Influence and advocate

Your initiative will impact on your venue and its staff, so it will be important for your team to understand what the project is, and why it is important. And if the rest of your team become inclusion advocates like you, this could lead to even more great initiatives.

Share arguments for inclusion

You might need to convince your team that inclusion is worth their time and the venue’s resources. There are many arguments for building an inclusion strategy. You should think about which ones are likely to be most compelling for the people you work with. Your arguments might include:

• It’s the right thing to do. Providing opportunities for everyone to experience aquatics and recreation is fair, and promotes equitable health and wellbeing outcomes for the community.
• It’s an organisational/venue priority. if your organisation has made a commitment to inclusion, this might inspire your team to work towards inclusion. Has the organisation implemented things like inclusion-related measures and targets? Are leaders required to model inclusive values? These organisational commitments and requirements are likely to be a motivator for many staff.
• It’s good for business. Focussing on inclusive programming and attracting a diverse range of customers has the potential to broaden your venue’s customer base. Inclusive design can also benefit and attract more than an initial diversity target population.
• It’s good for your public image and community connection. Inclusion strategies are all about making your venue more welcoming. Presenting a welcoming face to the whole community is a great image!
• It will help your partners to meet their goals. If you manage a venue for a council, inclusion strategies could be good for your relationship. It is likely that the council’s strategic goals include a focus on engaging underrepresented communities in civic life and in Victoria this is a state government priority.
• It will help you to attract and retain employees. Potential employees are likely to be interested in your venue’s inclusion work. For current staff, an inclusive workplace creates engagement, and working towards inclusive goals is likely to make them feel like they are doing valuable work. Building a diverse and inclusive workplace can also make your team feel respected, welcome, and more likely to stay.

Share your knowledge

Your research and reading will have given you great insights into your community, and into barriers and enablers to participation. We suggest you share your knowledge with your team. This can build an understanding of why inclusion is important, and help the team to understand why you have designed your particular initiative. Sharing knowledge might also spark ideas for new projects. You could:

• summarise what you have learnt about particular topics and share it in emails or conversations with your team;
• present at team meetings;
• share selected articles with your team; and
• share resources like best practice guides that are relevant to a particular group of staff. For example, a guide to aquatic inclusion might be of interest to the leaders of a learn-to-swim program.

You could also explore opportunities to undertake team training. We provide some suggestions in the educate section.

Maintain enthusiasm and commitment

You will want ongoing commitment from your team, not just initial enthusiasm. Think about ways to keep inclusion top-of-mind, and to keep your team engaged in your initiatives. Possibilities include:

• making inclusion a standing item on your team meeting agenda. This would be a great time to seek ideas from your team, to tell them about the progress of your initiative, to present data from trials, and to discuss the potential impact of new initiatives;
• if you manage staff, including inclusion-related performance measures and tasks in their work plans;
• acknowledging the efforts of your team mates and talking to them about new ideas;
• celebrating your team’s successes and the impact of your initiatives. We discuss ideas and the benefits of communication in the Celebrate section of this guide; and
• recognising diversity days. This is a great way to spark conversations and keep inclusion on the agenda.

Educate