Our former Inclusion Advisor, David Saxberg, shares his enthusiasm for running free professional development sessions. His expertise, lived experience and passion for serving the community make him the ideal person to chat with.
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Working for the Information Access Group has been a great experience. Through countless conversations, I have learnt a lot about people, and how the government and not-for-profit sectors work. I understand the challenges that people who work in communications, inclusion and accessibility are facing, including:
- tight budgets
- providing resources that meet the needs of diverse audiences
- helping their team understand the importance of accessibility.
I thought, surely there is something we can do about this. I wanted to be a part of the solution. I shared a coffee and chat with our Managing Director about my concerns. We talked about how tight budgets can be, and how important it is that we help organisations to make sure their websites and communications are accessible. I suggested we offer free, half-hour professional development sessions. The Managing Director agreed this would be a worthwhile service to the community and now my calendar is filling up fast.
Attendees choose the accessibility topics that are most relevant to them, including:
- background information and statistics to help communicate the importance of accessibility to the rest of the organisation
- accessible documents
- HTML and accessible websites
- Easy Read
- plain language
- screen readers
- accessible design.
I follow up the session with an email full of links and free resources, based on the topics we discussed. I am also keen to keep the conversation going and answer any questions as they come up in the future. I must admit, these sessions are the highlight of my job. I love that I can assist organisations to become more inclusive and, consequently, ensure more people have access to the information they need.
