Presentations

Diversity Pathways: co-designing an accessible and inclusive workplace with employers and people with cognitive disability in the hospitality and retail industries

Dr Yoon will start the presentation by introducing the CSI presenters, showing a one-minute video of the project summary, and explaining additional project information, including participants and key stakeholders working together to achieve the project goals. She will also present an overview of the Employer-to-employer mentorship program and how it works with employer participants as individuals and as a group.

Dr Hutchinson will present data on the recruitment of employer participants, active engagement with the project (job open, recruitment of candidates with cognitive disability), and enablers and barriers of their disability employment initiatives.

Lachlan Dunn will explain more about the barriers and how they can be improved, such as what to include in a job description and how to be presentable with appropriate etiquette for candidates and job coaches.

Michelle Strudwick will present about a University as an employer to co-design with community researchers as employees rather than external advisory panels, including differences in their roles and responsibilities.

The presentation will finish with the next plan about inviting retail businesses and a long-term vision to create a pay-forward culture within employers to contribute to social impact by becoming a mentor for the next groups of employers as mentees.

Presenters

Dr Jung Yoon

Research Fellow, Centre for Social Impact (CSI), College of Business, Government, and Law, Flinders University

Dr Yoon is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) at the College of Business, Government, and Law, Flinders University. She combines her lived experience as a mother of a child with complex disabilities with her research knowledge and skills to understand the context of disability, business management, and socio-economic engagement opportunities to promote the quality of life and socially valued roles for people with disability.

Jung has focused on building safe, accessible, inclusive, and innovative working environments to enable socio-economic inclusion for people with cognitive disability, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and intellectual and mental disabilities. She also supports cross-cultural research projects between Australia and South Korea by building project concepts and connecting to project relevant bodies in South Korea.

Jung’s research interests include socio-cultural impact in creative industries, disability employment, social enterprise management, inclusive corporate culture in a broad workforce, and social and disability-related policies under the jurisdiction of other countries.

Currently, Jung is a project manager for the Diversity Pathways, an action research project co-designed with people with cognitive disability, disability employment and policy experts, industry partners and employers in the hospitality and retail businesses to improve employers’ capacity to create inclusive working environment for people with and without cognitive disability in hospitality and retail industries.

Dr Claire Hutchinson

Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Social Impact (CSI), College of Business, Government, and Law, Flinders University

Dr Hutchinson is a Senior Research Fellow working at the Centre for Social Impact. She is a mixed-method social scientist with research interests in:

social return on investment analysis of health and social care interventions
employment pathways for people with disabilities
the lived experiences and quality of life of social care recipients

Dr Hutchinson has been a named Chief Investigator on over $3.3 million of competitive grant funding and has a strong track record of managing and delivering collaborative end-user focused research.

Dr Hutchinson is sought after nationally and internationally for her expertise on social return on investment analysis, reviewing international grant applications and journal paper submissions for several top-ranked journals, as well as being invited as Chief Investigator onto SROI grants in health and social care.

Her work in disability employment has been across all employment pathways (ADEs, open employment, microenterprise). Dr Hutchinson’s current projects include an evaluation of a transition program to improve open employment outcomes for youth with disabilities, the development of a social impact framework for a social enterprise supporting the open employment of people with disabilities, and two projects focused on addressing employers attitudes to employing people with disabilities across several sectors.

Lachlan Dunn

Community Researcher , Centre for Social Impact (CSI), College of Business, Government, and Law, Flinders University

Lachlan is a Community Researcher at the Centre for Social Impact, Flinders. Lachlan brings his lived experience as a person with Autism to the Diversity Pathways project. Lachlan has experience engaging with Disability Employment Services through his work in a toy store and at Coles, as well as his time volunteering at an RSPCA op-shop. Lachlan has a desire to influence change in the disability employment sector to achieve better outcomes for everyone.

Michelle Strudwick

Project Officer , Centre for Social Impact (CSI), College of Business, Government, and Law, Flinders University

Michelle is a Project Officer for the Diversity Pathways project at the Centre for Social Impact, Flinders. She works alongside the team of four community researchers with lived experience to facilitate the co-design of the project. Leveraging her background in Speech Pathology and industry experience in the disability sector, Michelle focuses on building the confidence of people with cognitive disability to share their insights and articulate their thoughts and opinions to build a positive and inclusive working environment in the hospitality and fashion retail sectors.