TOM: Melbourne + Swinburne AccessAbility Careers Hub

Design Factory Melbourne

Inclusive and Accessible Career Pathways.

As part of TOM@University program in partnership with Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM), Occupational Therapy (OT) and Design students worked to create design solutions for people living with disabilities to make future work more inclusive and accessible. In collaboration with Swinburne AccessAbility Careers Hub, students explored ways to encourage organisations to become more confident recruiters of people with disabilities. Solutions range from building awareness to accessible and inclusive recruitment processes to a focus on developing research and best practice on onboarding and reasonable adjustment processes for employees with disabilities. Concepts include:

Grad2Employ – a central online place of support for individuals with invisible disabilities (mental health condition) during the job seeking process. The platform assists job seekers in their job seeking process and provides support and information to help a job seeker achieve their career goals. Team: Tyler Gilmer-Reeves (Design), Bernadette Beghetti (Occupational Therapy), Kiran Johal (Occupational Therapy), Alexia Nicolaou (Occupational Therapy) & Caia Reis (Occupational Therapy).

InRecruit – app providing Interactive training modules to improve the capability and inclusive practices of recruiters. Interactive learning experiences aim to illustrate how disability affects jobseekers’ everyday life and to enhance inclusive recruitment practices through empathy and understanding. Team: Madeleine Kilpatrick (Occupational Therapy), Grace Yang (Occupational Therapy), Charlotte Dinnie (Occupational Therapy) and Katie Grieve (Occupational Therapy).

WorkAble – an app providing tailored workplace adjustments with a focus on mental health, for employees and employers. Team: Emily Emily (Occupational Therapy), Stephanie Setiawan Hartanto (Occupational Therapy), Arianne Jacobs (Occupational Therapy), Sophie McNally (Occupational Therapy) & Amira Seneque (Design).

WorkAble – providing tailored workplace adjustments with a focus on mental health

InRecruit – interactive training modules for recruiters

Grad2Employ – online support for individuals with invisible disabilities

Grad2Employ – awareness campaign

Acknowledgement of Country

The School of Design and Architecture respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and knowledge-keepers of the lands, waters and sky that surround us, where we work, learn, create, communicate and make place. We recognise that sovereignty has never been ceded and this always was and will always be Wurundjeri Country. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who continue to make a better world through design.

We extend our acknowledgement to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, students, alumni, real-life clients, and knowledge keepers, who have contributed to our own education diversity and growth. We will continue to ensure that staff and students respectfully honour ancestral connection to Country and Place in everything that they do.

We are dedicated to the notion of design to make a better world and we acknowledge that making tools, shaping place, sharing stories, making meaning, wayfinding and collaborating have long been and continue to be both central and integral to First Peoples' cultures. We recognize that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural contributions have continued relevance to design practice and commit to: reconciling ancestries of design and contemporary practice as well as pursuing culturally and professionally appropriate ways to engage with a diverse population of colleagues, industries and clients. In a time of treaty-making and voice we understand that there are overlaps between caring for Country and the sustainable production of goods, services, experiences, products and buildings.

Guided by the principles of respect, reconciliation, and reciprocity we undertake to indigenising and decolonising design practice by dismantling colonial structures and challenging biases that have marginalised Indigenous voices and design.

As students of SoDA you will be given opportunities to both engage with and educate yourself in Indigenous creative practices and cultural protocols through a lens of inclusivity, diversity, respect, mutual understanding, inter-cultural dialogue in all aspects of design practice. Indigenous people have been telling stories, making tools, and connecting to Country through visual media, placemaking and place marking for more than 60,000 years and these practices are part of an ongoing, evolving and live tradition.