Creating awareness

Reaching out to culturally diverse communities

Outreach activities

Outreach

We have a strong focus on reaching people who may have difficulty getting in touch with us due to financial, social, cultural or language barriers, a lack of access to the internet or not knowing what the TIO does.

These people include the elderly, youth, Indigenous consumers, rural and regional residents, those with a disability or people whose preferred language is not English.

Every year, our representatives go out to many of these communities to raise awareness of our service and make sure the scheme remains easy to reach. These visits include talks at conferences, community gatherings, festivals and meetings. We often partner with other organisations such as financial counsellors and community legal centres. In 2010-11 we made more than 50 visits all over the country.

Some of the highlights of this year were:

a community consultation session between members of the TIO Council and financial counsellors in Adelaide
the Ombudsman, Deputy Ombudsman and the head of our Indigenous Liaison Team spoke to financial counsellors and Indigenous community workers from all over the country at the External Dispute Resolution conference in Sydney
for the first time this year, we spoke at the National Association of Community Legal Centres conference held in Melbourne
the TIO went to three conferences aimed at people with disabilities: the Deaf Australia conference in Hobart, the Having a Say Conference in Geelong and the
Disability Professionals Victoria conference in Melbourne
we spoke at the Business Educators Association of Queensland and Victorian Commercial Teachers Association conferences aimed at secondary school teachers
we went to the Indigenous Rugby League Knockout in Woy Woy, one of the largest
gatherings of Indigenous people in NSW, with attendance of 20,000 people
we continued our strong links with the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network (ICAN) in Cairns, providing training to their staff and clients in Far North Queensland.

Creating awareness

Outreach activities

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