Charter of Inclusion
Dublin City Council Culture Company is committed to developing a cultural ecosystem that is truly accessible to all: inclusive of all forms and expressions of culture, and ensuring everyone has a place to participate in our city’s culture.
Introduction
We want everyone to be able to connect personally and genuinely with each other and their city, because feeling connected to your community boosts overall wellbeing.
Our approach is grounded in listening and responding. This enables us to offer experiences that have relevance and resonance in people’s lives, while recognising that everyone connect with culture differently. Accessibility is always central to our policies and our programme creation. We want to bridge gaps and remove barriers to culture, so we ensure that we deliver information, programming and spaces that meet people's needs and abilities equally, making it easy and welcoming for everyone to access and engage with culture.
This Charter of Inclusion sets out our commitment to embed and activate our values to ensure that our programmes, policies, and spaces are inclusive and reflect the diversity of culture in Dublin.
Our Values
Inclusion and Accessibility
We encourage everyone to be involved to achieve wider cultural participation in Dublin.
We create meaningful and enduring cultural connections by focusing on programme accessibility and sustainability.
Connection and Collaboration
We collaborate with artists, communities and organisations. Together we develop and expand cultural skills.
We open up new ways for people to access cultural activity more easily and confidently to develop their cultural habits.
Engagement and Excellence
We ensure our programmes are relevant and meaningful to all by continuously engaging with the people of Dublin. We strive for excellence in everything we do.
2. Our Key Principles of Inclusion
Respect for Everyone
We value the experiences, identities, and perspectives of all individuals. We want to create experiences where everyone feels heard, respected, and appreciated so that we can foster genuine connection and inspire creativity across all our programmes. We recognise that diversity strengthens the cultural ecosystem and access to culture is valuable for everyone, no matter their gender, age, disability, marital and family status, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity or membership of the Traveller community.
Inclusive Representation
We design our programmes to reflect the diversity of Dublin’s communities. Through inclusive approach and ongoing feedback, we ensure that cultural experiences represent a wide range of voices, stories, and perspectives, introducing people to new places and forms of culture.
Universal Accessibility
We ensure that all cultural activities, programmes, venues, and resources are welcoming and easy to access. We actively identify and remove barriers, enabling participation for everyone across Dublin.
Community-Centred
We support individuals and communities to add to and grow their cultural habits by trying, discovering, and reflecting. We understand that culture is personal, so we believe in everyday participation in culture and its potential to nurture curiosity and expand possibilities. Our work expands access to cultural experiences for makers and participants alike, engaging a broad range of communities and experiences to strengthen cultural confidence and participation for everyone.
Fair Recruitment Opportunities
We are committed to equitable recruitment and professional development. Our Equal Opportunities Policy guarantees that no applicant, contractor, or employee is discriminated against based on gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religious belief, age, disability, race, or membership of the Travelling community.
3. Our Commitments - Actions we are taking and will continue to take:
Accessibility and Universal Design
We want to make cultural experiences and spaces welcoming and accessible to all. We recognise the diversity of needs of people and ensure these needs are accommodated from the start within our programme design and the visitor experience. We strive to be a leader in the field by going beyond minimum standards and sharing our practice in the cultural sector.
Our key action here is that we have an ambitious Universal Accessibility Policy for the Company and we are implementing this. We have established an Accessibility Action Group with cross-departmental representation to assist in implementing and monitoring this work.
Accessibility Audits
We use up-to-date expert advice to improve accessibility across our offerings. We commission periodic accessibility audits on our buildings, websites and programmes.
This includes professional accessibility audits with experts, as well as ‘mystery shopper’ reports and user group audits with our Advisory Group members to ‘road test’ some of our workshops, events and activities through the lens of accessibility.
Accessibility and Inclusion Awareness Training
We are committed to continuously learning about access and inclusion - what the issues are and how we can improve, and we seek expert advice when needed. We provide ongoing training and development for our team, to build a better understanding of access and inclusion so we can deliver high-quality experiences for everyone. This includes regular training which is mandatory for employees, such as Autism Awareness, LGBTQ+ Awareness, Pan-Disability Awareness, NALA Plain English Training and more. Freelance team members are also strongly encouraged to attend.
Human Resources and Reasonable Accommodation
We are committed to making our recruitment and open call processes as accessible as possible.
This includes providing interview questions in advance and offering reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process and during employment.
Consultation and Feedback
We regularly monitor, evaluate and critically analyse what we are doing and how we are doing it. We receive ongoing feedback to measure who we engage and connect with in a way that ensures an ongoing cycle of listening and engaging with people.
This includes ongoing Participant and Visitor surveys, Partner feedback and our Internal evaluation framework.
Information and Publicity
We carefully consider how we use language, how we write tour scripts, and how our team engages with people. All of our printed and online communications, including websites, are designed to be accessible. We use clear, legible fonts, plain English, bold, contrasting colours and thoughtfully chosen images to ensure our information is easy for everyone to understand and engage with.
Procurement of Goods and Services
We continue to work to enhance accessibility within all of our procurement processes.
This effort will ensure that accessibility becomes a key criterion in every aspect of the Company’s procurement activities.
Facilities and Buildings
We aim to ensure that our services and public buildings are fully accessible. Both 14 Henrietta Street and Richmond Barracks are Part M compliant with some limited physical access to the staff areas of the buildings. With protected historical buildings, there are challenges in improving physical access to some areas but we are committed to finding ways to work around these issues, for example by providing ground floor workspaces at Richmond Barracks if needed.
We act on expert advice; for example, sensory kits are available in 14 Henrietta Street and Richmond Barracks on the advice of AsIAm.
Health and Safety
We ensure that the Health and Safety needs of all visitors, volunteers, contractors and staff including people with disabilities are catered for in emergency situations. Individualised safety statements are created for any member of staff who may require one.
We have emergency call points throughout both buildings, and 14 Henrietta Street is equipped with an evacuation chair and staff are trained in its use.
Inclusive Events and Activities
We make inclusive programming by responding to what we learn from listening to people. We invite people to co-create and share experiences and ideas. We look at how people access culture and we advocate for increased diversity in scheduling, locations and opportunities to broaden participation.
Conclusion
By adopting this Charter of Inclusion, Dublin City Council Culture Company reaffirms its commitment to creating a cultural ecosystem that is welcoming, accessible, and meaningful for everyone.
We recognise that inclusivity enriches our city and strengthens its cultural life, reflecting the diversity of communities, experiences, and traditions across Dublin.
We support individuals and communities to add to and grow their cultural habits by trying, discovering, and reflecting. We understand that culture is personal, so we believe in everyday participation in culture and its potential to nurture curiosity and expand possibilities. Curiosity and confidence in exploring culture fosters lifelong joy and strengthens the cultural ecosystem
We invite all our partners, artists, staff, and members of the public to join us in making these commitments a reality.