{"id":14882,"date":"2017-08-16T15:17:09","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T14:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=14882"},"modified":"2017-08-16T15:18:18","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T14:18:18","slug":"autism-impact-award-for-the-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2017\/08\/autism-impact-award-for-the-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"AUTISM IMPACT AWARD FOR THE FORUM"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Millennium Forum today received an Autism Impact Award in recognition of its ongoing efforts in providing fully accessible experiences for all patrons.<\/h1>\n
\"\"
: L-R Lisa Heaney, Box Office Manager at the Millennium Forum, Martin Bradley, Chair of the Derry Theatre Trust, Deputy Mayor of DSDC, Councillor John Boyle, Christine English, Autism NI Development Manager, Colly Kelly, Board Member of Derry Theatre Trust.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The flagship arts and cultural venue was presented with this award by Christine English, Autism NI\u2019s Development Manager and the Deputy Mayor, Councillor John Boyle.<\/p>\n

The Autism Impact Award recognises organisations who excel in\u00a0creating a more \u2018Autism friendly environment\u2019 for their customers. Through attaining an\u00a0Impact Award<\/strong>,<\/strong> organisations can confidently open up their business to the 30,000 individuals and families living\u00a0<\/strong>with Autism in Northern Ireland that previously may have been excluded. This award equips businesses to better understand any staff and customers who may have Autism and allows them to adapt their organisation\u2019s environment to support this.\u00a0 The Impact Award includes staff training and support to implement a range of adjustments to improve accessibility.<\/p>\n

Box Office Manager, Lisa Heaney, completed the accreditation to become an Autism Champion.\u00a0She said:<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-four of our staff completed the training course and we\u2019ve made numerous adjustments to our products and services in order to achieve this award.\u00a0 These include continuing with and increasing our relaxed performances, implementing a permanent Quiet Area that can be accessed during all performances, implementing a customer service Code of Practise across online, phone and in-person interactions, introducing visual menus for our bars and shop, colour coding our doors to assist with ease of access for our patrons, as well as the continuing promotion and implementation of our Access Membership Scheme.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Christine English, Autism NI\u2019s Development Manager comments:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are delighted to present Millennium Forum with the Impact Award, which recognises their commitment to increase Autism Accessibility in their organisation. This is the latest success for Derry City and Strabane District Council as they work with Autism NI to become an Autism Friendly Council. <\/em><\/p>\n

The Millennium Forum has implemented a number of changes as a result of the Impact Award Scheme, including more visual information and a quiet area that customers can use when visiting the organisation. \u00a0On behalf of Autism NI, I would like to congratulate all the staff and Autism Champions on achieving the Impact Award.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

The Mayor, Councillor Maol\u00edosa McHugh added:<\/p>\n

\u201cOn behalf of Derry City and Strabane District Council I would like to warmly congratulate the Millennium Forum on having their inclusivity and accessibility recognised with this prestigious title.\u00a0 The Autism NI Impact Award is just acknowledgement for the dedicated work of the staff at the Millennium Forum in creating a venue where the particular needs of individuals and families living with Autism can be accommodated.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

David McLaughlin, Chief Executive of the Millennium Forum is delighted that the Forum has been recognised by this award:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is fantastic news for our venue and is testament to the hard work of all our staff.\u00a0 The Millennium Forum prides itself in proving accessible theatre for all and has, in recent years, been at the forefront of developing fully accessible theatre through special Relaxed and Dementia Friendly performances of our annual pantomime and other productions; indeed, we were the first theatre in Ireland to showcase these performances for our Christmas pantomime back in 2014, and, last year, this offering was developed to form the \u2018Sing Song Sessions\u2019 which took the panto cast to various centres across the city, enabling people living with dementia to enjoy an afternoon of live music.\u00a0 We hope to continue and build on these efforts as part of our ongoing commitment to providing accessible theatre for all our patrons.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Millennium Forum today received an Autism Impact Award in recognition of its ongoing efforts in providing fully accessible experiences for all patrons. The flagship arts and cultural venue was presented with this award by Christine English, Autism NI\u2019s Development Manager and the Deputy Mayor, Councillor John Boyle. The Autism Impact Award recognises organisations who … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14886,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14882\/revisions\/14886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}