Trailblazer leads the way

Emma Bennison’s career has blazed a trail for people with disability. She is this week’s Changemaker.

Described as humble, engaged and an educator, Emma Bennison has risen to the helm of some of Australia’s most recognisable disability advocacy organisations.

With over twenty years’ experience as a CEO and non-executive director, she has created inclusive organisational cultures and built the capacity of other people with disability to take on leadership roles.

But it might not have been that way. A singer and songwriter, Bennison initially studied music, before deciding a full-time career in that industry was not for her. 

“I was unemployed for a couple of years. It was challenging, but it taught me a lot about how important having a job is to a person’s identity and standing in the community,” she told Pro Bono News.

And her luck soon changed when she started an administration traineeship with the Queensland government. Bennison was there for five years, steadily gaining knowledge about how governments work.

Then, she was offered what she describes as “an irresistible opportunity” as a receptionist at AccessArts, combining her twin passions for arts and disability advocacy. There, Bennison worked with the organisation’s first disabled executive officer.

“Though I found it difficult to believe at the time, he was convinced I had leadership potential. Despite my misgivings, he promoted me to a management role. Over the next four years I worked my way up and in 2009, was appointed to succeed him as executive officer,” Bennison recalled.

After three years in this role she became the first person with disability to lead Arts Access Australia, and five years later moved to another dream role as CEO of Blind Citizens Australia.

She’s recently taken a role at Life Without Barriers at a critical moment for the organisation as manager, strategic engagement, disability employment.

What attracted you to Life Without Barriers?

My first introduction to Life Without Barriers occurred about fifteen years ago when AccessArts partnered with them on a project. Since then, I have observed and admired the collaborative and fearless leadership style of Life Without Barriers chief executive, Claire Robbs. I also wanted the opportunity to get some experience working in a larger organisation. So when the opportunity to work with Life Without Barriers presented itself, I jumped at it.

What will your new role involve and can you give us a sense of your plans for the implementation of the AIEP?

My role as manager, strategic engagement, disability employment is a new position which has responsibility for leading the implementation of Life Without Barriers’ Access Inclusion and Employment Plan (AIEP). This involves ensuring Life Without Barriers achieves its aspiration that 15 per cent of its workforce at all levels of the organisation comfortably and openly identify as people with disability. It also includes influencing much-needed reforms to disability employment services and influencing social policy in relation to employment.

In addition to working with colleagues across the organisation to ensure that the 66 actions in the AIEP are achieved, it is also my intention to educate, mentor and constructively disrupt the status quo so that Life Without Barriers can set an example that corporates and governments can follow when it comes to employment of people with disability.

What advice do you have for organisations around hiring people with disability? What needs to be done to increase employment for people with disability?

There is no shortage of advice about creating accessible and inclusive recruitment processes, so my first suggestion would be to do a Google search for that and assess your recruitment processes to see what needs to change. Beyond this though, there is plenty of research demonstrating that employer attitudes are the major barrier to us being able to find and keep a job. In my experience, for most employers, this boils down to a fear of getting it wrong. If you fall into that category, I would tell you to stop worrying. Remember, you don’t need to have all the answers. We people with disability have been figuring out how to solve problems relating to our access requirements for a long time, so we are the experts and we can help, you only need to be courageous enough to ask us.

You’re a trailblazer in the sector. What advice do you have for those who look up to you?

Stay humble: never assume you have all the answers, seek advice from those who’ve gone before you and genuinely listen to and earn the respect of those you lead. Take control of your imposter syndrome: I still struggle with this but find that keeping a journal of my achievements and not allowing the voice in my head free reign really helps. Preparation is everything: I see so many experienced leaders lose credibility because they don’t prepare properly, especially in the NFP sector where everyone is so stretched. But having a big title does not give you licence to coast. On the contrary, it means you are constantly being scrutinised, so make sure you give your audience the best of you. When you feel like running away, run full tilt into the fire — so many times I’ve felt the visceral urge to retreat from a difficult situation or interaction. For me, that’s always a sign that I need to do the exact opposite and fix the thing. Once I do that, I can breathe again.

What is your proudest career achievement to date?

That’s such a difficult question because I have a tendency not to dwell on past achievements, there are too many future challenges to grapple with. Still, I’m very proud of my contribution to bringing audio description to the ABC and SBS. I’m equally proud of the role I played in convincing the Australia Council for the Arts to offer dedicated funding rounds for artists with disability for the first time.

What are some of the challenges facing the disability sector and disability community more broadly right now, and how can we tackle those?

While there are positive signs pointing to change, the disability sector has plenty of work ahead of it to ensure our NDIS gets back on track and genuinely puts people with disability back at its heart. As a starting point, though we are tired of giving feedback, we need to share our perspectives with the NDIS Review. 

The disability employment service system is broken and desperately needs reform. Government needs to engage in a genuine co-design process with people with disability to re-imagine it.

COVID is still with us and most of us have resumed normal lives. Meanwhile, many people with disability who are at high risk of dying if they contract the virus are forgotten prisoners in their own homes. We can all play our part by protecting ourselves and others and by advocating to governments to consider our most at risk citizens when making policy decisions.

What does International Day of People with Disability mean to you and what role does it play in the community?

While I’m supportive of any initiative that raises community awareness of the contributions we make to society, I wish we didn’t need a designated day in order to remind people we exist. Given the high levels of discrimination and unemployment we still experience though, obviously such a day remains necessary. That said, if you expect us to speak at a function or make some other contribution, remember to pay us.

Where does your continued drive and passion to make change come from?

For me it’s about amplifying the voices and contributions of others. What gets me out of bed in the morning is identifying and nurturing those who have the potential to come after me whilst learning from and being respectful of those who have come before me.

How do you wind down at the end of the week?

I struggle with stopping my mind from ruminating on the week that was. So you will either find me on my back deck if it’s a sunny day, or in my spa if it’s not, with a glass of wine and a great novel so I can immerse myself in another world.