My name is William Kettle, I work as a lived
experience
Experience is when you have learned or tried something before.
advisor working in the digital projects team.
I am here to talk about
easy read
Easy Read is a way of making written information easier to understand. Pictures are usually added next to the writing.
documents and how they can help people with a
learning disability
A learning disability is to do with the way someone's brain works. It makes it harder for someone to learn, understand or do things.
. As part of my job as Lived Experience Advisor I create easy read documents for Mencap.
Easy Read documents are important because they make information more
accessible
Accessible means something is easy for people to use or join in with. For example: Accessible writing means the writing is easy to read and understand.
and inclusive to the Learning Disability
community
A community is the people and places in an area.
.
I find it helpful when I attend work meetings and the
agenda
An agenda is a list of things to talk about at a meeting.
is in easy read format. I think this is also helpful for other colleagues at Mencap with lived experience.
When I began at Mencap I didn’t know how to make easy read documents. Over the last 8 years I have learned so much about easy read, becoming one of the go to people at Mencap for this type of work. I have had to convert many Mencap reports, letters, and other documents into easy read. This was initially difficult for me but now I can do this now because I have recently completed a foundation course on Easy Read with Photosymbols and have had lots of experience doing this.
Take a look at our Easy Read information
We have accessible information on lots of different things like health, benefits, housing, and much more.
I was recently asked to convert the Mencap LGBTQIA+ terms of reference to easy Read so that Mencap colleagues can get the information they vitally need. It was initially a twenty page document which I reduced down to just eight pages of simple text and images.
This was a little bit tricky because there is a lot of text and not enough pictures on some of our documents. I have to make sure I balance the number of pictures with just enough text to make it understandable but also accessible for people with a learning disability
Mencap uses easy read internally to share information with colleagues. There is also an easy read section of the Mencap website. This has information for anyone to access on all different topics including
finances
Finances are anything to do with money.
, healthcare and
employment
Employment means having a job.
.
I think easy read should be available everywhere because it would make information accessible to all.