Igniting accessible experiences podcast - episode 6

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  [00:00:00] Bridie: Welcome to the Accessible Tourism and Queensland Podcast, where you will hear from people with disability tourism, operators, and experts in accessibility and disability inclusion. This podcast is supported by the Queensland Government.

  My name is Bridie McKim. I am an actor and an advocate with disability. So this particular episode is about non-visible disability.

  [00:00:14] Naomi and David, you are from Australian Age of Dinosaurs.

  [00:00:22] Thank you so much for joining us here today, and we wanna put you in the deep end with our first question. The first question I'd like to put to you is why is inclusive tourism important to you?

  [00:00:34] Naomi: It's been of quite a progression for the museum in the early days, which I'm sure David will touch on.

  [00:00:39] We really didn't consider accessibility at all, but it is really important because museums are there as repositories of information. We're there to provide education scientific information as accurate as possible, and it should be available to everyone. As soon as we found out that we possibly were limiting ourselves and not providing [00:01:00] tourism and the education that should be for everyone, that's when we tried to

  [00:01:04] turn that around. So we've been including different performance objectives in our business plan each year, and they're small things and just gradually working towards those year after year just to improve our services, make sure that everyone can come and see dinosaurs. Everyone can touch a dinosaur bone. Everyone can come and experience what we've got on offer because we think that's part of being a museum.

  [00:01:25] David: We started off with a budget of zero so everything was done on the smell of a mouldy rag, basically. And we did a lot of work ourselves and compliancy, any sort of compliancy, I think was a sort of bit of a foreign word to me back 15 years ago.

  [00:01:38] And the width of a stairway or the width or handrails and things like that say, "no didn't need that. We're right. We don't need this". And you'd, you didn't even think about it. You just built it so that it worked and that was it. And and for a long time that's what we did.

  [00:01:50] And that's probably where we got to start to get to where we are today. But as we've progressed and there's a lot more people coming and obviously we are making more money than we did before, which wouldn't have [00:02:00] been hard. So we're starting to put real infrastructure in place. And so now when we do things, it's part of the process, right from the start, you think about what do we have to do to make this inclusive for everybody?

  [00:02:13] And so it's now part of our process, but back in the old days, it wasn't.

  [00:02:17] Bridie: I'm gonna ask you, Naomi, what have you learnt about non-visible disability?

  [00:02:28] Naomi: It's very much a personal experience and no matter what we do to improve what we're doing at the museum.

  [00:02:34] It's about making sure that every experience is unique and sometimes a non-visible disability is not something that needs to be catered for, or sometimes it is, it's up to the individual. And at no point should they feel the need to disclose or have to come up to the front desk and say, "This is who I am".

  [00:02:53] It's up to the individual. So what we try and do is not only make accessible things such as visual guides and [00:03:00] stories, communication cards, they're available online to download for free. We've also got sensory kits on site where people can choose what they wanna put in them. So there's just a few things there that you can help your experience.

  [00:03:13] It's up to you what you want. You might need headphones. You might not, you might need a fidget spinner, but you might not. So it's about providing those things but not enforcing them. It's not saying, "you are one way and you must experience it this way". That's been quite a learning curve for us is it's, you can provide these things, but you need to be aware that everybody experiences things differently.

  [00:03:34] And even if you do provide them, gee it's not up for you to say whether someone should use them. So we've just gotta always come back to that common denominator of how to create a better experience and make it the individual who's deciding.

  [00:03:47] Bridie: Fantastic. And how does that influence the service you provide for people with non-visible disability?

  [00:03:53] Naomi: I think it's been really positive. Particularly amongst staff. We've done quite a bit of training and staff have really [00:04:00] embraced ways to deal with different visitors and their needs and their requirements. But I think most of all, it's just been really positive to get those couple of stories that come back and say "I'm planning my visit out here made it a hell of a lot easier because we were able to actually get the visual guide and see beforehand, prepare for our visit and see what we were going to do and plan weeks ahead" or just having little things available. Say like sensory kits and somebody needed the headphones straight up they've got 'em.

  [00:04:30] Bridie: Yeah. And I guess it would feel pretty priceless being able to say to all of your customers, "yes, you can access this space", to the majority of your customers.

  [00:04:40] Naomi: Well, and that's it. We're hoping as well that there's a bit of a trend happening and you can't just go to Australian Age of Dinosaurs and Outback Queensland.

