2020 Core Values Awards Winner | Sydney Olympic Park Disability Inclusion Engagement – Development and Implementation of Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2019-22

2020 Core Values Awards winner Sydney Olympic Park Authority

Sydney Olympic Park Authority

From October 2018 to June 2019, Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA) developed its Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) 2019/22 for the Sydney Olympic Park precinct. This plan was informed by extensive community engagement on access and inclusion in line with IAP2 core values in both its development and implementation stages till December 2019.

SOPA had 385 staff and a daily precinct community of 17,500 workers, 4,500 residents and 1,800 students. The purpose of the engagement process was to:

inform the Authority’s Disability Inclusion Plan 2019-22 and its ongoing implementation;
engage our staff and the daily Sydney Olympic Park community on its access and inclusion needs and priorities;
engage precinct users which includes disability organisations;
identify access and inclusion celebration opportunities.

The key project challenges included limited time and resources; lack of a comprehensive database of stakeholders and service providers responsible for provision of disability and inclusion initiatives or clients in the local area who received them; a business approach predominantly centred on improving the built environment and less on non-physical forms of disability and a perception that improving disability inclusion is slow and costly.