Can You Understand It? team present at Learning Disability Today!

The Can You Understand It? (CYUI) team were delighted to be invited to the Learning Disability Today Study Day. Sunny and John with Steve and Sharon delivered a workshop on 'Communicating with people who have a learning disability'.


We developed our presentation a few weeks before the event. After we wrote the presentation we then had two dry runs whilst timing ourselves. We have a slot of 45 minutes on the day. We finished after 40 minutes and left 5 minutes for questions. We impressed ourselves!


On the day we met at Charing Cross train station under the clock tower. We then got the Northern Line tube to Camden Town. The conference was being held at ORT House, which is a lovely venue and is full of history of the Jewish people. There was a book stall there and they had our book on display. We felt proud!


We started the workshop by introducing ourselves to the 29 delegates. We told them about the work of the CYUI? team and the process of how you get a job with the team.

Then came a role play which focussed on 'patient experience in a hospital'. Sunny played the patient and John was the keyworker. Sunny was going to have his blood taken in outpatients. He couldn't find where you get your blood tested. The hospital called it 'phlebotomy' but a nurse (played by Sharon) was really helpful and pointed them in the right direction. They arrived and met a rather grumpy receptionist (played by Steve) who was more interested who won the X Factor. There was good and poor examples of how you communicate in the role play and the audience were asked if they can recognise them.


The next section was 'how much do you know about easy read information'. We were please to see that all the delegates had a good grasp of what easy read is.

Sharon explained the accessible information standards that the NHS is required to follow with every patient. We also discussed other laws that help with communication, like the Mental Capacity Act (2005). We then went through the top tips of producing easy read. One of the interactive exercises we did was asking the delegates to translate difficult words into easier to understand terms. Here's an example:

We concluded the workshop by giving them example of using easy read is a small change but makes a real difference, like communication passports. Then John finished if off with presenting the 'Bill of Rights'.

 

We had some excellent questions from the audience and they were really interested in our work. Sunny said:
'It was great to meet people who are interested in easy read and stand up for the rights of people with learning disabilities'.


It was a wonderful experience which we really enjoyed. We would like to thank Jan, Graham and Barney from Pavilion Publishing for being so welcoming and holding such a great event.