Quick links 

To apply fill out this form: https://forms.gle/j9c2N8qfAc5PfJ7C9 by 11pm June 30th 2023

To read a short summary of this info:Young Experts Group: Key Details

Project info

We are recruiting up to 12 Disabled young people aged 18 to 25 to be part of a Young Experts Group for the Get the Go-Ahead: Voices for Affirmative Consent Project. 

About the Get the Go-Ahead: Voices for Affirmative Consent Project
Get the Go-Ahead is an affirmative consent project for Disabled young people. It aims to give Disabled young people more access to information about affirmative consent, to empower Disabled young people to make choices about their lives and bodies, and to address ableist and gendered drivers of sexual assault and other forms of gendered violence.

We will be working together to create resources about affirmative consent aimed at Disabled young people. 

What it involves 

• You will take part in 6 capacity-building workshops and 6 codesign workshops. These will run online over Zoom. 
• The capacity building workshops are  designed to give you more skills and knowledge. Some of the workshop topics have already been planned, and some will be decided by you as a group of Disabled young people.
• In the codesign workshops we will decide as a group 
  • what kind of resources we want to create
  • what specific topics they should include 
  • How best to support Disabled young people to learn more about consent, sexual health, and our rights

You can see a timeline with more info on what the workshops will cover below under the heading Capacity-Building and Codesign Workshop Timeline. 

Payment
Each workshop will be two hours, and you will be paid $150 for each workshop you participate in. 

Who can apply
This project is open to Disabled young people aged 18 to 25 years old with a connection to Melbourne’s eastern region
We’re hoping to recruit a group of diverse Disabled young people. It’s open to people of all genders and we particularly encourage queer and trans Disabled people, Disabled people of colour, and young people with a diverse range of lived experiences to apply. 

Disabled
This is a broad category, and we know people might use different language to describe themselves. In this project we recognise a broad definition of disability, including physical disability, intellectual disability, neurodivergence, mental illness, chronic illness, cognitive disability, and sensory disability. 

Age
This project is focused on young adults, which are people aged between 18 and 25 years old. You can apply for this if you will be between 18 and 25, as of the 1st of August 2023. 

Connection to the eastern region
Melbourne’s eastern region includes Yarra Ranges, Knox, Maroondah, Manningham, Monash, Whitehorse and Boroondara. Having a connection to this region might mean that you live here, study here, work here, grew up here, or have family or community here. 

Capacity-Building and Codesign Workshop Timeline 

We’ll start with three capacity building workshops on the core topics for Get the Go-Ahead.

August
Capacity-Building Workshop 1
Intro and Intersectional Codesign

• An intro to codesign and decision-making processes 
  • Aiming for consensus, finding compromises 
  • Types of voting (priority & approval) 
  • The difference between codesign and an advisory group
• Understanding the project budget 
• Cultural safety and anti-racism 
• Intersectionality
• Disability justice 
• Queer and trans liberation 
• Respectful language
• Making a group agreement 

September
Capacity-Building Workshop 2
Affirmative Consent and Sex 

• What is affirmative consent? 
• Overview of the new legislation- what it says now and what’s changed 
• Looking at existing sexual health and sex ed resources for Disabled people 
• Disabled people and sexuality/access to sexual health info
• How sexism and ableism contribute to the violence Disabled young people face
• Other topics as requested by the Young Experts Group (we’ll send you a survey once the group has been recruited) 

October
Capacity-Building Workshop 3:
Accessibility

• Disability Justice
• The Young Experts will decide what aspects of accessibility you’d all like to learn more about. For example the group might want: 
  • To learn more about accessible resources, graphic design, writing Easy English, etc., 
  • To have an overview of different types of access needs
  • To focus on peer learning and sharing your knowledge and experience of accessibility 
  • To know more about accessibility and ableism in a health context
  • Any other areas of accessibility you think of 

