You’re Welcome Here

Accessibility is important to me

As a member of the disability community, former D&I Strategist, and someone who cares about inclusion, I value accessibility. It’s a core part of my overall Diversity & Inclusion policy because you cannot be inclusive if you’re not making efforts to be accessible.

This accessibility policy reflects the actions
we’ve implemented and our plan to continue to improve.

Accessibility Policy:

Accessibility is important to me and I continue to learn and work to improve. This policy is reviewed annually or when any major updates to accessibility best practice are released. The policy covers our standard business practices across website, content and events. 

Website & Content Accessibility:

• This website aims to meet, and wherever possible exceed Level AA of the current standard (2.1) of the internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (known as WCAG).
• This website is built using correctly structured semantic HTML and cascading style sheets (CSS). This creates a fast loading website that is accessible to screen readers and is usable in most browsers.
• An accessibility optimised third party theme has been used for design and aesthetic elements of this website.
• The website is regularly tested with recognised accessibility auditing tools and Lighthouse (a development tool which highlights accessibility issues) is used during development.
• The website design is responsive and adjusts to fit the most popular devices’ screen display sizes.
• Alternative text (alt-text) is used for images.
• Content is checked for readability prior to publishing and simple paragraphs and lists are used wherever possible.
• Social media posts must include an image description or video description in the caption.
• Video content produced by our business(es) will include embedded captions, or the option to turn on captions. We will advocate for any content produced by others that we are featured in to include captioning. 
• Direct contact details are included on diversity, inclusion and accessibility pages that don’t redirect to a form, and feedback is genuinely encouraged.

Event Accessibility:

• All event invitations, including those to existing members (eg. online group mentoring calendar invitations) will include information and contact details to request specific accessibility requirements.
• All in-person event invitations and ticketing sites will include venue accessibility information, including contact details to request specific accessibility requirements.
• Wherever possible, our events will include access to quiet spaces or easy exit to space outside the venue. Attendees are welcome to bring their own sensory aids such as fidgets and headphones to our events wherever they don’t introduce a safety hazard or other sensory risk (eg. intrusive lights or noise) to other participants. 
• Event feedback surveys will include a question addressing accessibility and options to be contacted via a preferred method to discuss feedback.

Last update: 18 February 2024