Statutory information

DP Action

3.4.1b: Complete plans of management for all sporting fields in the Georges River LGA.

Status

Comment

Action Name

Ongoing

This work is being completed over three years.

Status Comment

Develop innovative funding and delivery models to implement priority projects and recommendations from the Georges River Council Open Space, Recreation and Community Facilities Strategy. Completed.

Disability Inclusion Action Plan

Work continued in 2020/21 to meet out commitment to the four key focus areas of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan: building positive attitudes; creating liveable communities; supporting access to meaningful employment; and accessible systems, information or processes.

Building positive attitudes

We continued to partner with local community groups to showcase the contribution people with disability make in our community. Local disability groups have been assisted financially through our Community Grants Program to support their programs, work, and resources to advocate and raise their profile to work in the community. These included funding under the Capacity Building Grant category for a range of projects:

The Cerebral Palsy Alliance received funding for communication equipment for people with disability; Learning Links for supporting children with learning disabilities and difficulties in the Georges River community; The Shepherd Centre for Deaf Children for supporting children with hearing loss and their families; Dance for Parkinson’s Australia for movement classes; Jubilee Community Services Incorporated for an accessible art program for people with autism; and Children with Disabilities Fund Inc. for music therapy for children with disabilities. Our early learning centres worked with children with disabilities along with their families and allied health professionals in 2020/21. An important part of this relationship has been working with all other enrolled children and families and building acceptance and understanding of others, irrespective of differences in ability. The centres aim to instil this approach from a young age to strengthen long-term positive community attitudes.

The Access and Inclusion Reference Group endorsed images chosen to present people with disability in a positive manner - these are now available for use across our publications and website.

We purchased disability awareness training material from the Centre for Inclusive Design. Two direct facilitated training sessions were planned for key publicfacing staff, the first one running for 15 staff members and the second postponed due to the emerging COVID-19 situation at the time. We will include disability awareness training in all new staff inductions.

Creating liveable communities

Following a comprehensive access audit of the Netstrata Jubilee Stadium in March 2020, we replaced the tactile ground surface indicator systems at Gate A and Gate D, which are the two largest and most heavily used ingress gates during stadium events.

We engaged Accessible Arts to provide accessibility audits across a few different areas. A ‘walk and talk’ audit of Council’s Carss Park Artist’s cottage identified several simple changes to ensure the artist-in-residence program is accessible. A second ‘walk and talk’ audit

of Un[contained] Arts Festival led to the inclusion of a special one-hour, low light and low noise session for people with sensory processing disorders. Additionally, we purchased access ramps to allow for accessibility to the shipping container art installation spaces at the festival.

We continued to produce accessible maps for town centres across the LGA. There are now maps for Hurstville, Kogarah, Mortdale, Beverly Hills, Penshurst and Oatley town centres. These maps are available to the local community and are included on our website.

We created new signage to improve accessibility in Hurstville and Kogarah CBDs.

Supporting access to meaningful employment

We continue to support the Jubilee Arts for Mental Health program, an art skills program offered each term for 10 people with autism and people managing or recovering from mental illness. There is an opportunity for participants who are repeat attendees to be selected for a paid position as an assistant tutor on future programs.

We engaged a NOVA Transition Disability group to manage a letterbox drop providing information to local residents about an upcoming volunteer opportunity with Council.

Accessible systems, information or processes

Due to COVID-19, we organised all meetings via online platforms, including meetings with members of the Access and Inclusion Reference Group (AIRG). The AIRG will maintain online meetings as it makes attendance easier for all members. Live captioning is provided for meetings as necessary.

We are using the tool Monsido to regularly monitor the accessibility and quality assurance of our website and improve usability and customer experience. Monsido monitors readability, misspelling and broken links to ensure both technical and content accessibility. In the year 2020/21, our Monsido compliance level scores improved from 80% to 85%.

Accessible Arts provided a comprehensive audit of Council’s website, reviewing five webpages against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Recommendations will be used in conjunction with the regular Monsido reviews and incorporated into general website updates and maintenance.

Mural by Maddison Gibbs in Post Office Lane, Kogarah.

Food trucks at Un[contained] Arts Festival