Making Govcamps more inclusive

Govcamps

Each year we try to build on our previous work to make our events more inclusive.

This year we’ve asked questions such as ‘Is there anything else that you would like to share that will help us make you feel included as part of the events?’ and ‘Is there a way we can help you attend this event more easily?’ to give space for our community to tell us its needs.

Previous improvements

Here are some things you can expect to see again at the 2023 events:

  • Advertising of the events through channels supporting DEI
  • having a quiet room
  • using lanyards to help people avoid being photographed
  • using name cards to enable people to connect digitally more easily
  • running a creche
  • offering support with pitching
  • having campmakers in sessions to support people and take notes
  • clear signage and information
  • not starting the event too early
  • ensuring basic accessibility needs are met by our choice of venues
  • offering lunches inclusive of different needs
  • offering bursaries to try and remove barriers to attendance
  • using the ticket lottery to ensure good diversity /representation of underrepresented groups (we might not actively do this in 2023 but we will use the diversity data we collected through registration to understand who and how we communicate about registration and if we should take this approach in future.)
  • The online events of the last two years were a massive step forward in reaching attendees who had been excluded in the past geographically, financially or physically. We knew we wanted to keep the digital event as we returned to in-person Govcamps to make sure we don’t take a step backward.

Some new ideas

We wanted to take a step forward on inclusion at our in-person events, so this year we are intending on having a British Sign Language Interpreter and potentially live captioning at UKGovcamp. Our intention is to have them at the opening address, pitching and closing address and also attending sessions as needed. This is the first time we are doing this, we know it won’t be enough, we’ll make mistakes and we don’t know if it will be that helpful this year – but we are committed to taking this step in the hope that over time we can create an even more inclusive event.

Accessibility to our venues

UKGovcamp will be run at the Ministry of Justice, for more information on accessibility please contact organisers@ukgovcamp.com  

Govcamp North will be run at Barnsley Digital Media Centre  – for more information on accessibility please contact DMC@barnsley.gov.uk

Help us learn

If you have any experience and ideas on how we could make our events more accessible, please do contact us at organisers@ukgovcamp.com and let us know.

One response to “Making Govcamps more inclusive”

  1. Caroline Jarrett

    1. I’m not entirely clear from this blog post whether the next event will be in-person, virtual, or hybrid. Please can you confirm? I know many people who have had to rule out in-person events, and I myself struggle to be fully present during a virtual one, so it would be really good news to know that it will be hybrid.

    2. Please can you confirm what the COVID precautions will be for the part(s) of the event that are in-person? My own circumstances are that although I’d prefer to be in-person, I have to be cautious. For example: will masking be encouraged? Will you make masks available? What about vaccination status? Have you given thought to social distancing and to the ventilation of the rooms? Are any parts of the event held out of doors? (I realise that this can be a challenge in January, but it could make the difference to attendance for some people).