Employer: Box Hill Institute

Dean’s career in teaching language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) began in 1996, as an Integration Aide at Geelong Grammar where he helped to deliver the speech pathologist’s LLN programs. He then worked at the Chisholm Institute for 18 years delivering the Certificate I in Work Education and Certificate I in Transition Education before commencing at Box Hill Institute. For the last three years, Dean has worked at Box Hill Institute in the Disability Enterprises team. Box Hill Institute partners with a range of disability enterprises to provide employment preparation training for their clients.

Dean’s dedication to his students was exemplified during the Covid-19 lockdowns in Melbourne in 2020. Many students faced barriers to utilising technology and had limited learning support at home. Dean went to extraordinary lengths to ensure students continued to be engaged and complete their units. This included running sessions with individual students on MS Teams or Zoom, via email exchange and telephone calls, posting hard copy packs of course work and assessments to students' homes and even driving by some students' houses to collect completed work and assessments and dropping off additional hard copy resources. Box Hill Institute was one of only a few disability educators who maintained training through online methods for its clients throughout the lockdown. Dean showed that education continuity was possible through innovative work-arounds which ensured that educational requirements were met.
 

Dean shares his extensive knowledge and experience with other practitioners by creating guidelines for teachers, participating in course design and presenting at a variety of conferences.