NT Anti-Discrimination Commission
ADC Annual Report 2000/2001
Public Education
 |
| Sue Kasparek |
| Director Public Education and Administration |
Objectives
- Provide people with enough information so that they can recognise the potential for discrimination and harassment in their community.
- Empower people to prevent, confront and resolve discrimination and harassment issues themselves.
- Promote an understanding and acceptance of, and compliance with the Act including the principles of equal opportunity.
- Support the NT Government's commitment to equal opportunity for all people in the Northern Territory by fostering fairness.
- Consult with organisations, departments, local government, community government bodies and associations to promote the recognition and acceptance of non-discriminatory attitudes, acts and practices.
Strategies
Throughout 2000/2001, the Commission conducted 102 training sessions involving more than 2000 people throughout the Territory.
These sessions included:
- Formal training programs
- Workplace training
- Awareness raising sessions and talks
- Community involvement and public events
The Commission is aware that information and training is increasingly becoming available on the internet. With this in mind the Commission launched its training and information website this year and can be visited at www.adc.nt.gov.au.
The Commission is very pleased with the success of the new charging for training initiative implemented last financial year. The extra resources have enabled the Commission to increase the range of our education programs, jointly sponsor three Youth Challenges, move to employing sessional trainers and produce additional educational material.
The Commission continues to be committed to the principle of free "rights based" training to ensure that the information on rights is available for all people in the Territory.
The Public Education section of the Commission represents a distinct output group for the purposes of the outputs measurement of the Agency.
In Budget Paper No 2 this output group is described as public education. The following performance measures are identified within the agency.
Output 1: Anti-discrimination formal training
Description: This output measures the regular programmed training delivered by the Commission on rights and responsibilities under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1992 to the public and private sector.
| Performance measures | Unit of Measure | 2000-01 Estimate |
2001-02 Budget |
| Quantity | Number of "student-hours"of training provided | 1760 | 1945 |
| Quality | % of positive feedback from participant | 90 | 95 |
The formal training program is produced biannually and circulated throughout the Territory. The main focus is to provide an introduction to Equal Opportunity or Anti-Discrimination laws. Courses are widely available to everyone and participants range from senior executives of large government agencies or private enterprise to year 7 students, to interpreters and aborigines from remote communities, to owners and managers of private sector business to people with disabilities.
The courses include:
- Introduction to Anti-Discrimination Law
- Harassment – What is it and what you can do about it?
- Recruitment
- Introductory Contact Officer Training
Regional visits are an important component of public education, not only in raising public awareness but also in providing crucial feedback to the Commissioner on issues that may be affecting groups in regional and remote areas. Often the Commissioner has an active role in these visits.
Regional centres visited this financial year for community consultation and training have included:
- Alice Springs
- Ti-Tree
- Tennant Creek
- Laramba
- Katherine
- Utopia
- Nhulunbuy
- Maningrida
- Batchelor
- Borroloola
- Jabiru
- Groote Eylandt
- Tiwi Islands
The Commission organises visits to remote communities and regional centres as the need is identified and requests are made.
Each training session is evaluated and reviewed to ensure that the content meets the needs of the participants. The Commission consistently receives positive feedback about its education and training.
Output 2: Anti-discrimination workplace training
Description: This output measures the training delivered by the Commission on rights and responsibilities under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1992 to individual workplaces at the request of that workplace.
| Performance measures | Unit of Measure | 2000-01 Estimate |
2001-02 Budget |
| Quantity | Number of "student-hours"of training provided | 2600 | 2800 |
| Quality | % of positive feedback from participant | 90 | 95 |
| Timeliness | Weeks from desired date by client to delivery of program | 4 | 3 |
There has been a gradual movement towards developing and providing individual workplace training packages as managers better understand their legislative obligations. The training also provides managers and employees with the ability to identify, respond to and manage instances of discrimination and harassment in their workplace.
