Some of Our Parts

How to Improve Digital Accessibility at Your Workplace

It’s vital to ensure that your organisation’s digital platforms are accessible to everyone.

This can help people with disability who are your employees, customers and external stakeholders.

NDRC Professional Advisor Rob Crestani shares tips on becoming digitally inclusive and accessible.

Here are some do’s and don’ts to follow:

Do’s:

• Use alt text for images: Screen readers cannot see images. Alt text descriptions help people use screen readers to understand the image’s content.
• Use captions, transcripts and audio description for videos: making videos accessible to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, and people who are blind or low vision.
• Test digital content with assistive technology: This will help you identify any barriers to accessibility and make necessary changes to ensure everyone can access your content.
• Use simple and clear language: Avoid technical jargon or complex sentence structures that can be difficult for some people to understand.
• Use responsive design: Ensure digital content is accessible and looks good on all devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Don’ts:

• Don’t use colour alone to convey information: People with colour vision deficiency may be unable to differentiate between colours, so it’s important to use text or symbols.
• Don’t use flashing or moving content: This can cause seizures for people with epilepsy or other photosensitive conditions.
• Don’t use small font sizes: Small font sizes make text difficult to read, especially for people with visual impairments.
• Don’t use auto-play for videos or audio: This can be disruptive and overwhelming, especially for people with sensory sensitivities.
• Don’t use inaccessible PDFs: PDFs can be difficult for screen readers to navigate, so it’s essential to provide accessible versions or alternative formats.

Experiencing Stress During Your Studies?

The University of Queensland seeks your support in understanding student stress during your studies.

Please take a few minutes to complete the stakeholder survey.

Help us understand what contributes to stress for higher education students and the inclusive and accessible ways it can be reduced!

How?

• Complete an anonymous survey for a chance to win 1 of 10 $25 Gift Cards

Who?

Any higher education student who has or has not experienced disability, impairment, chronic health conditions, mental health conditions, learning difficulties, or challenges during their studies.

Find out more and complete the survey:

• Online
• Verbally via Zoom

The Australian Disability and Indigenous Peoples’ Education Fund Scholarship is Now Open

The Australian Disability and Indigenous Peoples’ Education Fund is now open for applications with the deadline for this round being March 31, 2023.

Closing dates are every six months at the end of March and September annually.

Established by Frank Hall-Bentick AM (and his sisters Lesley and Annette and a group of friends Rae, Lyndall, Cath, Ros and Jody) in 2008, the Australian Disability and Indigenous Peoples’ Education Fund (ADIPEF) was created following Frank’s involvement in disability advocacy over thirty years.

Assisting Indigenous and Non-Indigenous People with Disability

Assisting indigenous and non-indigenous people with disability to participate in both formal and informal education programs through small grants, the fund empowers people with disability through further education and learning (both formal and informal).

Based on the belief that education’s important should not be measured by graduate degrees, diplomas or salaries, but by achievements, contributions, paths taken and careers followed – including cultural, relationship, historical and tolerance learnings.

This education fund assists in this through providing small, six monthly grants of up to $2,500 to assist people with disabilities to continue their learning.

• People with disabilities of any age living in Australia may apply for any assistance to help with both formal and informal education.

For more information and to apply go to:

http://www.adipef.org.au

I CAN Network – Empowering Autistic Young People

The I CAN Network is heading into their 10th year, and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I CAN appreciate the ongoing support they’ve received to continue empowering Autistic young people through their Autistic-led, evidence-based mentoring programs.

Thanks to donors’ generosity, over the past year alone I CAN have been able to fund scholarships for 100 students with autism to take part in their mentoring programs.

• If you wish to contribute to the work of the I CAN Network to fund more mentorships for young people with autism, you can donate online here.

I CAN is Hiring!

Looking for an inclusive workplace which offers flexible hours and where you have the option to work from home?

If so, you might be the perfect fit to become an I CAN Mentor.

