How can I be a community builder in my work?

Community building is part of all of our jobs

When we are supporting people with a disability to direct their own supports and participate in their communities, all disability support professionals undertake some community building as part of our work. It is everyone’s responsibility to help to build inclusive communities. This checklist provides some ideas for community building you mightuse in your role.

Build your networks

Always look for connections in your work.

Take the time to know who the other disability support providers are in your local area.

Find out who provides community services such as employment support, advocacy, support groups, sporting and other clubs, arts activities, community learning, service clubs, housing, carers programs and so on.

Read community newsletters and newspapers.

Attend network meetings orparticipate in communities of practice.

Look for connections

Community builders are always seeking outopportunities to create new links. For example:

If you know of more than one person with similar interests, why not introduce them to each other?

If you read in the local newspaper that there’s a new taxi service in town, why not call them to chat about the transport needs of local people with a disability?

If you’ve heard that a local youth service is planning a dance party, why not suggest they invitepeople who use the the local Futures for Young Adults service?

Share your expertise

Many community groups are willing to include people with a disability, but may feel unsure about how they can be inclusive. They may believe that a person with a disability always needs a support worker with them, or that they will be unable to communicate with them.

Try to anticipate some of the assumptions or anxieties, and discuss them openly with the organisation.

Include the person with a disabilityin the conversation and show how inclusion works.

Work with your local Regional Communication Service to provide support for people with a disability to communicate in their local communities. Visit the Scope website ( to find out where your local service is.

Share your learnings

Make time and space in your practice to share your learnings, and to learn from others. Ongoing sharing will boost the capacity of the whole disability sector and the local community to get better at supporting and including people with a disability.

Help to organise, or attend, regional conferences or forums.

Make presentations about success stories, and difficult experiences that you’ve learned from, at network meetings or forums.

Write up your stories and publish them in newsletters or journals, or send them out to your networks.

Invite people with a disability to share their stories too.

Distribute information

Good community builders are information hubs.

Read the local newspaper and community newsletters.

Find out which mailing lists and e-networks you could be on (bothwithin the disability sector and in the broader community). If you’re unsure, talkcolleagues or the local Access Officer.

Share information with these networks and with people with a disability and their families.

When sharing information about opportunities with people with a disability and support providers, consider using Easy English and highlighting the ways for people to participate.

Be careful not to “spam” people with too much information. If people receive too many irrelevant emails from you they’ll start deleting them before reading them. When you hit the “forward” button, take a moment to think about who will be most interested in the topic, and address it accordingly.

Empower people as citizens

When you are using a self-directed approach to planning with people with a disability, you are supporting them to have a greater voice, using principles of self-determination, choice and transparency. These principles are just as relevant to living in the local community.

Encourage and support service users to take opportunities to have a say in their local community, for example through:

  • client feedback mechanisms,
  • community consultations,
  • advisory committees,
  • advocacy groups,
  • voting,
  • or even political activity.

Remember that it is not just disability and access-related issues which might affect them but all of community life, such as health, sexuality, town planning, transport or the environment.

Encourage your organisation to listen to the voices of people with a disability and look for ways to include those voices in planning days.

Look for opportunities for people with a disability to share their positive experiences of self-directed supports so that other services and other service users can learn from their experience.

Find out more

This is one of a series of four tip sheetsexploring the link between self-directed planningfor people with a disability and community building. Find out more on the DHS website: