We’re off to London! Communication Bill of Rights Campaign – Emma Beckett
Over lockdown, Total Communication Services CIC met with Bury People First for weekly Signalong sessions.
The self-advocates from Bury People First were extremely interested in people’s right to communicate and were keen to campaign. As a result, the self-advocates were introduced to Scope Australia’s Communication Bill of Rights and asked if they thought it would be a useful tool for a communication policy.
The group liked the idea of the Bill of Rights but didn’t think it was accessible for people with learning disabilities.
This led to a project in adapting the Bill of Rights based on the self-advocates’ feedback to make it accessible for people with learning disabilities.
The group were consulted about the wording of each Right, and what the pictures should look like to represent each Right. Angie, our graphic artist, set to work on developing a set of bespoke images for the adapted Bill of Rights. We also made a film starring the self-advocates, demonstrating each Right. This led to our CommuniCake Conference on 1st October 2021, where we raised awareness of communication and offered a sneak preview of the Bill of Rights work we had done.
More information on the development of the adapted Bill of Rights and the CommuniCake Conference can be found in our downloadable 2020-2021 Social Impact Report (pages 13-16), available here:
At the conference, we met some local MPs who were keen to support us to spread the word about communication and the Bill of Rights. This has led to us securing a date to lobby parliament about the right to communicate, which is where our work on the Bill of Rights will be officially launched on 27th June 2022. We are all very excited!
In the coming weeks leading up to 27th June, we will be sharing information about each Right on our social media pages (Total Communication Services CIC and Bury People First). We would be grateful if these posts could be shared far and wide to help us raise as much awareness about people’s right to communicate as possible!
The self-advocates will also be very happy to deliver training about the Bill of Rights and people’s right to communicate where it is of interest.
Please check out our social media pages for more updates:
Total Communication:
Facebook: Total Communication Services CIC
Twitter: @TotalCommOrg
Instagram: tc_org
Bury People First:
Facebook: Bury People First
Twitter: @BuryPeopleFirst
