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Sefton Council is proud to celebrate ‘What Does Accessibility Mean to Me’ awareness week and is encouraging people to talk and learn about accessibility, diversity, and inclusion.

Running from Monday 18th to Friday 22nd October, this first ‘What Does Accessibility Mean to Me’ is an opportunity for people come together and recognise the differences within our communities to support a diverse range of people.

One in every five people has a disability that may impact their access to information, services, experiences, and opportunities.

Recognising this, Sefton Council formed an Improving Information Group to continue conversations with residents on accessible information. The group is made up of people living in Sefton, all of whom use different methods of communication.

Since the group formed, its members have coproduced accessible communication guides that are shared Council-wide and have established Accessible Information Advocates to ensure accessibility is at the forefront in all areas of the Council’s work.

And most recently, the group coproduced the Council’s Accessible Information eLearning training programme that was launched in November 2020. The training is freely available for all external partners who support the work of Sefton Council. To learn more, people can visit the Sefton Corporate Learning Centre website at https://seftonclc.co.uk/

Cllr Hardy, Cabinet Member for Communities and Housing at Sefton Council said: “The Council are proud to be supporting this awareness week and encourage our residents to share their understanding and thoughts on what accessibility means to them.

“Improving access and inclusion starts by creating awareness and I look forward to continuing to work together to make our Borough an accessible and inclusive place to live, work and visit.”

‘What Does Accessibility Mean to Me’ awareness week is supported by Recite Me, the company that provides the accessibility tool on the Sefton Council website.

By turning on Recite Me, people visiting the Council’s website at sefton.gov.uk can use the service to read website pages out loud in different voices and languages, increase and decrease the size of the text and change the type-style – including into a Dyslexic-friendly font.

To use the service, visitors to the website just need to click on Listen and Translate at the top of every page. People will then see a toolbar of functions that will help make the pages more accessible for them in multiple ways. There is also a user guide to tell people more and an option to switch the service on and off.

People can join the conversation on what accessibility means to them, by using the hashtag #AccessibilityToMe across social media platforms.