Co-designing training content to help people with disability create their own self employment ideas
Project type:
Co-design
Partners:
Employment Options Inc
National Disability Insurance Scheme
Impacto Consulting
Location:
Adelaide, South Australia
Employment Options work with people to help them achieve their employment education and training goals, and to navigate to a secure future. As a registered NDIS provider they recognised the challenges that people with a disability found in securing employment and were successful in securing a grant from the NDIS to assist people with a disability to explore self-employment.
Our goal was to use co-design as a way to create an environment that makes it possible for people to participate regardless of their disability and involve their carers and other professional support services, so that they could both see value and encourage participation.
Approach
We ran a series of co-design workshops that involved people living with a disability or caring for someone with a disability. One of the activities in the first workshop was to explore other learning environments that our participants had been a part of in the past. We uncovered what did and didn’t work in these environments, which gave us a good understanding of all of the considerations that impacted the participants in their learning. Post the session, we were able to create a set of design principles to ensure that this program would meet their needs.
Next, we created 2 x hi-fidelity prototypes of a training course that would help participants to learn how to start their own business, but also addressed some of the challenges that stopped them from feeling they could participate in previous learning environments.
We held several workshops to test and refine these prototypes until we had a final product, that both Employment Options and participants were comfortable would be a success for all involved.
Outcomes
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A training program that helps people with a disability to start their own business by using human-centred design techniques
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A set of design principles, created to inform and ensure the success of any further iterations of this program, or any other programs Employment Options may choose to create in the future
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Over 60 people have completed the course. All graduates have their own business plan and feel empowered to create their self-employment opportunities. A few graduates have launched their own business post the program and are receiving an income from it.