Minister for Housing launches Homelessness Information Clearinghouse website August 11, 2008
Posted by Catriona Pollard in Energetica.Tags: Energetica, homelessness, Homelessness Information Clearinghouse, Lisa Harvey, Tanya Plibersek
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Energetica, an IT consultancy specialist in the not-for profit sector has developed an innovative homelessness website to be launched today in Newcastle, by the Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek. The site provides information on various aspects of homelessness in order to help tackle this priority social issue in Australia.
The Homelessness Information Clearinghouse www.homelessnessinfo.net.au, offers opportunities for people to participate in an online community, comment on articles, generate debate, participate in discussions, share information, ideas, expertise, and discuss issues online.
Ms Plibersek said: “The launch of the National Homelessness Information Clearinghouse will make it much easier for the homelessness sector to work together and share ideas.”
“Sharing research through this new facility will help government, researchers, service providers and the community to determine if our responses to homelessness are working.”
“It will also provide links to all levels of government and homelessness organisations websites. This will help to strengthen our ability to address the complex and very real problem of homelessness in Australia,” said Ms Plibersek.
Energetica’s Director Lisa Harvey said the launch of the new Clearinghouse website will provide a central place for agencies and workers in the field to find and share information about good practice, issue management, research and case studies on homelessness in Australia.
Ms Harvey said: “Many organisations in the sector work in isolation and a single source of information will provide an efficient way to increase their capacity to deliver services to homeless people, and to connect with others working in their field.”
“The Clearinghouse website has been designed to cope with large amounts of content and includes files for download in the document library, forums, events, and hundreds of articles and documents covering 150 categories of information.”
“The site also includes several of the submissions to the Federal Government’s green paper on homelessness,” said Ms Harvey.
Energetica’s experience in working with the community sector and their expertise in building online communities will contribute to a strong and focused information clearing house, allowing people to communicate with each other, work through issues and collaborate on shared resources and new ideas.
The Clearinghouse site is an initiative of the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP), National Coordination and Development Committee (CAD).
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About Energetica
Energetica provides IT advice, strategy and web-based technology to the not-for-profit community. They help organisations build online communities. They help organisations build their IT capacity and manage it into the future by understanding the unique requirements of not-for-profit community-based, member-based organisations and SMEs. Energetica works with SMEs, peak bodies, trade unions, charities, associations and community organisations. www.energetica.com.au
Innovative Blogs launched to raise awareness for Cerebral Palsy community July 10, 2008
Posted by Catriona Pollard in Energetica.Tags: Cerebal Palsy, Energetica, The Spastic Centre
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Energetica, IT consultancy specialist in the not-for profit sector, together with The Spastic Centre, have developed and launched four innovative blogs designed to provide a voice for people living with cerebral palsy (CP).
Energetica’s Director Lisa Harvey said the launch of the blogs will be significant in raising awareness and improving the understanding of CP in the community.
“I am hoping that the powerful stories of peoples’ lives told on the blogs will create a sense of community around the bloggers and provide an insight into the difficulties and joys of people living with a medical condition. The bloggers will be talking about their real lives and will provide an insight into how people live with CP,” said Ms Harvey.
Energetica was engaged by The Spastic Centre to plan the structure and technology for the blogs along with constructing the CSS templates. Energetica also tested the tools for accessibility with people who have cerebral palsy. This was an important part of the process as the management tools had to suit people who have some physical difficulty using computer technology.
“All of the technology used by Energetica for this project was open source. We used the Joomla! Content Management System to build the four sites, with the Myblog and Jomcomment components. This adds blog style content functionality so that they can be easily managed from the front end. RSS, social bookmarking and other tools are all supported as are the multiple bloggers,” said Ms Harvey.
The blogs provide a mechanism for people to share information and tell their stories. There are two blogs written by people with CP. One focuses on the web and technology, and the other shares very real social experiences of life with CP. The third blog, written by a father of a child with CP, offers a compelling, family perspective on living with a disability. Each of these people have different approaches to life and a different outlook to living with CP.