  [00:04:48] You have to go through many other different places. So the dream is that over time a lot of people will start bringing in small initiatives and making their experiences as well meet those [00:05:00] changing demands and making sure their experiences are more accessible.

  [00:05:05] David: In regard to positive feedback I think Naomi could share a beautiful story from about 12 months ago when she formed a guide on Autism, what was the name of that Naomi? And a lady wrote in about her son.

  [00:05:18] Naomi: Oh, with the visual story?

  [00:05:19] Yeah. That's planned weeks in advance. And really we'd only just implemented the visual story, which was a trial and error process back and forth with Access Australia. We did it all ourselves in house put it online and started promoting it had printed copies available, but yeah, this mother came back to us and said, "it's just been invaluable as a way to prepare for their visit and so that they know what they're walking into".

  [00:05:48] They reviewed everything. There's no surprises. They know where the toilets are. They know that one of them's a long drop. Which I think most people wanna know.

  [00:05:59] You know [00:06:00] that some areas are gonna be particularly noisy. The lab is, it's like going into a massive dental surgery at times. So what kind of things do you have to prepare yourself before you go in there? And yeah, she wrote a really lovely email about that. And I'm sure there's other cases where they haven't written in, but it's improved their experience as well.

  [00:06:18] Bridie: Yeah. Fantastic. And for those who may not have an understanding of what visual stories are, Naomi, could you please explain what that looks like?

  [00:06:27] Naomi: For us it was explaining what the museum is or what kind of experiences we have. So not so much limited to tours or the buildings that you'll go to, but also the amenities that are available.

  [00:06:40] Services that will be here, services that we don't have, where there's limitations. So for example, if there's an issue with internet or that's the distance away from. The museum to Winton or that you might see animals on the road? What kind of animals? The heat, the flies. It's just a [00:07:00] preparation tool we found, it's to explain the good and the bad. And obviously the good and the bad. The bad can be also good. It's a different way of experiencing the Outback, but a lot of people need to know beforehand what they're walking into. Our first draft of it was abysmal. I thought it was great, but it wasn't very good.

  [00:07:18] And Access Australia told us that.

  [00:07:20] Bridie: Living and learning, good.

  [00:07:22] Naomi: But the students came back on and gave us some really helpful feedback we took it all on board, redid the whole thing, and it's still trial and error. We're still getting there. We're still updating it, but being our own document, we can update it quite easily and improve things as we get feedback.

  [00:07:36] You just don't think sometimes, that if you just say shuttle, that it could mean space shuttle, that you have to be clear about your language. So shuttle bus and that's good because you are looking at things from one side and you wanna see it from all sides to, provide the best kind of material.

  [00:07:50] So that was very helpful.

  [00:07:52] David: Yeah, that's right. That was one of the things that intrigued me with the way that is the language for people, like for people with autism, for instance, the [00:08:00] change in language of presenting something or presenting information that we would just read it and say yeah, and instantly know what it is. But it's rewording it so that people like autistic children or something can look and understand exactly what you're having I was saying this lady that wrote the letter to Naomi and, her son, I think it was in his twenties and he was so excited and she said she's hardly ever seen him like that. She was so taken by it. It was quite moving, and I thought how about that? Because 'cause he was so excited, because he understood. And I thought that was beautiful.

  [00:08:38] Bridie: Yeah. That's incredible to hear. That's so exciting to hear. Naomi, you mentioned when you were developing the visual story that you got some consultation from another organisation or other people. Would you be able to share what that was like? 'Cause you mentioned you made the first draft and you thought it was fantastic, but then you got some feedback and it needed a bit of work.

  [00:08:59] [00:09:00] Would you be able to share a little bit more about that please?

  [00:09:03] Naomi: Oh, it was great. It was a really good process. So initially I'd done some research and had a look online and saw these different visual stories and said, yeah, we can totally do that, put together something. I approached Access Australia and no, Autism Australia, sorry, and had a look at it and they said, look, we usually charge, but we're actually looking for students to come and do some review process. So if you wouldn't mind we'll use this as our, kind of our test bunny and put some notes on it. And they did. There was quite a few notes on there from different students and decided from that because they were all really good, really insightful, and it was just, yes you're completely right, this is not working. So we ditched that and started again and put it together again. And then from that process, it was lots and lots of comments. We did a few video calls and then sent it through to them. And overall, I thought it was really encouraging. The whole [00:10:00] process was a real eye-opener and to talk to a whole bunch of people that you don't usually get to talk to about their experiences, seeing a piece of work about a museum that they've never been to was really insightful. Because often when you're doing marketing, it's the same spiel, 24 kilometres south-east of Winton and it's, 600 kilometres from Townsville, blah, blah, blah. But then suddenly someone's looking at it from a completely different angle, and that's, that was interesting really insightful.

