Five million Australians identify as people with disability. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year participating in cultural activities, however there are still many barriers which prevent them from fully participating as artists, audiences and visitors.

By reducing or removing these barriers – which is surprisingly easy in many cases – you’re in a much better position to grow your audience, enhance your brand, attract great talent and reduce complaints.

Our team of experts (pictured above) can help you understand and identify issues. They’ll then work in partnership with you and your team to develop and implement solutions so you get the best possible results with the resources you have available to help your business thrive.

Key Services

Website Audits & Digital Accessibility
All the world’s online so how people access your digital assets is now more important than ever. We’ll review your website, apps and social media, let you know how to make them more accessible and then upgrade your content and functionality. Our digital partner is Sitback, one of Australia’s leading digital agencies with extensive experience in delivering WCAG compliant digital solutions.

Access Audits
Want to make your places and spaces more accessible? A team of our advisors with diverse lived experience of disability will tour your premises and give recommendations on improving accessibility for visitors and employees. We can also advise on building refurbs and provide accessibility assessments of architectural plans as well as any product for the built environment.

Accessible Content Management
So you want to make your print and digital content accessible for people with disability…but you’re not sure what to do and/or don’t have the time to do it. Our experts can manage the whole process for you including putting captioning, Auslan and/or audio description on your video content as well as advising on delivering accessible online events.

Disability Inclusion Action Plans (DIAPs)
DIAPs are one of the most effective ways of improving access for and inclusion of people with disability. A DIAP is a framework that helps guide an organisation so it can meet relevant legislative requirements and best practice benchmarks. It’s like a strategic plan for accessibility. We can help you develop, implement, monitor and evaluate a DIAP for your organisation.

Other Services

Content Creation
As with any community, how you frame your marketing content is key you engaging clients and customers with disability. To help you get the right tone, we provide a range of content creation services including copywriting, image sourcing, video production, and graphic design.  

Visitor and Staff Engagement
Data drives innovation, so understanding the needs of your visitors and staff is essential for delivering the best possible outcomes. We’ll conduct surveys, interviews and focus groups so you have the evidence you need to develop effective solutions.

Staff Training
Knowledge is power, so power up your team and boost their disability confidence with one of our standard or bespoke training workshops. We have bimonthly workshops at The Rocks in Sydney or we can come to you.

Policy Assessments
Policy settings are crucial to making change happen. We’ll review your relevant workplace policies and processes to help you make them more inclusive of people with disability.

Accessible Event Planning
Making an event accessible involves deploying a range of different technologies and approaches. We deliver accessible events all the time and have the knowledge and networks to help you understand the process as well as save you time and money.

Consulting Retainers
So you’re committed to improving accessibility but don’t have the resources for a full- time or even part-time disability inclusion officer? No problem. We provide a range of affordable consulting retainers so you can reap the benefits of imbedded experts who understand  your people,  priorities and processes.

Why Choose Accessible Arts?

Arts Specific: We’re experts in arts, culture and disability with over 33 years of experience in helping organisations improve their accessibility, so we know how to help you get the results you want with the often limited resources that arts organisations have available.

Disability Led: Most of our consultants and advisors have lived experience of disability which provides an authentic edge that makes a world of difference.

Cost Effective: We understand the budget constraints under which many arts organisations operate, so we ensure our prices are the most competitive in the market.

Who We Work With: We work with cultural organisations right across NSW from major arts companies and venues through to small independent operators and community festivals. Our clients include:

Art Gallery of NSW | Biennale of Sydney | Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences | National Gallery of Australia | Australian Chamber Orchestra | Kaldor Public Art Projects | Sculpture By The Sea | Sydney Olympic Park | Blacktown Arts Centre | Craft ACT | Eastern Riverina Arts

Testimonials

“Our DIAP has been incredibly useful in terms of building our capacity to provide accessible and inclusive programs, services and infrastructure for people with disability. Accessible Arts was a great partner right throughout the DIAP development process. We highly recommend their services.”
Sydney Festival

“Our DIAP has brought our organisation together to consider where we are and where we are going in terms of building accessible and inclusive programs, services and infrastructure for people with disability. Accessible Arts has been a brilliant and flexible partner throughout the DIAP development process, always genuinely collaborative and solutions-oriented.”
Museum of Australian Democracy

“… Craft ACT was able to engage Accessible Arts to help us navigate the process of creating a DIAP for our organisation, and to conduct disability access and inclusion training for our staff, board and colleagues in the Canberra arts sector. It’s been a positive experience: we have learned a great deal and feel more confident about steps we can take – short-term and longer-term – to increase participation in our programs, events and workplace. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with Accessible Arts and look forward to more collaboration in the future.”
Craft ACT

Our Consultants

Maree Jenner
Maree is the National Vice President of Short Statured People of Australia (SSPA) a non-profit organisation that provides support and information for people with conditions of dwarfism and the wider community. She also facilitates school inclusion programs exploring physical and attitudinal barriers. As an arts lover with a background in photography, Maree is passionate about making the arts more accessible.

Fiona Murphy
Fiona is an award-winning Deaf writer and editor based in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Her writing about disability has appeared in The Guardian, The Age, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, Kill Your Darlings, among many more. Her memoir, The Shape of Sound, explores deafness identity. It has been released in Australia, UK and North America.

Accessible Arts Advisors
We have a pool of trained advisors with a range of access requirements who provide professional and experiential advice on disability-related access and inclusion. Our advisors include wheelchair users, people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, vision impaired, short-statured or neuro-diverse and people who have intellectual disability or psychosocial conditions.

Sitback
Our digital partner is Sitback, one of Australia’s leading digital agencies with extensive experience in delivering digital solutions that are compliant with the international standards outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The Sitback team is a mix of psychologists and software engineers and their clients span the arts, NFP, government, and corporate sectors. They’ve done work for Northcott, Anglicare Retirement Villages, Benevolent Society, Black Dog Institute and ReachOut in addition to working with numerous banks, insurance firms, media organisations and government departments.

Find Out More

For more information or to organise arts and disability consultancy services for your organisation, please email lmartin@aarts.net.au or call (02) 9251 6499.

ENDS

Image description: A photo from the Walk and Talk Tour for the Un[contained] Festival in Kogarah run by Georges River Council. Six people standing and smiling inside an art installation made of LED lights in the middle of a street surrounded by buildings.