What Can We Do as Communicators?
What can we do?
Eliminate Systemic Discrimination
The legal system is text- based and antique. Yet the words affect our lives. Most people find legal documents difficult both for the language and the unfamiliar concepts. The CBA Task Force on Legal Literacy found this to be true.
Judge John Maher said, in Understanding Literacy: A Judicial Imperative, http://www.johnhoward.ca/document/undrstnd/english/cover.htm
Whose repsonsibility?
Those of us who are communicators can use our tools to help people participate in civic affairs and live fuller, healthier lives. Using the tools available to the literate, we can facilitate better communication with those who have literacy challenges.
Working in any communication field, a person needs to unlearn their static approach and relearn how people process and use information. Practice the “beginner’s mind”. Remember what it was like to not understand.
What to do?
Use alternatives:
-Visual language
-Video
-Oral delivery mechanisms
-Personal interaction
-Plain language
In Information Anxiety, Saul Wurman said that communicating is remembering what it is like not to understand. Readers need new information but they also need to be able to access it with their existing knowledge. Readers want to be able to find it easily and quickly.
Plain language helps ensure this.
• Be aware.
• Keep your message as simple as possible.
• Use plain and clear language. Be specific.
• Repeat information. Be patient. Get feedback.
• Encourage questions. Ask questions.
Communication Picture Boards
Used by medical professionals
By Servivision, (305) 759-4764
LegalPix
A set of symbols and pictures depicting various legal scenarios that can assist persons with special communication needs and their caregivers in understanding the courts and the justice system.
Samples of graphics for legal services industry
Law Courts Education Society of BC
www.lawcourtsed.ca
And help the learners
Ask for more funding for the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES), Human Resources and Social Development Canada, http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/workplaceskills/oles/olesindex_en.shtml
Volunteer.
Visit Plain Language Online Training
http://plainlanguage.com/PlainTrain/Index.html
Eliminate Systemic Discrimination
The legal system is text- based and antique. Yet the words affect our lives. Most people find legal documents difficult both for the language and the unfamiliar concepts. The CBA Task Force on Legal Literacy found this to be true.
Judge John Maher said, in Understanding Literacy: A Judicial Imperative, http://www.johnhoward.ca/document/undrstnd/english/cover.htm
“Systemic discrimination” means no more and no less than it is the “system” which by its nature, treats a category of people differently because they belong to that category."
Whose repsonsibility?
Those of us who are communicators can use our tools to help people participate in civic affairs and live fuller, healthier lives. Using the tools available to the literate, we can facilitate better communication with those who have literacy challenges.
Working in any communication field, a person needs to unlearn their static approach and relearn how people process and use information. Practice the “beginner’s mind”. Remember what it was like to not understand.
What to do?
Use alternatives:
-Visual language
-Video
-Oral delivery mechanisms
-Personal interaction
-Plain language
In Information Anxiety, Saul Wurman said that communicating is remembering what it is like not to understand. Readers need new information but they also need to be able to access it with their existing knowledge. Readers want to be able to find it easily and quickly.
Plain language helps ensure this.
• Be aware.
• Keep your message as simple as possible.
• Use plain and clear language. Be specific.
• Repeat information. Be patient. Get feedback.
• Encourage questions. Ask questions.
Communication Picture Boards
Used by medical professionals
By Servivision, (305) 759-4764
LegalPix
A set of symbols and pictures depicting various legal scenarios that can assist persons with special communication needs and their caregivers in understanding the courts and the justice system.
Samples of graphics for legal services industry
Law Courts Education Society of BC
www.lawcourtsed.ca
And help the learners
Ask for more funding for the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES), Human Resources and Social Development Canada, http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/workplaceskills/oles/olesindex_en.shtml
Volunteer.
Visit Plain Language Online Training
http://plainlanguage.com/PlainTrain/Index.html
posted by Stephens at
1:43 PM
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