SCRA BSL Action Plan – progress update
In 2020 we developed our first ever British Sign Language (BSL) Action Plan in consultation with the British Deaf Association.
The plan supported the commitments made in the Scottish Government’s British Sign Language Plan 2017–2023 and set out the actions we would take to promote BSL and support BSL users.
We have now come to the end of our first British Sign Language Action Plan and are currently developing our next plan to support the commitments made in the recently published National British Sign Language Plan 2023 – 2029.
Action 1: Improve the accessibility of our website, guidance and information
We committed that by 2023 we would improve the accessibility of our website, guidance and information. We now have a bespoke page on our website for BSL users. This includes information about who we are and what we do in BSL.
We have ensured that as many of our information videos as possible have BSL/English translation interpretation and/or subtitles added and are in the process of translating some key guidance into BSL.
We have also translated our complaints procedure into BSL and are trialling a text to complain service for BSL users.
Action 2: Introduce and promote the use of the Scottish Government’s nationally funded BSL online interpreting video relay service, ‘contactSCOTLAND-BSL’ where users are able to contact us by way of telephone links for routine enquiries and arranging meetings etc
We committed that by 2023 we would introduce and promote the use of the Scottish Government’s nationally funded BSL online interpreting video relay service, ‘contactSCOTLAND-BSL’ where users are able to contact us by way of telephone links for routine enquiries and arranging meetings.
We did this by asking all staff to include information about this service in staff email signatures and by including information about this service on our website and social media platforms.
Action 3: Develop awareness of BSL amongst our staff
Finally, we committed to developing awareness of BSL amongst our staff. To do this we developed a dedicated Deaf Awareness page on our staff intranet. We also introduced an e-learning Deaf Awareness course which is now available for all our staff.
We have also run a number of 6 week BSL taster courses. The BSL Taster course by Deaf Action is taught by a Deaf BSL user and is fully immersive. In total since 2020 we have run three courses with 36 staff having attended. The majority of people who have attended these sessions have said they would like to continue their BSL learning journey.
In April 2022 we published internal guidance on communicating with people who are Hard of hearing or deaf. Then in May 2022, we produced more tailored guidance for our managers which also included how to adjust the recruitment process for Deaf people.
We committed to improving the way we engage with BSL interpreters. In November 2021 we updated our internal guidance on working with a BSL interpreter. In 2023, we ran an in-house awareness raising session for BSL interpreters and support workers at Deaf Action. All of the attendees said they would recommend the session to other BSL interpreters and we will look to offer this session to more BSL interpreters going forward. We were also able to gather lots of helpful suggestions about what we can do to make ourselves a more inclusive service for Deaf BSL users which will help inform our next British Sign Language Plan.
Next Steps
We are now in the process of developing our British Sign Language Plan 2024 – 2029. We welcome any comments or suggestions as to how we can improve the accessibility of our service for BSL users. Please get in touch – we would love to hear from you.