The final blog is written by staff at The Spastic Centre sharing news, activities, events, websites and classifieds for people with CP and their families.
The project commenced in 2007 but was delayed due to the fire that devastated The Spastic Centre administration building before Christmas.
Visit the blogs at www.cpblogs.org.au
About Energetica
Energetica provides IT advice, strategy and web-based technology to the not-for-profit community and helps organisations build their IT capacity and manage it into the future by understanding the unique requirements of not-for-profit community-based, member-based organisations and SMEs. Energetica works with SMEs, peak bodies, trade unions, charities, associations and community organisations.
About The Spastic Centre
The Spastic Centre was one of the first organisations of its kind in the world. It was started in 1945 by two parents, Neil and Audrie McLeod, who had a daughter with cerebral palsy (CP). Together with a small group of families they developed services and programs for children and adults with CP. Today, The Spastic Centre delivers essential services across 70 sites in NSW and the ACT.
Cerebral palsy affects movement, and is the result of damage to the developing brain, usually before birth. It is the most common physical disability in childhood. One in every 400 babies born in Australia will have cerebral palsy. Babies most at risk of CP are those born prematurely or with low birth weight. Globally, the incidence of CP has not declined despite advances in medical technology.
New innovative website specifically for the blind and vision impaired March 25, 2008
Posted by Catriona Pollard in Energetica.Tags: blind, Energetica, Media Access, media accessibiity, vision impaired
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IT consultancy Energetica, specialist in the not-for profit sector, together with Media Access Australia, have developed an innovative website specifically for the blind and vision impaired community. www.audiodescription.com.au overcomes many of the challenges blind and vision impaired users face when accessing websites and will enable far greater access to audio description, a break-through technological solution to media accessibility.
Energetica’s Director Lisa Harvey said the launch of the new Audio Description website is a significant development in online accessibility that will have a significant impact on the blind and vision impaired community.
“I am hoping that the Audio Description website will encourage businesses to keep the accessibility of the blind and vision impaired community in mind when designing their online material,” said Ms Harvey.
Energetica was engaged by Media Access Australia to deliver all the technology for the project. The respected accessibility consultant, Tim Noonan helped develop a user experience for blind and vision impaired users which goes well beyond the outdated W3C standards. As a result of research Energetica recognised that, depending on the level of visual impairment, people approach a website in different ways. Blind people will use screen reader technology that says out loud what it reads on the screen, and low vision users may use screen magnifying technology resulting in sometimes competing design requirements which need to be carefully balanced.
“One common tool used for accessibility is the font resizer tool. All the low vision people we tested thought this tool was very useful, but they had never seen one before – on any website. The reason is that it is usually located on the top right of the web page, or in the footer, people using magnifiers rarely get to that part of the site,” said Ms Harvey.
“Providing accessible websites is, as well as good corporate citizenship, a good way to bring a larger audience to your site. Sites designed for accessibility will be easier to navigate, more consistent in content delivery and generally a better experience for all visitors”.
“The internet is a great resource for people with disabilities of all kinds. It can create communities, connect people and provide access to services and information that may otherwise be difficult to access”, says Ms Harvey.
Energetica developed the website by modifying the open source CMS Joomla! The site uses consistent and well explained clear topics, menus and navigation tools. This works equally well for the more linear experience of blind screen reader users, and the magnified browsing experience of vision impaired users. The website has been checked for extraneous characters, graphics and content to improve the screen reader experience. Energetica has developed the website to overcome the major barriers that face blind and vision impaired internet users
Notes – Audio description (AD) is a narrated explanation of the visual elements of a television program, movie, DVD, or live performance. Designed primarily for the benefit of blind or vision impaired people, AD guides the listener with concise, objective descriptions of new scenes, settings, costumes, body language, and ‘sight gags’, all spoken between existing portions of dialogue.
About Energetica
Energetica provides IT advice, strategy and web-based technology to the not-for-profit community and helps organisations build their IT capacity and manage it into the future. By understanding the unique requirements of not-for-profit community-based, member-based organisations and SMEs. Energetica works with SMEs, peak bodies, trade unions, charities, associations and community organisations.
