We believe that God has created us all in his image and wants everyone to be a part of his family. No one should be excluded from church. Throughout the bible we see that Jesus constantly brings people from the edges of community right into the centre. We want to create churches that are able to welcome like Jesus welcomes and can celebrate this with a Growing Hope Accessibility Award. Accessibility is also important from a legal point of view. It is against the law to discriminate against anyone because of a disability. Organisations have a responsibility to be able to offer services that are provided to members of public to anyone who has a disability.

Additional needs are wide ranging, including physical, learning, mental health and undiagnosed needs – anything which impacts upon someone’s ability to participate within activity.

Following your audit if you meet the criteria we will sign an award agreement. You will then receive a plaque, certificate and award logo. In order to maintain the award your accessibility co-ordinator will need to complete an award checklist each year. If you don’t meet your criteria Growing Hope can support to regain award status. Growing Hope reserves the right to remove award status if the criteria are no longer being met.

It costs £500 for an accessibility audit and award from Growing Hope. This includes the time taken for us to come and assess your church space and activities and to write a report and recommendations. This also includes your certificate, accessibility award plaque and logos that you can use. Additional visits to increase your award level will be at the cost of £300. Travel costs will be charged in addition to all visits.

We can provide you with some helpful resources to refer to. If you’d like to you can also receive accessibility training from Growing Hope to help you as you take steps towards the award.

Our bronze award stipulates that adequate physical access is in place for all the areas normally used by the church community, however, some work arounds may be used where access is difficult. This could include the opportunity for someone who has a physical disability to be able to access church in a different way for example through accessing using a different entrance, or through community services and activities. Ultimately, we would like everyone to be able to access church but we understand that some historical church buildings with grade listings can make this difficult. As Growing Hope we would love to problem solve with you and help you think through solutions which mean that everyone can be welcome.

It is great to have provision for children, young people and adults with additional needs and we want to celebrate when the church is doing this well. We’d also like to encourage churches and communities to think about the way that Jesus enables community – always drawing people into community. We would love to support churches to create activities and groups which are accessible to all individuals whatever their needs. This may look like having the opportunity to initially worship together and then retreat to quieter spaces if needed.

You can only receive an accessibility award through first having an accessibility audit carried out by a Growing Hope Accessibility Award team member. All our accessibility award assessors have professional qualifications and training which enable them to assess and provide recommendations about accessibility.