Expanding horizons

When one of my colleagues at ANZ mentioned an opportunity for a part-time secondment with the Attitude Foundation, I jumped at the chance. I was fortunate to be offered the role of General Manager.

Attitude Foundation is a niche media company that produces dynamic and authentic media content aimed at changing community attitudes towards people with disability. Attitude’s vision is ‘to live in an Australia where people with disability are welcomed and fully included on an equal basis in every aspect of life’.

Attitude Foundation drives change in attitude and culture by working with people with disability to shares stories of people with disability in their own voice and in their own way and broadcasts this content across a range of readily accessible channels including film, mainstream television, social media and podcasts.

Strong partnership

I am incredibly passionate about accessibility, inclusion and diversity, and am grateful to work for an organisation such as ANZ that encourages development opportunities, flexibility and has solid partnerships with organisations in the accessibility space.

The secondment naturally complements other projects I am working on in this area at ANZ.

Since 2016 the partnership between ANZ and the Attitude Foundation reflects a shared desire to change community attitudes and behaviour toward people with disability and to empower people with disability to participate in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

This year ANZ renewed its partnership arrangements with the Attitude Foundation.  As part of this, I provide my professional services on behalf of ANZ through the secondment and in exchange, ANZ calls on Attitude to present insights and training to ANZ on accessibility and inclusion issues.

Matt Field, CEO Attitude Foundation says The Attitude Foundation values its long-standing partnership with ANZ – a partnership based on shared values and commitment to increasing equity and inclusion for people with disability.

“ANZ has been a supporter of the Foundation from the outset and has played a vital role in enabling the organisation to achieve its aims of producing broadcast media and more recently to provide momentum for our Emerging Voices mentorship program launching in 2022”, Matt says.

The power of media

During my time with the Attitude Foundation I hope to contribute to the growth and sustainability of Attitude as an organisation and to help it make an impact by changing community attitudes towards people with disability.

We are currently working on an exciting media internship called Emerging Voices which will be hosted at Channel 31 and facilitated by leading media industry professionals next year.

The purpose of the internship is to provide young people with disability the opportunity to gain quality experience in the media industry, to learn practicable and transferable employment skills and to build industry connections. Throughout the program, participants will have the opportunity of working on a number of individual and group media projects and will produce their own media content for broadcast.

While the first two intakes of the internship are sponsored by the City of Melbourne, I’d love to help Attitude achieve further financial support so this initiative (as well as its other great projects) can grow and continue on an ongoing basis.

Authentic stories

In 2018, 4.4 million Australians, (17.7 per cent of the population) were living with disability. Leading research cites attitudinal change as critical to increasing the participation of people with disability in society. 

Attitude identifies the media, including social media, as a key driver of societal attitudes and perceptions of disability.

While some improvements have been made in the diversity of representation of people with disability in media, overall people with disability continue to be misrepresented or type-cast. In addition, participation of people with disability in the media industry is low, as is the engagement with media by people with disability.

In 2019, the Attitude Foundation realised its long held aim of producing a documentary series which depicts rarely told Australian stories.  

The series, Perspective Shift, focuses on three artists with disability, with their life experience explored in relation to their craft and was broadcast on SBS. A further series of Perspective Shift is expected to be broadcast on ABC next year.

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This year, a new podcast and vodcast series Reframed was launched which features people with disability providing commentary on depictions of people with disability in media.

Expanding horizons

For me, it is hugely important ANZ supports organisations like the Attitude Foundation – it demonstrates a real authenticity and intent behind our publicly stated values and organisational goals.

I feel incredibly privileged to work at an organisation and within a team that is prepared to throw its support behind me to pursue this initiative.

On a professional level it is an amazing opportunity to for me to try my hand at something completely outside of my legal skill set and to expand my professional horizons and opportunities in this way.

Most importantly, it is great to work somewhere that demonstrates by its action that it truly cares about people.