Through our talent work, we have noticed a great increase in our young talent actively using social media. However, we also became acutely aware of the need for appropriate social media training for our young disabled talent, to increase both their opportunities and safety. Many are unaware of how to engage safely online, and there is also a lack of education available to this group, who have unique learning and communication needs. So, we took the initiative to do something about it.
We did some research, and found some key information that drove the initiative:
- "76% of non-disabled people felt safe when using the internet for online transactions, only 61% of disabled people felt the same"
- Research has shown that people with learning disabilities, or neurodiverse individuals are at a higher risk when engaging online.
- A study in the UK found that nearly 73 per cent of disabled young people had been cyber-bullied in their lifetime.
“Equity was at the forefront of my mind when I came up with the concept for a content creation workshop for emerging disabled creators. ”
A space to introduce knowledge, refresh ideas, and give the tools needed for online safety and looking after their wellness when they connect with others online. For disabled people content creation is an important way of telling your own story, connecting with your community, and is also an accessible career option to pursue. With a strong belief in the power of community and staying connected, I wanted to create something that was safe, provided a sense of belonging, and provided key knowledge so the emerging disabled creators could confidently navigate social media. We had the ‘Why’, the next question was ‘how’ do we deliver something like this, with accessibility being considered at every stage.
As a disabled content creator myself, I knew of the potential benefits these emerging creators would get by participating in the workshop. One of the driving forces behind my passion for the initiative is that life as a disabled person can be really lonely, especially for those of us spoonies (ikyk). I went through a period of not being able to leave the house due to pain and significant anxiety, but I still needed to support my family, and I also got very lonely. The isolation was driving me wild, and from that, my love of social media was born! I gradually started to post more, create, and really enjoyed connecting with others. Social media introduced me to an awesome community that I am so grateful for, a community that has supported me through hard times, cheered me on during the good times, and vice versa! I have social media to thank for some of my most important friendships IRL.
We approached InternetNZ | Ipurangi Aotearoa, and spoke about the need for a workshop like this, that delivered key tools and knowledge to the emerging disabled creators, and was accessible for them too. The team at InternetNZ ‘understood the assignment’ as they say (social media reference if you don’t quite get it ;)), and from then, the 101 Content Creation Workshop for disabled creators was created. The project was a pilot, so we could see;
1. If people wanted to do the workshop, and,
2. What was the impact of the workshop for the participants
Our team spent a few months developing the workshop, with the design focusing on content value, while also being engaging. We invited emerging disabled content creators and those wanting to learn more about social media from our talent agency books to join the workshop, which we hosted online in May 2024. We knew some of the talent had experienced online bullying, or had their accounts hacked in the past, so we developed an online safety and wellbeing section of the workshop. I wanted to go into depth with this section as I understood from personal experience how crucial this knowledge is.
The workshop needed to be genuine, and provide real life tools that participants could easily apply in their everyday life. We talked about various topics including how to create a story on Instagram, to trends, to how to speak to brands and following a content brief. This wasn’t some boujee workshop about how to be just another content creator.
“We wanted to help them develop their skills so they could grow their community and be true to themselves, with confidence. ”
I always love connecting with our talent at All is for All, and this workshop gave us another opportunity to do this. We had an awesome group of passionate disabled creators who were eager to learn, and all at various stages of their content creation journey. Being witness to this creative group sharing their ideas, experiences and having fun was, well, awesome! We all had a mutual connection from the beginning, we are all disabled content creators wanting to create, grow our community and be our true selves. This was just a small group, I know there are so many others out there with amazing talent, they just need access to workshops like this, that are accessible to them, to help them move into this space and feel connected.
We had the pleasure of Vivien Maidaborn, InternetNZ CEO, opening the online safety and wellbeing section of our workshop. Her talk with the content creators brought a layer of insight that helped us introduce the importance of this section of the workshop, and assisted us with keeping participants engaged. While we delivered this section of the workshop, I shared my own personal experience with online bullying, as I wanted to show how common it is, and that it can happen to anyone.
“This opened a great discussion during the workshop, with some also bravely sharing their experience with this to the group. ”
After presenting I came to realise how impactful the online safety and wellbeing section really was. A parent of one of the participants called me that afternoon, and told me how her young person felt empowered after learning some tools to help combat online bullying. A few weeks later I checked in with them, as this young disabled person in particular had experienced significant online bullying. The parent explained that they had noticed a new sense of confidence in the weeks after and they were actively using the tools we presented. This level of real life impact was huge, and why we developed this important initiative.
By bringing the group together and hosting the workshop, we created a sense of camaraderie amongst the disabled creators. In turn, we all felt so much more supported in the content creation space. Our post-workshop survey showed that 90% of participants felt equipped and more confident to navigate social media. We hope to host more workshops in the future, support more disabled people and help break down barriers.
Thank you to InternetNZ for supporting this initiative.
Some other useful references:
- https://zapier.com/blog/zoom-vs-teams/
- https://accessibility.umich.edu/guides/videoconferencing#:~:text=We%20have%20found%20that%20Google,used%20to%20offer%20increased%20accessibility.
- https://securitybrief.co.nz/story/how-safe-is-new-zealand-s-disabled-community-online
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7158969/