Clay Cup Cafe
Leading the way with employment for people with disability
Much more than just a patronage café, Clay Cup Café is a space where anyone in the community can walk through the doors and feel welcomed. For customers, this is felt when taking the first bite of a lovingly prepared meal. For employees and volunteers, it stems from being offered opportunities.
Placing a strong emphasis on being for people, Clay Cup is an experience café that creates opportunities and employment for people with disability to gather and gain valuable skills that can lead to future employment.
‘Enriching lives and creating brighter futures is our goal,’ Bec Drury, the Enrich Life Coordinator from the Rostrevor Baptist Church, explained. ‘We are focused on providing a space for people to move from adversity or marginalisation to opportunity,’ she added.
These values play out daily within the café located in Rostrevor Baptist Church. From Bec to Cheryl, the volunteer coordinator at Clay Cup, great care is taken to create an environment where employees and volunteers feel encouraged and nurtured.
Having opened in 2019, right before the pandemic, the Clay Cup team have taken challenges in their stride. Whether fostering communication with staff during the lockdown periods, running the café while short staffed or managing volunteers from different backgrounds and situations, providing support is at the fore. ‘When faced with something challenging, we try to debrief to get on the same page, and then we look to put supports in place to help. It can be a juggling act,’ Bec said.
Working in partnership with the Campbelltown City Council through its Disability Access and Inclusion Plan has been its own source of support for Bec and the Clay Cup team. From accessing grants through Council to having Council promote the café and use the space for meetings, ‘they are willing to get alongside us and support or help,’ Bec explained.
As a geographically small area, Campbelltown exudes a village feel where people are connected to and care about the community. ‘Building relationships is the foundation of good community work. You can do so much more when you work together,’ Rachel McCaskill, Community Development Officer (Social Inclusion) from Campbelltown City Council, said.
By creating a space where people can step out of loneliness and isolation and into connection and support, Clay Cup is providing meaningful employment opportunities to people with disability.
With the understanding that everyone is unique and has a story, volunteers like Cheryl take a person-centred approach when it comes to hiring people. This means taking the time to sit down and actually get to know the individual. ‘It’s about not being judgemental and actively looking for people’s strengths,’ Cheryl explained.
As such, Clay Cup’s hiring process is infused with flexibility. If certain skill sets don’t necessarily align, steps are taken to ensure that roles are tweaked to suit. Additionally, if people have barriers to being in the café, other opportunities are investigated to ensure they can still be linked to the café. ‘No one is excluded. There is always something someone can do from a volunteer context. We take great pride in finding other little tasks for people, whether that be working in the garden patch outside, cleaning up, setting up activities or washing windows,’ Bec said.
Meet Scott
One such volunteer is Scott. Having joined Clay Cup in September of last year, Scott works in the kitchen, contributing to food preparation. On the hunt for work for over ten years, Scott has faced marginalisation and adversity. However, the opportunity to volunteer with Clay Cup has proved transformative.
Motivating Scott to get out of the house, his role within the café keeps him active and engaged. ‘I love coming to work and the atmosphere. Everyone here is friendly and welcoming, from staff to customers. Coming here really is an opportunity to do something different. It’s helped me manage my anxiety, depression and stress,’ Scott explained.
Working in the café also allows Scott to build on skills that will contribute towards finding future employment. ‘Ideally, I would like to work in the kitchen or retail on the gaming side. I’ve had a few job trials in the past but just haven’t been picked because of a lack of experience,’ Scott said.
Your organisation has a part to play
For Cheryl, Scott’s story highlights the short- and long-term positive impacts that hiring people with disability can have. While the benefits of providing employment for people with disability are clear, some businesses remain hesitant. ‘There is a fear that you might have to do more work or watch people all the time,’ Cheryl explained, ‘you need to overcome the unknown and look at someone as a person.’
For Bec, Scott’s story outlines the importance of overcoming this fear of the unknown through education. This means being open-minded and ready to reach out to Council for support and assistance in order to help provide individuals with opportunities that, in the past, they just haven’t been considered for.
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