Posted By Stephen J W Clegg.
Hello Wendy.

I provided support to Adults with Leaning Disabilities for twelve ½ years before sidestepping into Health and Safety 18 months ago.

We were faced with a communication barrier like this in a similar situation, the most effective tool for us were the people themselves!

Involve the audience that you are targeting, get them to voice their views on Health and Safety; get them to write them down, get them to design posters that they understand, communicate the information in a language they can relate to.

You could, as we did, have them present a workshop on the topic, incorporating their own methods of communication familiar to themselves e.g. Makaton, BSL, SSE etc… we had the most popular/creative (and very willing) members of day centres acting out scenarios and narrating the workshop... the audience related to them as they were their friends and equals.

There are organisations that run workshops for people with Learning Disabilities and the facilitators have Learning Disabilities themselves. I regret that I don’t know the names of any, but the Internet should be a good starting point or you could try contacting MENCAP/SPICE.

Incidentally, everyone involved had a fantastic time developing and implementing the workshop, from the people who were in the spotlight to the ones that preferred a ‘behind the scenes’ role.

Whatever route you decide, I’m sure you’ll get your message across.

Good luck!

Posted By wendy mcgarrity
Just wanted to say thank you for your responses. I'm forging ahead now...