As the representative and peak body of the outdoors community of Victoria, Outdoors Victoria has been appointed by Sports and Recreation Victoria, through their “Together More Active” program, to lead the development of a resource to enable an increase in outdoor recreation activities offered to people with physical disabilities.

After one year of preparation and consultation, the final outcome for this first phase was to create a “Welcoming people who live with a physical disability into your program” toolkit, which is especially targeted at all Outdoor Activity Providers, Outdoor Education Providers, Tour Operators, Local communities, parks and other organisations to provide them with a resource that can support them in offering more inclusive and universal outdoor recreational activities. (whether they are currently offering services to people with disability or not).

Outdoors Victoria has run the project in conjunction with a working group made of 20+ individuals from all different parts of the disability and outdoors sector representing support workers/organisations, individuals with lived experience of disability, outdoor education leaders/organisations and inclusion workers, as well as parks and recreation workers.

As part of the project, Outdoors Victoria also created a survey intended for Victorians living with a physical disability and their carers, guardians and advocates. The survey was open for two months, and we collected 74 responses, which helped us understand current accessibility offers and what is still needed to make the Victorian outdoors more accessible to all.

Please feel free to download this resource and pass it along to other organisations. We also welcome feedback and further inclusions to this document that can support the sector.

Do you or your organisation want to participate further in this project?

Please contact  Andrea Vela, Project Lead, at  digitalcomms@outdoorsvictoria.org.au