Mencap Liverpool have announced that their new Easy Read service will be available to organisations this month.

Using their years of extensive expertise and experience, Mencap are offering organisations’ thier innovative “Easy Read” service, to translate documents into an accessible format, designed to be readily understood by people with learning disabilities.

The service naturally links with Mencaps’ learning disability awareness training “What about ME”, which is free until 2015 to organisations across Merseyside. In combination, they form the basis for the expanding the number of accessibility services that Mencap can offer to interested organisations.

Since the introduction of the Equality Act (2010), all organisations are required to produce information in a more universal format so that people with different learning needs and/or disabilities can understand them. By producing documents in Easy Read, organisations can guarantee that they are closer to meeting those requirements.

Mencap also provide a ‘proof reading’ service on existing Easy Read documents and will make recommendations or amendments to improve their quality or can take existing organisations’ documents and design guaranteed Easy Read versions.

Kate Ashworth, specialist speech and language therapist with Merseycare said:

“I have experience of working with service users who access Mencap Liverpool. Their Easy Read resources have been invaluable to those individuals who do not understand time and/or became anxious about when events will be taking place. Having a visual resource available for the person to refer to has proven highly effective in reducing these anxieties. Additionally, the Easy Read referral form and other documents help to increase the autonomy of people with a learning disability by allowing them to access information and self-refer to the service.”

Paul Staples, a member of Mencap Liverpool, added:

“Mencap Liverpool’s work is very easy to understand – no faults! All the information I get is great – I understand it all the time. The pictures next to the words make it very easy to read and understand. Mencap Liverpool can put easy words and pictures to everything – they know what they’re doing!”

For more information, organisations should contact Lois Nash on 0151 707 8582, or by e-mail at lois.nash@mencapliverpool.org.uk

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Words: Peter Cribley