My name is Clare Mander. I work as a Speech and Language Therapist in Portsmouth. I am going to tell you about Accessible Information.
Accessible information is all about making information easier to understand for people with learning disabilities. Sometimes people use different words to describe accessible information like 'easy read'.
Lots of learning disability services across the country know about accessible information, but sometimes they find it hard to make and use information that is easier.
We know that accessible information is a really important way of helping the communication needs of people with learning disabilities. In the UK, it is law that everyone has to make some changes to the information they make and use. Acts are special papers that tell us all about the law. There are two important Acts that are important to Accessible Information;
1. The Disability Discrimination Act (1995). This Act talks about 'reasonable adjustments' which means making sensible changes to information.
2. The Mental Capacity Act (2005). This Act talks about 'practicable steps' which means doing everything that is possible to make information easier.
We believe that information should be made easier in lots of different ways to help people with different needs. When you make accessible information there are two important things to remember;
1. You need to make the information easier.
2. You need to show the information in different ways.
Accessible information is not just about making an easy leaflet or poster; there are lots of different stages! It is very important that you think about what you will do with the accessible information once you have made it.
It is important to remember that everyone is different and that is why it is hard to make one bit of accessible information that will work for everyone. When you use accessible information it is helpful to thinking about three things that I call the 'The Triangle of Accessibility'
The picture above shows the three important parts of Accessible Information;
- The learning disabled person.
- Their communication partner.
- The accessible information.
Firstly, let's thinks about the learning disabled person. Each person has individual strengths and needs. It is important to know what these strengths and needs are so that the right changes can be made. So if we know someone finds reading very difficult there is no point adding lots of words!
The second part is the communication partner. The communication partner needs to have the skills, knowledge and experience and to help the person. A positive attitude is also really important.
Finally we have the accessible information. It is best if the accessible information is made just for that person.
Sometimes you have to use some accessible information that has already been made. That is ok, but it's really important the communication partner is there to help go through it and explain the parts that are difficult.
To find out more about the national guidance, have a look in
Accessible Information is not just about leaflets and posters...it is about buildings too!
The Learning Disability team work in a building called the Kestrel Centre which opened in 2008.
We thought it was important for the information in our building to be easy to understand, so there are a few things we did...
We wanted to make sure our signs were easy to understand. We used Boardmaker symbols to explain the words, Braille and raised letters for people with visual difficulties.
Staff Photo Board
As lots of people work at the Kestrel Centre, we wanted to have some easy information about people in the building go we have a photo board in the waiting area.
There are a lot of doors to get into the building so we used colour and arrows on the floor to show people the way.
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