Projects
Helping to build inclusive communities and empower people with disability to live a good life.
Building your capacity and creating inclusivity
We design and lead grant-funded projects to empower people with disability to thrive. Developed by people with lived experience, our initiatives covering home, work and community connection build capacity and create meaningful opportunities.
Click on a project name to view more information:
Digital and Creative Arts Microenterprise
The Inclusive Creations project empowers people with disability who run small businesses in digital and creative arts by providing leadership and teaching opportunities.
Community workshops are developed and delivered by people with disability, offering participants a chance to learn art skills while discussing disability awareness. The project culminates in public exhibitions, showcasing artwork that sparks conversation and challenges perceptions of disability in the arts.
By creating a welcoming and accessible space, Inclusive Creations helps break down barriers, amplify diverse voices, and foster a more inclusive arts culture.
Want to get involved? Get our newsletter to hear about workshops and exhibitions.
Peer to Peer Network
The Empowered Connections Peer Network Project supports people with lived experience of disability by helping them to connect, share knowledge, and build skills in a safe and inclusive environment.
By fostering peer-led support groups, the initiative empowers people with disability and their families to navigate challenges, access resources, and work towards their personal goals.
Through this initiative, people can create peer networks based on shared experiences, culture, location, or disability type. By learning from others who have walked similar paths, participants gain confidence, reduce isolation, and strengthen their sense of belonging.
Link Employ Adapt Project (LEAP)
LEAP is a localised employment initiative dedicated to creating personalised job opportunities for people with disability while highlighting their strengths to employers across various sectors.
Delivered in partnership with Valued Lives, LEAP leverages relationships with public and private sector stakeholders to promote the development of inclusive workplaces and expand employment opportunities.
Individuals receive support to explore sectors of interest, identify their strengths and connect with pre-identified inclusive employers using an evidence-based customised employment approach.
Personalised roles are carefully designed to accommodate individual needs while ensuring the business benefits from the employee’s unique skills and capabilities.
Employers receive disability training, networking opportunities and ongoing support to foster inclusive work environments beyond the initial job placement. The co-design process is central to LEAP, ensuring the voices of people with disability are heard and employer engagement is maximised.
Funded by the Department of Social Services, LEAP runs until July 2025. If you want to learn more about how we can support you as a person with disability looking for employment or an employer interested in creating inclusive roles, get in touch. We’d love to work with you.
Explore our job design toolkits
Employers and jobseekers can access our Job Design Toolkits, which support the creation of tailored employment opportunities on our resources page.
My home my way
Since November 2019, this project has been dedicated to expanding and improving the resources available on the My Home, My Way website. Set to conclude in 2025, it challenges the view that group homes are the only option for people with developmental disability once they leave the family home.
With resources, created by people with disability and their supporters, the site showcases how tailored supports can empower individuals with complex needs to live independently.
We also host regular My Home My Way workshops where you can hear real stories, explore the workbooks, have your questions answered and discuss your options for creating a home of your own.
Creating Digital Tools Project
For this project we collaborated with the Valued Lives peer network, people with disability and their families.
We redesigned our website and created an online resources hub to provide tools and resources focused on strengthening individual and family and capacity.
The project, funded by Lotterywest, delivered on feedback from co-design forums run by Valued Lives in 2023. View the Co-design report to see how the feedback was incorporated in the project.
My home my design
The My Home My Design: Making ILO Real project has transformed the way people with disability and their families approach living arrangements.
It emphasises choice, inclusion and self-determination through Individualised Living Options (ILO) – the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) supported personalised living arrangements designed to move beyond traditional group homes.
By building capacity and fostering advocacy, the project has laid a strong foundation for long-term change in the disability community.
Through hands-on mentoring, coaching and a free ILO Toolkit, the project provides practical guidance to help individuals and families design, navigate and apply for NDIS ILO packages.
This project, a collaboration between Valued Lives Foundation and other NACBO members, was funded by the NDIA’s Community Inclusion Capacity Development program.
School to Work Transition
Every path to employment is unique. Whether through microenterprise, work experience, volunteering, or customised job roles. This project helps students to design their vision for, and pathways to, employment.
Funded by the Western Australian Department of Communities, the School to Work Transition Project has developed a practical toolkit, co-created with teachers and students from Castlereagh and Leeming Special Education High Schools.
Designed to empower students, the toolkit equips educators, students, and families with strategies for post-school pathways.
Peer Microenterprise Project (MEP)
Designed and led by people with disability, the Microenterprise Project (MEP) supports individuals to build their microenterprise businesses. Through workshops and formation of peer groups across Western Australia, this initiative has helped launch 120 new small businesses — creating real opportunities for employment.
Funded by the Western Australian Department of Communities, MEP is driving change by empowering people with disability to establish their own businesses and achieve greater independence.
Want to learn more?
At TEDx Mandurah 2023, Project Officer and Disability Advocate Clare Gibellini shared how microenterprise is transforming lives.
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