ELSEY Academy

Meet ELSEY!

"Easy Life Skills for Every Youth" is a passion project for our team, who have decades of lived experience and professional experience to contribute.

ELSEY Academy is a program designed to support young, disabled adults to be ready for flexible work through:

• In-person, small-group training with some online meetings
• A library of peer-reviewed, accessible resources.

Our pilot program will start in the second half of 2025.

Objectives

• To provide unique individualised support to young creatives with disabilities seeking a career in their chosen field/s.
• This support will increase their chances of finding and keeping a job or going into self-employment.
• To grow our network of Easy Read writers and artists.

There are many similar resources out there, but we will provide Easy Read guides, without reinventing the wheel. Information will be presented in ways engaging to young people - think comics, short videos and more.

Participants

The pilot program focuses particularly on individuals with cognitive disabilities and chronic illnesses seeking professional-type roles as freelancers or part-time workers.

For the pilot we will focus on 18–25-year-olds, and those with an interest in:

• Writing Easy Read
• Producing Easy Read images.

Prospective participants will be asked to complete an application form from which the final 6-8 will be chosen.

Participants need to have access to a laptop that can surf the internet and save Word files and that can be taken to tutorials.

Cost

We are still working on costing each 12 week program but anticipate it costing approximately $2500-$3500 per person.

If you would like to know more about ELSEY, please contact Kathryn.

If you are interested in sponsoring our work with ELSEY, please contact Kathryn or Karen.