In a nod to its pledge to build a more inclusive, diverse and equitable community across Ballarat, council will this week release a comprehensive suite of new and revised inclusion policies for community feedback.
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The content of the draft policies and plans was informed by one of council's most successful community engagement processes in recent memory, which saw nearly 900 people provide feedback on their lived experience of diversity throughout April and May.
Over 250 respondents participated via a survey, which sheeted home some sobering truths about the state of inclusion in Ballarat.
Fewer than six in ten people, according to the survey findings, viewed the city as suitably inclusive, while over 40 per cent said they did not feel safe.
Half of all respondents also confirmed they had experienced discrimination in Ballarat, with only one in two people agreeing council services were inclusive and free of discrimination.
City of Ballarat director of community wellbeing Matthew Wilson said the results had exposed the critical importance of developing well-structured plans focused on removing barriers to inclusion and social wellbeing.
"[Plans] like these give voice, place and presence to people - it's something that's really important, so survey responses which highlight areas we can improve are really welcome," he said.
"We're really encouraged and satisfied that the input we've had into these plans from the community engagement work is representative, and we're confident the outcome of that speaks really positively to the intent of the Ballarat community to [...] become even more inclusive."
Five strategic plans have been developed or otherwise revised, spanning First Nations reconciliation, interculturalism, disability, ageing and LGBTIQA inclusion, with a view to helping guide the development of more inclusive services and programs across the city.
In a council-first, an overarching inclusion framework has also been devised, recognising the way in which different aspects of a person's identity - eg, ethnicity, gender and age - can render a person vulnerable to compounding forms of discrimination.
To this end, Mr Wilson said the inclusion framework would ensure a coordinated approach, lending a seamlessness to each of the five discrete plans.
"Coordinating this collection of strategies under an inclusion framework is really powerful," he said.
"It recognises there's a common experience within that diversity [and], from council's point of view, it gives us a stronger way of focusing as a whole organisation for the whole of the community across the whole of life."
Mr Wilson added that the plans were as much about celebrating diversity as seeking to protect it.
"There can sometimes be a misconception that inclusion work further segregates community - that is the opposite of our intent with this work," he said.
"Ballarat is a really wonderful community, and these plans are really celebrating that but also setting a sense of aspiration, too."
The draft documents will be made available via the City of Ballarat MySay portal from 25 August until 21 September for viewing and feedback, with four community drop-in sessions also scheduled across the four weeks. See online for details.
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