November 2023-January 2024 

November 2023: Codesign Workshop 1
December 2023: Codesign Workshop 2
January 2024: Codesign Workshop 3
For three months we’ll have monthly codesign workshops to design resources on affirmative consent, sex ed, and your rights aimed at Disabled young people. Using your own knowledge and what you’ve learnt together in the first three capacity-building workshops you’ll decide as a group: 

• What format the resources should be in (e.g., text, video, podcast, graphics, etc.) 
• What topics are most important to cover
• Other details about the resources

There are some requirements for the project that we can’t change 

• The resources must be focused on affirmative consent & sex ed
• The main audience is Disabled young people aged 18 to 25 years old 
  • We can have secondary or additional audiences who are connected to the main audience, like Disabled people in other age groups, parents, carers, teachers, medical professionals, support workers, or other people who interact with Disabled young adults
• The resources must aim to support Disabled young people to understand affirmative consent 
• The resources must aim to support Disabled young people to make their own choices about 
  • what kinds of relationships they want 
  • their safety 
  • what respect means to them and what makes them feel respected  
• We will have a budget and whatever we plan we have to be able to pay for out of our funding 
• The project ends at the end of 2024 and we have to finish everything by then, including promoting and sharing the resources. Our last codesign workshop will be in July 2024. 

February 2024-April 2024
February 2024: Capacity-building workshop 4
March 2024: Capacity-building workshop 5
April 2024: Capacity-building workshop 6 

We’ll have another three monthly capacity-building workshops. These three will be on the topics the Young Experts decide would be most useful. For example

• if in the codesign workshops you all decide you’d like some resources aimed at teachers with Disabled students you might want a workshop on education
• If you decide to make a podcast you might want to learn more about audio production, editing, and accessibility
• You might have specific areas in Disability sexual health you want to learn more about 
• Or you might choose something else that’s part of the project 

May 2024-July 2024
May 2024: codesign workshop 4
June 2024: codesign workshop 5
July 2024: codesign workshop 6
We’ll have another three monthly codesign workshops. In these workshops you’ll look at the resources in more detail, review or contribute to drafts, and generally contribute to the final resources and help plan how they should be shared and promoted, as well as discussing a launch event. 

Codesign principles
These are the codesign principles that will guide how we work on this project. 

Codesign is about sharing decision-making power 

• A codesign group is not an advisory group where suggestions, knowledge, and ideas are shared and then decisions are made elsewhere 
• By definition a codesign group must have decision-making power 
• Major decisions including what topics the resources focus on and what formats they’re in will be made by the Young Experts Group 
• The resources will not be published without the approval of the Young Experts Group 

Codesign must centre those most impacted 

• Codesign brings together people from the communities that will be impacted by the work being codesigned. 
• We must recognise lived experience as an important form of knowledge and respect those with lived experience as experts. 
• We will never assume that someone who connects with a project on the basis of their lived experience can only share their personal story. Disabled young people have expertise as Disabled young people, and equally can have knowledge from their academic, community, or professional backgrounds
• When thinking about who is most impacted we must include a broad range of people, looking at who is often left out of these processes and how intersecting forms of oppression create unique experiences that must be represented 

Codesign must be paid 

Contributing to a codesign process is work, and should always be fairly compensated 

Codesign must be accessible 

• Options to contribute in different formats, e.g., audio, text
• Flexibility and understanding that people’s capacity may vary throughout the year 
• Actively asking about access needs and providing enough information about the process to make it easier to identify potential access needs upfront 
• Checking in regularly about how codesign is going 

Codesign must be transparent

• We will be clear and honest about the limits around what we can do 
• We will share frequent updates with the codesign group about what we’ve done, how we’re following their decisions, and any ways we aren’t 
• If anything changes in the project we will tell you promptly 

You can apply by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/j9c2N8qfAc5PfJ7C9 

If you have any questions you can email Kochava Lilit, klilit@gmail.com