I work as the IT Trainer in a Fire & Rescue Service. We have a large number of dyslexic employees (some of them still don't even know they are!) and we want our trainers to be trained in dyslexia awareness so that they can deliver awareness to the Brigade, mainly for managers to understand the needs of a dyslexic person and for those who think they might be dyslexic. We have an agreement with a local dyslexia assessment centre & charity who assess our employees paid for by the Brigade. We also have a support group for those already diagnosed.
The problem we have is that there are no "train the trainers" courses! I know about dyslexia because I have a close relative who is severly dyslexic but I do't feel compent in delivering an awareness session to people. Can anyone help?
Tina Doyle
4 Responses
Dyslexia training
Have you thought about contacting the British Dyslexia Association’s training department. They run courses on awareness and may also be able to train members of your staff to run in-house courses. the website is http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/trainingdept.html If they don’t train the trainer at the moment there could be scope for some partnership working here
Thanks for info
Hi Lynn
Thanks for the information. We are in discussion with a consultancy regarding them providing a suitable course for us.
If anyone else has any ideas, they will be gratefully received!
Regards
Dyslexia Training
Hi,
The British Dyslexia Association course is excellent, however I would also recommend talking to Dyslexia Action too. Their contact details can be found via google.
Becki Morris
Dyslexia
Our courses in this field often capture examples of good practice-here is one you might wish to use.It gets across nicely the balance that sometimes has to be struck between a fair outcome for a specified work or service delivery outcome and a fair outcome for the individual
Briefly,our client is,in part, an organisation that uses examinations for entry to service and progression.One of their exams is multi choice in format one question followed by 4 options – lots of them! You can imagine that pages/reams of this stuff has an impact on many candidates who are dyslexic. The page just gets"busy" and a random pick and mix approach is adopted by the candidate – result failure
So what did they do? They have to protect the integrity of the qualification and the access arrangements.They want to do what they can by way of reasonable adjustment for the candidate. So yes, they employ a reader to take the candidate through the questions BUT they employ a reader from way outside the industry so that there (i) can be no inference/nuance in the reader’s words/tones about the correct answers to choose and (ii)they can withstand any complaints from anyone(there is always someone ready to interfere!) claims special treatment is being meted out
Most equality and diversity issues can be resolved when you consult and involve people. There are scores of other examples with new bobbies helmets(sikhs), engineers leaving their shoes even when going into homes of Muslim residents, a dog kennel in a Mosque in Moss Side and I can even tell you about Fire Services and gypsies in terms of dogs and talking man to man in conflict situations
Regards
Dominic
QED Training qedworks.com