Hello from the Easy Read Online team. We hope you’re having a great summer so far! Here are some of the things we’ve been up to this month - along with some Easy Read publications you may find useful.
Easy Read - is there a better way?
You may remember from our January newsletter that we wanted to carry out more research into the best practices for Easy Read, to better understand what improves users’ interaction with Easy Read information - from content and style to the format it’s provided in. Three of our team have recently concluded some research that:
Looked at other existing Easy Read guidance to identify alternative methodologies that we could adopt.
Assessed our own Easy Read style and methodology to look at what we can do differently.
Tested out all our ideas with people with learning disabilities.
As the Easy Read format becomes more widely recognised, more and more materials are being produced. We’d be interested to establish more definitive methodologies that will be helpful to everyone. You can read the full report of what we looked into and found out on our blog, here:
Easy Read service for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside
We have been working closely with NHS Cheshire and Merseyside to develop an integrated process to produce Easy Read documents on-demand for their patients with communication needs.
As part of this work, we provided some online training for their teams last week to introduce our service, explain people’s rights to accessible information and demonstrate the value of Easy Read and how it can help to reduce health inequalities.
We look forward to moving forwards with this partnership so that more people with learning disabilities in Cheshire and Merseyside can access information and do more for themselves.
Spotlight Project: Unlimited Open Awards
This month we were pleased to work with Unlimited, an organisation that champions and supports disabled artists. They have opened their UK and International Open Awards which will support artists to create work and collaborate with artists in the UK and other countries. You can see more information about the awards by clicking here.
You can find the Easy Read information about the awards by clicking the button below:
Spotlight Project: Period Products consultation in Northern Ireland
We were delighted to work with the Northern Ireland Executive to create an Easy Read version of their consultation on the best way to provide free period products to anyone who needs them in Northern Ireland. This is something that the Northern Ireland Assembly made law in 2022. Sláinte to that! We also created a children’s version of the consultation which is another service we can provide. You can see a copy of the Easy Read consultation document here:
Easy Read art gallery guide
Last month we mentioned the project we worked on with Nottingham Castle to create Easy Read guides for their art gallery exhibition. Meg from the team was able to go and visit the exhibition and see how the Easy Read guides are helping people to engage with the art. Here are some photos of the exhibition:
That’s all from us for this month. We hope you have a great rest of the summer and good holidays if you manage to get away in August. Best wishes The Easy Read Online team