In I CAN’s School Program they have positions available in Greater Melbourne, Barwon/Geelong and Northern Victoria (Shepparton to Bendigo).

They also have positions available in their I CAN Online program.

Ever wondered what it’s like to work with I CAN? Meet some of their team via their YouTube channel or their website: https://icannetwork.online/work-with-us/

• Please note: you do not need to be Autistic to apply.
• Applications close Jan 22nd, 2023

New Information Resources Available on the Disability Standards for Education

The Department of Education (Department) has worked with Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA) and young people with disability and their parents and caregivers to co-design a new range of resources about their rights under the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Standards).

• You can find the resources on the Department’s website here

What are the resources?

There are four new resources:

• Explaining the Disability Standards for Education – this resource outlines what the Standards are and what they are designed to do.
• Milestones and Transitions – this resource is to help students and their parents and caregivers make their way through their education journey.
• Advocating with and for your child: Primary School – this resource is for parents and caregivers of primary school students.
• Disability Standards for Education in Practice: Action Plan – this resource is for students who are in high school or tertiary education.

Each resource is available in Easy Read format and Auslan and translated into Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Farsi, Hindi, Khmer, Korean and Vietnamese.

How The Resources were Developed

The content of the new resources was created by students with disability and their parents and caregivers, with help from CYDA.

Development was informed by consultation with a range of disability organisations and with input from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability and people with disability from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Call for Research Participants and Summer Research Opportunities

Seeking Neuro-divergent Monash Students for a Study on Losing Personal Items

This research project aims to better understand the lived experiences of Neuro-divergent Monash University students who regularly lose their personal items so as to build and improve technologies to help reduce personal item loss.

What is Involved

We are seeking Monash University students aged 18 and above who identify or have been diagnosed as neuro-divergent and tend to lose things regularly to have a discussion with us for about 45 to 60 minutes about:

• Personal items that you tend to lose on a regular basis
• Where you tend to lose these items
• Walk us through memories of losing these items and finding them
• Join us in exploring potential technologies that might be able to help with reducing the loss of these personal items

Our goal for this exploratory discussion is to help build better cost-effective solutions to reduce personal item loss with your valuable input.

We are also very happy to discuss how the discussion can be tailored to your unique context, so please let us know!

• Participants will be compensated with a 30-dollar grocery voucher for their time.

Criteria for Participation

• Aged 18 and over
• Students from Monash University
• Identify as/ Diagnosed as Neuro-divergent
• Lose personal items on a regular basis

Contact Information

• For more information and how to participate in this study, please contact benjamin.phua@monash.edu.

Summer Researcher Opportunity

Summer researcher opportunity with Monash Inclusive Technologies Lab at the Faculty of IT (Deadline: Friday, 26 August 2022, 5pm).

• Start date: 21 November 2022 (negotiable) for Eight Weeks
• Scholarship value: $4,000 ($500 x 8 weeks)

We are seeking students to be co-researchers and co-designers of technologies to help neuro-divergent individuals who tend to lose things to not lose things.

We know it can be annoying to lose our keys, wallets and phones but these issues can be a lot more annoying if you are neuro-divergent (if you know you know!) and by reducing the cognitive load needed to manage these tasks we can then use that energy for more useful, interesting, life-giving activities.

The work will entail:

• Performing research and literature review
• Designing, and developing prototypes and
• Potentially being involved in focus group studies (with neuro-divergent individuals who tend to lose things regularly) regarding those prototypes
• Students will also be involved in reflective and reflexive exercises about the above activities.

Ideally you will be studying:

• Design, IT or engineering and have taken FIT3146 – Maker lab
• Happy to consider students from a wide range of backgrounds!

We welcome and encourage students who are disabled and/ or diagnosed/ self-identify as neuro-divergent and also have a propensity for losing things to apply as you are experts-by-personal experience and are thus extremely well suited to co-design and co-develop these solutions.

We also encourage students who are carers of people with disabilities who tend to lose things to apply for similar reasons.

