Disabled Creatives Focus Group Member

• Date: Tuesday 25th April 2023
• Time: 6.30-8.30pm (with a 15 minute break)
• Places: 4
• Fee: £100 per attendee
• Location: Zoom
• Access: BSL Interpretation, auto captions and self descriptions will be provided if requested.

As part of our commitment to dismantling barriers for disabled people (including deaf and neurodivergent people), we partially prioritise giving work to those who face some of the most significant access barriers.

We are especially looking to reach people who fall into one, or more, of these categories:

• People who need 1:1 (or greater) support around the clock to manage impairment-related needs, without which they couldn’t work or attend development opportunities in the arts; or who have been assessed as needing approximately 84 or more hours of care funded across social services, NHS, and/or Access to Work per week
• People who require a BSL interpreter for events that are delivered in spoken English
• People who use a hoist to transfer in and out of their wheelchair, or need access to a Changing Places toilet
• People who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) 
• People who need to use highly specialised adaptive controls to control their computers (e.g. switch, eyegaze, and head controls)

In this focus group, you will be asked to discuss four questions (but if, as a group, you think those are the wrong questions, you are very welcome to replace them with different ones). The four initial questions are:

1. What are the key barriers you face to accessing opportunities in the arts?
2. What do development programmes and performance opportunities need to do to meet people with access needs like yours?
3. Do you have suggestions on how CRIPtic Arts can:
   1. Encourage applications for jobs, programmes, and opportunities from people facing these access barriers
   2. Ensure that at interview we are accounting for the barriers to previous opportunities that people will have faced when comparing candidates’ relevant experience
   3. Design programmes and opportunities that explicitly meet the accessibility requirements of people in the above categories
   4. Market and outreach our work to people facing these access barriers
4. Is there anything else you think CRIPtic Arts could do to create opportunities that would be better for you?

To apply, please send us an email with a bio (150 words max, or a 2 minute video in english or BSL) by 5pm, 7 April. Please also tell us which of the above categories you fit into.

Global Majority Creatives Focus Group

• Date: Monday 1st May 2023
• Time: 6.30-8.30pm (with a 15 minute break)
• Places: 5
• Fee: £100 per attendee
• Location: Zoom
• Access: BSL interpretation, auto captions and self descriptions will be provided if requested

As part of our commitment to dismantling barriers for disabled people (including deaf and neurodivergent people), we partially prioritise giving work to those who face the most significant barriers to building creative careers, including both access barriers and barriers arising where people experience intersecting oppressions. 

We are keen to ensure that UK-based disabled creatives from the global majority are involved and engaged across our work, especially recognising that they are underrepresented in the wider creative workforce.

As part of that, we are hosting a focus group for UK-based disabled creatives from the global majority. This is to explore how we can work in a way that recognises and meets the needs of disabled creatives from the global majority, including with application processes, programme design, and marketing, and how we can ensure UK-based disabled creatives from the global majority are a core part of our work.

This Focus Group will be led by freelance creative Ashleigh Wilder, with anonymised notes taken by a freelance scribe.

We are keen for our work to meet the needs of UK based disabled people from the global majority, and as a result we want to learn more about how as an organisation we can:

1. Work with more people from the global majority 
2. Design programmes and events that consider the specific needs of, and barriers faced by, people from the global majority, and that are designed to be interesting, engaging, and appealing
3. Create application and interview processes that actively encourage involvement from people from the global majority
4. Market our work effectively to people from the global majority
5. Recognise and respond to the different needs and experiences of people from the global majority, understanding that different communities may have different needs and face different barriers, and that our work needs to be aware of that

To apply, please send us an email with a bio (150 words max, or a 2 minute video in english or BSL) by 5pm, 17 April.

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