Belgravia Leisure strives to connect ALL in the community to leisure. To achieve this outcome, the Five-Year Access and Inclusion Plan was developed to prioritise the inclusion of people with a disability, of diversity and who experience disadvantage.

Belgravia Leisure’s award-winning Five-Year Access and Inclusion Plan is the only organisation-wide plan in the leisure sector in Australia and New Zealand to welcome, support and include all, regardless of circumstance, background or ability.

Looking back on the achievements of the Access and Inclusion Plan since its inception, Belgravia Leisure’s Disability and Diversity Manager Dr Jeff Walkley is proud of the work that has been achieved in this space.

“The Five-Year Access and Inclusion Plan has led to much better cross-area collaboration within the organisation. We’re also proud of the fact that the Plan has won awards and external funding through the workforce diversity refugee employment program, team member training through YouMeUs and the All In project, which received funding and support from Swimming Australia,” said Dr Walkley.

Some examples of cross-area collaboration include:

• Workforce diversification project, being undertaken with our people and culture team to help us diversify our workplace, how we communicate who we are, what we believe, and what we do.
• All In program, being undertaken with our aquatic leadership team
• Outcome project, being undertaken with our aquatic and health and wellbeing leadership teams to measure benefits being gained by people who use our services, programs and facilities

As the Five-Year Access and Inclusion Plan progresses through 2021, Belgravia Leisure will continue to place a focus on community engagement with plans to scale up the presence of Inclusion Coordinators to have one Community Engagement Coordinator at every year-round operated leisure venue.

Community Network Forums will continue to be implemented in March and September every year, enabling Belgravia to undertake community engagement and collaboration. Providing an example of successful local partnership and initiatives, Dr Walkley said, “The F.A.R.M. in Freeling, South Australia, developed a new program through feedback from the Community Network Forum. This program subsequently elicited a $5,000 donation from a local organisation.”

Find out more about Belgravia Leisure’s values and commitment to access and inclusion here.