• For more details, please kindly get in touch with: benjamin.phua@monash.edu

To apply:

• Please go to the application page via this link
• For more information about this project please click here!

Disability Leadership Program – Apply Now

Australian Network on Disability and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) are partnering again to further the inclusion of people with disability on boards.

This new initiative will see 85 scholarships awarded to leaders with disability.

The scholarships, funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services, will support leaders with disability by providing an opportunity to uplift their governance knowledge.

Scholarship recipients will undertake the Company Directors Course or the Foundations of Directorship course at AICD. Courses are likely to start at the end of November 2022 and run into the next calendar year.

In addition to the course, scholarship holders will receive a complimentary one-year:

• AICD membership
• Directorship Opportunities subscription, Australia’s foremost listing platform which provides the widest choices for directorship positions

To help maximise board career opportunities, the program will also work with existing directors to build disability confidence through Leader-to-Leader Conversations facilitated by Australian Network on Disability.

To apply for the Disability Leadership Scholarship visit The Australian Scholarship Foundation (ASF) website; the facilitating partner for the application process.

• Applications are open now until 27 July 2022.

Study Stress and Support Seeking – Have Your Say!

• Click here to view the original blog post.

Here is the Qualtrics Survey Link:
https://monash.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0MqM78ZMKUmBBsi

Also re-attached is the flyer.

Get COVID-19 Vaccination Support

YDAS is offering free COVID-19 vaccination support to disabled young people who live in Victoria and are 12 to 25 years old.

The YDAS team can help you find information and organise supports so that you can get vaccinated.

They can give you accessible and reliable support and information about:

• COVID-19 vaccines
• COVID-19 boosters
• The vaccination process
• How to book your vaccination appointment
• Where you can get vaccinated
• Supports available for disabled young people.

Can You Get Support?

YDAS can support young Victorians, who are 12 to 25 years old, and identify as:

• Having a disability
• Having a health condition or chronic illness
• Neurodiverse or autistic
• Deaf, deaf or hard of hearing
• Blind or vision impaired
• Having lived experience of mental health issues.

YDAS can support young people with any and all types of disability.

What Support Can You Get?

The YDAS team can:

• Help you find vaccination centres that are accessible for you.
• Answer your questions or concerns about getting vaccinated.
• Find accessible and reliable information.
• Support you to book a vaccination appointment.
• Organise extra support so that you can get vaccinated.

If YDAS do not know the answer to a question when you contact them, they will follow-up to find the answer for you.

Contact YDAS

To get free support or find out more, contact the YDAS team.

Elyse (she/her)

• Text or call: 0447 186 888
• Email: ewestwood@ydas.org.au

Meg (she/her)

• Text or call: 0447 679 121
• Email: mlangmaid@ydas.org.au

You can text, call or email Elyse and Meg. A video call can also be arranged. Please let them know if you have any access needs.

Caulfield Campus Upgrades to Buildings B & C

Monash is planning several important upgrades and improvements to our Caulfield Campus in 2022.

Part of the plan is to remove the escalators in Building B in April to provide additional usable floor area in Building B.

The existing escalator space will be converted to a diverse informal foyer/ seating lounge on each level to support interactive learning experiences and contribute to the ongoing vitality, function and activation of the Caulfield campus.

During this period we encourage staff and students to use the 3 staircases within the building complex, especially for single floor changes.

Health & Wellbeing signage will be erected to help promote this initiative. For staff and students who can’t use the staircases, are travelling many floors or require wheelchair access, please use the existing lifts (available for usage until mid-January 2023, at which point they will be replaced).

Additional Lifts

As part of the work, we’re also installing additional lifts to provide better vertical transportation within the building. The new lifts will be available ready for usage in January 2023.

To build the new lift core, the existing Campus Community Division area in building C level 1 will be demolished to make way for the new lift core structural foundations and lobby space. Hoardings will be erected outside Building C and in Building C Level 1.

Thank you for your patience while these important redevelopments occur. Please contact DSS if you have any questions or concerns about access.