Pathways Academy

Pathways Academy is CAE’s award winning training programme created in 2020 to give disabled people in London the confidence, skills and support needed to kick start a career in inclusive design and access. Since its start over 70% of trainees are working in inclusion and access related roles.

Learning with Pathways Academy

We know that disabled people face a number of complex barriers to employment, the Pathways Academy seeks to help trainees overcome those barriers by giving the technical knowledge you need to develop a career in inclusive design. On the course, trainees will receive 22 days of training over 9 months.

The course covers a different topic each month including:

  • principles of inclusive design
  • access auditing
  • website accessibility
  • design and neurodiversity
  • accessible housing
  • accessibility and historic environments
  • reading and understanding plans

Trainees also develop the all-important communications skills to help them use their new technical knowledge, through topics like presentation and training skills and how to write reports.

Applications

If you’re a disabled person living in London and are interested in pursuing a career in access and inclusion then sign up for the Pathways Academy.

Applications for the course starting in Autumn 2024 will be opening in April.

To register your interest in attending an online taster session on Wednesday 26th June please email pathways@cae.org.uk or complete our online booking form.

 

Pathways Outcomes

Three years on from its 2020 launch, an interim evaluation report of Pathways has found that on completion of the
programme, 100% of students had gained a good understanding of inclusive design, while 56% reported they had a strong knowledge of inclusive design.

Pathways has trained 40 young disabled people from 14 London boroughs, giving them the confidence, skills and support to kick start a career in inclusion or access roles.

It has also won Inside Housing’s Women in Housing Awards and been nominated for Housing Heroes Awards.

Best career development initiative. Congratulations to Centre for Accessible Environments (CAE) part of Habinteg Housing Association.

Read the report to learn what else the evaluation has found.

 

Find out more about our trainers

Our trainers all have decades of experience and currently work in the inclusive design and access field. They are:

 

What do past Pathways Academy trainees have to say?

Nicky Sutherland “Access, to me, was a bottomless pit of standards and regulations. It wasn’t something I was interested in, but the Pathways taster session certainly changed that. The programme has allowed me to pick apart inclusive design and see what interests me.

“It opened my eyes to the inaccessibility baked into many aspects of society, and it’s certainly made me want to learn more.” Nicky Sutherland, Pathways Student.

 

For more information about Pathways Academy, email the team via pathways@cae.org.uk .

Our funder

The CAE Pathways Academy is part of the City Bridge Foundation’s Bridge to Work programme which aims to tackle the disproportionately high level of young unemployed disabled Londoners. The City Bridge Foundation invests in a range of activities to break down the barriers to employment for young people.