Access Policy

i-church's Commitment to Access

i-church's invitation to “come as you are” reaches out to all, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, or ability.

• We recognise that there are barriers to access within the services and facilities we provide.
• We define access as something which is facilitated when physical, cultural, social, financial, intellectual and emotional barriers to participation in our community are removed.
• We are committed to removing such barriers to access wherever possible, and also to proactively welcome the broadest range of people.

Aims & Objectives

Aim: To identify barriers to access and work towards reducing their impact on users. In pursuit of this aim, we will:

• Create an Accessibility User Group to inform and assist in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of this policy.
• Allocate a Council Member to be responsible for access issues and to chair the Accessibility User Group.
• Carry out an audit of our services, facilities and culture to identify weaknesses in the equality of service provision.
• Develop a strategy for developing weak areas identified by the accessibility audit.
• Investigate the feasibility of relevant training for i-church Moderators, Council Members and i-church employees.

Aim: To involve a wide range of people in the planning and development of i-church. In pursuit of this aim, we will:

• Research and establish the ongoing collection of equal opportunities information from users of i-church.
• Establish methods for collecting feedback from i-church users on accessibility issues.
• Involve a wide range of people in the Accessibility User Group, as far as possible including people of differing ability, social background, sexuality and ethnicity.

Monitoring and Review

This Access Policy will be monitored by the i-church Council, and reviewed annually.  Progress against our measurable objectives will be published in our Annual Report which is available to all.