On Friday 9 September, DPA is hosting Dr Michael Flood and Kristy Macfarlane to deliver a special half-day workshop exploring essential skills for inclusion practitioners. You can register to attend by clicking here.

We’ve worked toward this event beyond DPA’s core annual offerings because we genuinely believe in the value of this content for practitioners. To give insight into why we’ve called this a “Special Event” we’re sharing 5 factors that set this workshop apart and make it a must-attend event.

1. Extraordinary facilitators

We have long-admired Dr Michael Flood’s exceptional work on managing resistance and bias, men and masculinities, gender, and violence prevention. His ability to translate academic rigour into digestable insights is almost unparalleled. We first spoke with Michael in February 2020 about an event with DPA and have waited until we could confidently return to a face-to-face format for this critical conversation on resistance, backlash and successfully engaging men on DEI initiatives.
(Practitioner hot tip: follow @MichaelGLFLood on Twitter for an instant IQ bump)

Kristy Macfarlane is one of Queensland’s preeminent diversity, equity and inclusion practitioners. Having previously led NAB’s diversity work, she now shares her expertise with a range of organisations as a consultant. Kristy has repeatedly wow-ed us with her depth of knowledge and first-hand insights on the challenges for practitioners in a range of settings - we are thrilled for the opportunity to learn from her in this session.

NB: both Michael and Kristy are humble & generous humans who may be uncomfortable with our gushing descriptions of them above. We stand by our comments.

2. The balance of contemporary theory with practical application

Michael and Kristy’s unique knowledge and experience have enabled us to build an agenda that blends academic rigour and contemporary theory, with putting it into practice. Over the course of the morning, we’ll be led through an exploration of how to embed inclusion in people processes, followed by a real-talk discussion of what gets in the way: the role of bias, resistance, and backlash. We’ll spend time working through how to plan for and position our work for success. The sessions will end with a panel-style Q&A where we can dig deeper on our questions and ensure we all walk away ready to implement.

3. Skill-building content for all industries, focus areas & roles

This workshop has been designed to be relevant to people implementing DEI initiatives, as well as people advocating, leading, supporting or aspiring to contribute to this work. The content is focused on sharpening skills that all of us need to successfully plan and implement DEI interventions that are capable of moving the dial in all industries.

While some of Michael’s expertise will be particularly relevant to gender equity, the core knowledge and skills will apply to a range of demographic focus areas, and more broadly shaping culture and behaviours to promote inclusion. The workshop is designed to be relevant to everyone.

4. Price

The Diversity Practitioners Association is not-for-profit industry association, run by a volunteer committee of practitioners and advocates, engaged in DEI initiatives across private and government organisations. The DPA’s activity is backed by corporate supporters: Brisbane City Council, Anglo American, and Kingston Human Capital. Ensuring contemporary, high-quality education is accessible to all who aspire to work in this space has been central to DPA’s focus.

These are the reasons that we are able to make an event that would typically cost $$$ accessible to attendees at $49 for members, $99 for non-members, or $149 for attendance and a year’s membership, including access to the DPA’s annaul masterclass, networking and content offerings. It’s high-quality learning by practitioners, for practitioners, with no intent to profit in the process.

5. Face-to-face

While we’ve become increasingly comfortable with virtual learning over the last two-and-half years, face-to-face experiences enable a type of connection that is incredibly challenging to replicate virtually.

The DPA was originally founded nearly 7 years ago from the most of simple of questions: “where are my people?”. Our ethos has always been been about community, enabling practitioners and advocates to connect and learn from one another, to find comfort and resolve in sharing our challenges, and to explore opportunities to elevate our agenda by working together.

This is DPA’s first face-to-face learning event since 2019, and we’re thrilled to again offer the opportunity to “find your people” and connect on what matters.

This event is a special one, not to be missed.