Welcome

Welcome to 
Disability Employment Australia’s Conference

Disability Employment Australia’s Conference is presented by Disability Employment Australia.

The 2018 conference was held on 4 – 5 September 2018 at Hilton Adelaide.

About the Conference

Disability Employment Australia’s Conference is presented by Disability Employment Australia. This year’s conference was held on the 4 – 5 September 2018 in Adelaide.

The 2018 Conference Handbook can be downloaded here.

Disability Employment Australia’s Conference is Australasia’s premier conference for managers, aspiring managers, practitioners, and academics working in or with the Disability Employment Services sector.

As part of its ongoing commitment to industry development and growth, Disability Employment Australia provides delegates with opportunities to think, question and respond to a range of critical issues in ways that are meaningful to their organisations, people with disability, employers and the industry more broadly.

Program

In 2018, for the first time ever, Disability Employment Australia’s Conference will be presented by our newly-launched Centre of Excellence. The conference will focus on evidence-based best practice and continuous improvement, and how that looks in the new DES, the NDIS, the new jobactive, and wherever employment assistance for people with disability will increase their likelihood of entering the workforce, maintaining their employment, and starting a career.

The conference program will include relevant debates, research and innovative practices across the following areas:

  1. The new DES: Participant engagement
    • Informed choice
    • Innovation in attracting participants through the community and beyond
    • The new DES guidelines
    • Outcomes, quality service and participant expectations
    • Specialist vs generalist; working with different disability cohorts
  2. The new DES: Employer engagement
    • Why do employers engage with you?
    • Marketing and branding – go big or go bespoke
    • Collaborate to increase employer engagement
    • Disability employment confidence
    • The future of work
  3. NDIS employment first
    • School Leaver Employment Supports (SLES)
    • DES and NDIS – the grey area
    • Information, linkages and capacity building
    • NDIS Support Coordination and building a participant’s capacity
    • The NDIS and employers
  4. Innovative practices in disability employment beyond DES
    • Activating participants who are very long term unemployed
    • The digital revolution and its effect on employment – threat or opportunity?
    • Building the capacity of Indigenous people with a disability
    • Innovation in service delivery to the needs of people with disability living in rural and regional communities
    • The United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, the National Disability Strategy, and the future of disability employment

Who should attend?

Anyone with an interest in employment assistance for people with disability including:

  • Disability Employment Services
  • jobactive
  • People with disability
  • Advocates
  • Training organisations
  • Policy makers
  • Researchers
  • Employers and their representatives
  • Academics

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