  [00:10:29] Bridie: Absolutely. What an exciting experience that would've been. I wanted to ask you both, particularly because we're talking about non-visible disability and we discussed at the top disclosure and some people with non-visible disability have to disclose their disability in order to get their access needs met.

  [00:10:47] Do you as Australian Age of Dinosaurs invest in any signs and symbols of inclusion? Or training of your staff to ensure that people with non-visible disability feel comfortable to [00:11:00] disclose? Is your visual story really apparent to all customers? Are there any signifiers that you are an inclusive tourism operator?

  [00:11:12] Naomi: We try and limit as many signs as possible at the museum, just to keep it quite clear of signs as 'cause you can go a bit overboard with signs at some stages sometimes. But we do have that information on our website and we do go through quite in depth training with our staff.

  [00:11:28] And it's mostly less about disability and more about respect. Because as soon as you start to empathise with another person and understand the point of view that they might have, information about whether they wanna disclose or, how they wanna experience something that comes to light.

  [00:11:43] And it's about getting our staff to ask those questions themselves and to be aware. It's not about us our staff you have to do this in front of somebody. You have to say this. It's about ensuring that respect is across the entire museum. We do have the sensory bags on show.

  [00:11:59] So that's quite [00:12:00] easy thing to see and identify. But apart from that and the braille guides available and you can just grab them, the menu as well, you can just grab it. A lot of things you just come and you can use whether you want to like you need to, or whether you just wanna check it out, some people are very curious. But yeah, a lot of the times it's just up to the individual.

  [00:12:22] Bridie: I have one final question to you both. What advice would you give other tourism operators when it comes to accessibility and inclusion?

  [00:12:35] Naomi: Big one is to start small. It can be incredibly overwhelming. And you, particularly with David's field of ramps and stairs and handrails, those things can be quite expensive, but you don't need a lot to make a difference.

  [00:12:50] And that's what we found with small in organisations like the museum. Like any place out west, you just need internet skills or Word skills or [00:13:00] something, and you can draft something, you put something together and it might not be perfect, but if you are trying to cater for a particular market or you've received feedback that there's a real lag and you are trying to do something, you can put in some very affordable solutions straight up and start modifying.

  [00:13:17] So say with the visual story, you don't need to be a graphic designer, you just need to have a go and get out there. Check out a few examples and see what you can do. Test it out. Throw it past different organisations 'cause a lot of them are willing to do it for free, or maybe a couple of hundred bucks just a nominal, fee, whatever, and do it that way. Just whatever's gonna make your experience better to the people that are coming to visit and eventually to the people that you come and see your attraction. You can do a lot of things can be done on the ground. And what we do to make sure that we stay on target is we set achievable goals.

  [00:13:53] So in our business plan, we've got two goals each year that to do with accessible tourism or accessibility. [00:14:00] And they can be small things, they could be totally small like a braille menu. Or making sure that often times David's more infrastructure related. But making sure that we have a new training program put through with the staff or that second year tour guides go through more in depth training, or it can be whatever you want, but so long as it's progressing your organisation because a lot of small steps lead to big progress in the future.

  [00:14:25] So if you go with rushing in and trying to do everything at once, it has to be Mickey Mouse perfect. There's no such thing. It's like doing a website and saying you're done. It's a constant evolving process and only by constantly reviewing it and looking at it and how it's being perceived and how it's being received how it's been actually used on the ground, will you actually improve.

  [00:14:44] So I always say it start small.

  [00:14:46] David: And after a while you start to see that it's actually getting pretty good, and that gives you a little bit of enthusiasm and inspires you to do better, and I think that's important to keep looking back at what you've done. Keep doing your bit and keep looking back 'cause you might only do one or two or [00:15:00] three small things in a year, but over a few years. And suddenly you start to get a fairly comprehensive little setup together and you feel good about that and that inspires you to do better.