill development gained from this training is crucial for effective delivery of arts strategy, arts and culture programmes, festival events and quality customer service. We offer practical and innovative solutions to give you the confidence to welcome people with disability to your venue, provide inclusive experiences and make accessibility a natural and integrated part of what you do.
Each session is four hours and covers
The benefit of these disability awareness training workshops include networking, sharing and learning from the diverse experience in the room.
Register online here or direct enquiries to Sarah Houbolt, Strategic Projects Manager, by email shoubolt@aarts.net.au or by phone on +61 2 9251 6499 extension 107.