The packages include:
- tailor made training developed specifically to meet organisational and employee needs using training material focusing on their industry needs
- assistance in the development of discrimination and harassment policies and grievance handling procedures
- involvement and training of all staff, usually within their workplace, anywhere within the Northern Territory
Output 3: Anti-discrimination rights-based training
Description: This output measures the training delivered by the Commission focussed on improving knowledge of disadvantaged members of the community of their rights under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1992 to the public and private sector.
| Performance measures | Unit of Measure | 2000-01 Estimate |
2001-02 Budget |
| Quantity | Number of 'student-hours'of training provided | 2400 | 2500 |
| Quality | % of positive feedback from participant | 95 | 95 |
These sessions aim to:
- raise awareness of rights and responsibilities of employees, students, customers, and members of the public
- present a range of options for complaint handling
- provide a source of information for people with disabilities, Aboriginal people from remote communities, community service providers and members of the public.
Output 4: Anti-discrimination public awareness activities
Description: This output measures the activities undertaken which raise public-awareness of rights and responsibilities under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1992.
| Performance measures | Unit of Measure | 2000-01 Estimate |
2001-02 Budget |
| Quantity | Number of hours of public awareness work | 200 | 250 |
| Quality | Number of individuals contacted | 2500 | 2750 |
| Timeliness | Weeks from desired date of engagement by client to attendance by official | 1 | 1 |
This year the Commission continued its policy of participating in public events to provide information about people's rights and answer specific enquiries about coverage of the anti-Discrimination legislation and our training.
This year the Commission decided to also target the education sector by providing information to a larger number of students through Youth Challenges.
Youth Challenges
This year, the NT Anti-Discrimination Commission, in conjunction with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, held three Youth Challenges in Darwin and Alice Springs. The aim of these Youth Challenges is to bring students, human rights leaders and community representatives together for a one day event to explore how human rights principles and practices impact on social change, and upon the students lives and the lives of others in the community.
In October 2000, more than 100 students from years 9,10, and 11 from Darwin, Palmerston and rural high schools participated in the first Darwin Youth Challenge. This challenge focussed on gender and race issues and sexual harassment that students are sometimes confronted with in the transition from the school to work environment.
In April 2001 we facilitated the first Youth Challenge for Alice Springs with over 70 Students from Alice Springs High schools participating. The next Youth Challenge in Darwin explored disability discrimination issues in the school environment where the students involved in the Youth Challenge showed great insight and problem solving skills to ensure that both the student with the disability and the school's interests were met and any potential discrimination avoided.
As well as excellent student evaluation the schools involved took away valuable teaching resources that can be integrated into many areas of their curriculum.
Disability Awareness Week and International Day for the Disabled
In December, to help "celebrate the ability" of people with disabilities, the Commission helped in the preparations of a Day of Celebrations. It was a great success and many people took part in the fun activities aimed at raising awareness of issues that affect people with disabilities.
Other public events we participated in were:
- Women's Health Day for NESB
- Humans Rights Week
- Education Careers Expo
- Refugee Week
- Law Week
- NAIDOC
| AREA OF TRAINING | MONTHS | |||||||||||
| Jul | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | |
| Formal | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||||
| Workplace | 1 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Awareness | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 1 | |||||
| Education | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | |||
| Cancellation | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 1 | ||||||
| Total Training Sessions | 1 | 14 | 10 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 0 | 16 | 10 | 6 | 16 | 6 |
| Total Participants | 20 | 170 | 90 | 260 | 54 | 236 | 0 | 220 | 596 | 303 | 420 | 200 |
| AREA OF TRAINING | MONTHS | |||||||||||
| Jul | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | |
| Government | 2 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | |||
| Private Sector | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 11 | |||
| Aboriginal | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | |||
| NESB | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Disability | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Youth/Aged | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | |||||
| Women | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||
| Total | 2 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 4 | 7 | 15 | 17 |