The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead launches an innovative project to help people with verbal communication difficulties communicate in everyday situations.
Through Project Clarity, the Royal Borough hopes to become the UK's first communications 'centre of excellence'.
On Wednesday 3 December 2008, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead launched a pilot scheme that will ensure people with verbal communications difficulties can participate in every day activities that many of us take for granted.
Using a simple visual communications board that uses pictures and symbols, Windsor and Maidenhead Project Clarity enables businesses such as shops, bus companies, cafés and restaurants and organisations like the police to communicate easily with all their customers, including people with learning disabilities and hearing impairments and those with limited understanding of English.
The scheme is being piloted by six organisations:
* Thames Valley Police
* Boots the Chemist in Maidenhead
* Courtney Coaches
* Bridge That Gap Café
* The Royal Borough's Customer Service Centre
* Magnet Leisure Centre, Maidenhead.
Thames Valley Police are simultaneously introducing the Project Clarity to all front desks in stations across the area.
A simple visual board
A unique communications board has been created for each participating organisation. The boards express through pictures and symbols, simple and occasionally more complex words and phrases that can be used to help customers communicate. Some pictures or symbols are common (such as 'Can I help you?', 'Yes', 'No' etc) but most are exclusive to the individual organisation.
The customer and member of staff use the board together, pointing to relevant images and symbols, to identify what the customer requires or wants to communicate.
Groups who will also benefit from the communications boards are those who have been affected by a stroke, older people, people with dementia and those with Huntingdon's disease.
It is anticipated that the communications boards will help ease communications for the many overseas visitors expected in the area during the 2012 Olympics.
Building Capacity agenda
Cindy Blackman, head of the Royal Windsor and Maidenhead Borough's Day Opportunities department, who first came up with the idea of the communication boards, says: "The boards will help people with communication difficulties integrate into wider society and gain more independence, confidence and self-esteem in managing their every day needs. The Royal Borough is committed to developing services for socially excluded groups within our local area, and Project Clarity will play a significant part in that."
The scheme has the backing of the Royal Borough's Chief Executive Ian Trenholm. He says: "This is an innovative project that will improve the lives of people within the Royal Borough. Its concept is deceptively simple, but its effects are potentially far-reaching. I am delighted that the Royal Borough is working with some of our best-known organisations to pilot the scheme."
The pilot will run to March 2009. Feedback on the experience of using the boards will be used to improve and develop the scheme before it is rolled out to other organisations across the Royal Borough.
The scheme is already attracting attention from other local authorities but the Royal Borough is the first to develop and test the communication boards.
Cindy Blackman adds: "This is a major step forward in empowering people with verbal communication difficulties to participate more in society. Through Project Clarity, we are aiming to make the Royal Borough the UK's first communications centre of excellence."
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
