Making Written Things Easier to Understand Contents Introduction4 Making your words 6 easier to understand This document and its content is copyright of Changing Our Lives © 2013. All rights reserved. Any reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following: • you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your use only • you may copy the content to individual third parties for their use, but only if you acknowledge Changing Our lives as the source of the material. • You may not, except with our express written permission, alter or exploit the content Version 2.0 December 2015 Making your photos easier to understand 8 Making your minutes10 easier to understand Making your meetings12 easier to understand 4 Making Written Things Easier to Understand Introduction All disabled people can communicate. involved in making choices and decisions. Communication is a basic human right with each individual person using different methods to understand and be understood. This book explains how people with learning disabilities and their communication partners can work together to make information easier to understand. Some disabled people use words, signs, pictures or objects, and some people move parts of their body to communicate. It is important that people take the time to value how a person communicates and understand how best to make it work well. Disabled people have told us how it feels when communication is good. “I understand what is happening and I feel ok about it all.” We want to make sure that disabled people can easily speak up about their lives and services and this means that they will be meaningfully Using these rules is not always enough. We always need to make sure that disabled people have understood. This is really important when people are attending and leading their own meetings. The new Accessible Information Standard was agreed on 24th June 2015. NHS and adult social care must follow the Accessible Information Standard by law. The standard means they must ask people if they have communication needs. Then find out how they can meet these needs. They must highlight communication need on a person’s file. They must make sure people can get information in an accessible way. This guide has been reviewed in the light of this new standard. 6 Making Written Things Easier to Understand Make your words easier to understand Font size 8 Font size 10 Font size 12 Font size 14 Font size 16 1 Font size 18 Font size 20 No fancy fonts for your text Long sentences are difficult to understand and make reading very awkward especially when the sentences could be broken down in to smaller chunks and made easier to read without too much hassle or difficulty Use at least font size 14. You should always use font size 14 as a minimum on all documents. For people with a visual impairment, this may need to be made bigger. Councillor - A Councillor is elected by local people to make big decisions on the services the council provides. 5 Give good explanations BLOCK CAPITALS CAN MAKE READING LONG PASSAGES OF TEXT DIFFICULT, as can italics and underlined text 6 Avoid using italics, BLOCKCAPITALS or underlining Not all hard words can be made easy. Sometimes we have to learn hard words. All hard words should be explained. Communication is a basic human right Use ‘Arial’ Font When designing your document, always use Arial as your font. Arial is much easier for people with a disability to read and understand. Easy to Read materials, sometimes called Easy Read, provide information in plain English. 3 Keep your sentences short Have no more than 15 words in a sentence. Very long sentences should be split up to make them easier to understand. 4 Use easy words Always use easy words and try to use the same word throughout. Don’t use big words as it makes documents difficult to understand. Writing easy read documents involves several important steps: • Planning your document to meet the needs of the reader. • Writing your document in simple English. • Making your document clear and organised. • Making sure you take your time to check your document. • Having an easy read document doesn’t mean taking out important information. 2 They are accessible to disabled people as well as others who may have difficulty reading or understanding information. 8 Making Written Things Easier to Understand Make your photos and pictures easier to understand 1 2 3 Putting in a photo or picture can mean people understand things better. This can be helpful when talking about people, places, times or actions as they are easily recognisable. Even when we put photos and pictures in, we still need to support people to understand by explaining the information. Don’t just assume that adding a photo or picture means the person will understand. Put photos on the left hand side of words or sentences. When placing your photos and pictures always have all of your images on the left hand side. 4 Choose the right picture or photo for the text. Always use pictures or photos that people can easily recognise. These can include people, places or actions. 5 Use pictures or photos that mean something to people. Try to read your document without looking at the text. The pictures or photos used should be able to give you all of the information you need. 6 Use the same picture or photo each time so people learn what it means. When you find a photo or picture that works well to support people to understand something, always use the same. 10 Making Written Things Easier to Understand Make your minutes easier to understand Accessible Information Project Agenda Date: 1st January 2013 Time: 1:00 till 2:30 Place: Changing Our Lives Office, West Midlands, B12 A34 Good minutes and agendas are: 1 2 3 4 5 Welcome, Apologies and Introductions Are easy to understand. Use easy words and pictures. Do not miss important things out. Leaving out important information from the minutes does not make them easy to understand. Minutes record important information. Accessible Information for people with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities Presentation Communication through sign language presentation Advocacy through videos Break up information into short sections. There should only be one set of minutes and agenda for a meeting, not two. Any other business End of meeting 12 Making Written Things Easier to Understand Steering Group Minutes Date: 1st January 2013 Accessible information for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities Denise did a 10 minute presentation on how to make information accessible for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities. Denise showed how we can communicate using things that people can touch and that this was called Tactile Communication. Action: The group agreed that more people should Time: 1:00 pm till 2:30 Place: Changing Our Lives Office, West Midlands, B12 A34 People who came to the meeting: know about tactile communication as many people with profound disabilities rely on it. It was also agreed that the group will make sure tactile communication is offered to anyone that needs it. Communication through Sign Language Janet told the group about how she supports people with poor hearing to communicate. Janet sits with people during meetings and makes signs with her hands that people can understand. Action: The group agreed that when it holds a meeting where there are people with a hearing impairment, they will organise a sign language interpreter to come and support them to take part in the meeting. Advocacy through Video Bob, Ranbir, Margaret , Joan People who sent apologies: Roger told the group about how he supports people to tell their story by making a video about their life and the issues that they face. Roger explained that this is useful when people can’t communicate using words. Action: The group agreed that this is a great way for disabled people to communicate and tell their story. Roger will present again at the next meeting and show some of the videos that people have made. David, Cynthia 14 Making Written Things Easier to Understand Make your meeting easier to understand 1 People need support to understand written information, even when we use easy words and pictures. 2 We need time before a meeting to read through the papers. 3 Minutes and papers should be sent out as early as possible. This gives our supporters time to explain them to us. 4 We need support before the meeting to plan what we are going to say in the meeting. We also need support during the meeting to help us take part and after the meeting to check what we understood. 5 There should be a way to stop the meetings if people don’t understand. You could use red cards. Or you could use buzzers, as people with some physical disabilities or profound and multiple learning disabilities may find these easier to use. 6 We put words we do not understand in the ‘bin’. We draw a picture of a bin on flip chart paper. We write words that are difficult to understand on post-its and put them in the bin. 7 We ask people in the meeting not to use the words in the bin. We ask them to use easy words. Email: ask@changingourlives.org Web: http://www.changingourlives.org