Published on Tuesday, 20 October 2020 at 2:29:40 PM
Great Southern residents who took part in the ‘Train the Trainer’ program for people with disability have created opportunities for greater things.
When looking to further train staff in disability services, the Shire of Denmark found only fixed corporate PR style training available.
The Shire sought out people who would raise awareness and build the desire for real change and went in search of community members with real lived experiences. The people who encounter the barriers every day and in-turn empowered them to become trainers.
Kaleisha Bass, Tyler Hartfield, Geoff Hill and Anwen Handmer were selected back in March to be community facilitators in disability, access and inclusion.
Since the Shire’s ‘Train the Trainer’ program – the first of its kind in Australia, one of the participants, Kaleisha Bass has become a Consultant for Disability Services Consulting. Kaleisha co-presented an ‘Assisted Decision-Making’ workshop, on October 12 with more workshops to look forward to in the coming months.
APM Communities and Disability Services Consulting continue to work together to roll out the facilitators training package created in Denmark to share with other local governments across Australia.
Acting CEO David Schober said, “Training our local community members to deliver this program, has increased the capacity of our community to access this type of training. We have also created a local employment pathway within our community.
We focused on ability and the value of lived experience to help promote the employment of people with disability”, he said.
Denmark High School student Tyler Hartfield, who also participated in the program, has since produced a song with support from Denmark Senior High school. The song is about ‘having found his voice’, the video went viral and achieved over 700,000 views. He also received public accolades from artist Nick Cave, whom Tyler drew inspiration from when creating his song.
Shire of Denmark
Tyler and Geoff will continue their advocacy work with both of them presenting at the Denmark Community Celebration for International Day of People with Disability on December 3 2020.
The ‘Train the Trainer’ program was funded as part of the NDIS’s Lighthouse Project administered by the Department of Communities.
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