The ACT Inclusion Council is a Canberra group of business, government and community leaders who work in partnership with the community to develop initiatives that value and engage people with disability as customers, suppliers, employees and employers in business.
It is the conduit between business and government, supporting new and innovative projects and events that showcase business opportunities in the disability sector and employment opportunities for people with disability. The Council actively advocate for more accessible properties in the ACT which incorporate universal design and undertake projects to create employment pathways and opportunities for people with disability. Additionally Council aim to build better connections with Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability, families, and supporters.
A contemporary understanding of disability
What is Inclusion?
Inclusion is all about ensuring every person can fully participate in all aspects of mainstream society, including workplaces, education, health, social and recreational opportunities, public spaces, community services and business.
Inclusion promotes equitable treatment and actively embraces diversity and respects the rights of all individuals to ensure that life experiences and opportunities are open to everyone.
What is not Inclusion?
Segregation
Segregation is the situation where people with disability are compelled to live, learn, work, and socialise in isolation from their non-disabled peers and community (Final Report – Executive Summary, Our vision for an Inclusive Australia and Recommendation, Disability Royal Commission, 2023).
Integration
Inclusion is sometimes confused with integration. Integration refers to the segregation of people with disability within mainstream settings, often in the form of specialised programs or classes. Integration still compels people with disability to live, learn, work, and socialise with other people with disability, isolated from non-disabled peers, but within in a mainstream setting.
Integration, or integrative programs, can by design become a pathway out of segregation and into an inclusive mainstream environment.
Inclusion
An inclusive environment is accessible and adaptable, facilitating and enabling people with disability to equitably achieve the same outcomes and opportunities to participate in society.
Creating an inclusive environment is achieved through the adoption of the social model of disability, which recognises that it is the barriers that exist in the environment which create the experience of disability; not the individual attributes of a person.
Social Model of Disability
The social model sees ‘disability’ as the result of the interaction between people living with impairments and an environment filled with physical, attitudinal, communication and social barriers. It therefore carries the implication that the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environment must change to enable people living with impairments to participate in society on an equal basis with others.
A social model perspective does not deny the reality of impairment nor its impact on the individual. However, it does challenge the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environment to accommodate impairment as an expectation human diversity.
In contrast, the medical model sees ‘disability’ as a health condition dealt with by medical professionals. People with disability are thought to be different to ‘what is normal’ and ‘disability’ is seen ‘to be a problem of the individual.’ From the medical model, a person with disability is in need of being fixed or cured. The medical model of disability is all about what a person cannot do and cannot be.
The social model seeks to change society in order to accommodate people living with impairment. It does not seek to change persons with impairment to accommodate society. It supports the view that people with disability have a right to be fully participating citizens on an equal basis with others.
People with disability are not “objects” of charity, medical treatment and social protection but “subjects” with rights, capable of claiming those rights, able to make decisions for their own lives based on their free and informed consent and be active members of society.
In this context:
- Impairment is a medical condition that leads to disability.
- Disability is the result of the interaction between people living with impairments and barriers in the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environment. For example, it is not the inability to walk that keeps a person from entering a building by themselves, but the stairs that are inaccessible to them.
The ACT Chief Minister’s Inclusion Awards celebrate people with disability who are leaders in our community and recognises those who welcome, collaborate with, support, and improve the experience and outcomes for people with disability in the workplace, business and community.
Winners of the 2024 Chief Minister’s Inclusion Awards were announced on Friday 22 November 2024 at a gala dinner at the Hotel Realm in Barton.
See all the 2024 nominees listed here
View the winners from the 2024 Chief Minister’s Inclusion Awards: 2024 Winners
Also see the event photos and video with highlights of the 2024 event.
Past Awards
Take a look back at previous finalist and winners of the ACT Chief Minister’s Inclusion Awards.