2.0 THE ROADMAP AND THE WORKING GROUP
2.1 WHY A ROADMAP?
The roadmap has been developed to contribute to the knowledge the Scottish Government requires in making informed judgements about linguistic access when it is formulating, revising, or implementing, policy. It is intended to be a resource for government and whilst it is primarily aimed at central government officials, it should also be of use to other bodies, such as local authorities. Many of the desired outcomes of the Roadmap can only be delivered by other agencies in the community. Some will be disappointed that much of the roadmap is devoted to the personnel needed to make linguistic access a reality and not to other important aspects of access, but the working group believe the personnel are pivotal and without them linguistic access cannot be substantially improved. This emphasis on personnel should not detract from other significant issues which require investment, such as:
- the skills and the confidence of deaf people themselves which underscores how they interact in accessing services;
- increasing the bi-lingual skills of key professionals;
- the provision of accessible information.
The roadmap cannot hope to address all aspects of access for deaf people living in Scotland but it does outline many of the major issues and points to some of the ways towards improvement, particularly in public policy. The roadmap is designed to assist policy makers to understand the long-term vision of the British Sign Language and Linguistic Access Working Group ( BSL& LAWG) and to help guide the ways they can work towards the desired outcomes. The working group hopes the roadmap will be one way to start a dialogue about the need for change with a wide variety of colleagues across government. The report is set within the current legislative framework but it does not rehearse the legislation, which is the day to day business of officials, except where this seems useful, but the roadmap will contribute to policy makers being able to comply with their legal obligations.
The BSL& LAWG and the Equality Unit of the Scottish Government cannot deliver many of the improvements they know need to be made. Much of what needs to be done is the responsibility of other parts of government such as the directorates for Education, Health and also of other agencies, such as the Scottish Funding Council, Local Authorities and Health Boards. Success in improving linguistic access will be measured as much by how these directorates and agencies integrate linguistic issues into their day to day operations as by practical improvements in delivery. This is because improvements will not be sustained unless they are part of the thinking, planning and operation of all the agencies. It is in the interest of all agencies to devote resources to improving access to their own services. The BSL& LAWG and the Scottish Government will work in partnership with the bodies involved in the hope of bringing about lasting improvements.
There are numerous examples of excellent short-term projects involving deaf people which could in the past have been incorporated into mainstream provision, but few have been. Deafblind Scotland and Sense provide a good example. The objectives of a 3-year healthy living centre project, funded until 2007 were described as follows:
Healthy Living for Deafblind People
will improve the physical and mental health of deafblind people by:
Encouraging physical activity and providing the appropriate support
Training health and leisure staff on how to make services more accessible
Achieving improved outcomes from medical visits through better communication
Providing a guide/communicator service to enable better access to healthy living opportunities
Training deafblind support staff to encourage and support healthier lifestyle choices
Encouraging the provision of healthy living information in accessible format
… But
The underlying issues, in this example, such as the need to help health staff to make services more accessible, applies equally to all deaf groups, but specific actions are needed to meet deafblind people's needs. The voluntary deafblind organisations working with the health sector should have been able to mainstream the necessary actions, but this was not always achieved. As with many short-term funded projects the bigger question is, how could such worthwhile initiatives be sustained?
2.2 HOW TO USE THE ROADMAP
Few readers will wish to consult the entire document as it encompasses a very broad range of policy. It is more likely they will choose those sections relevant to their policy area. The summary of action points under each of the strategic objectives are not meant to be comprehensive but are the beginning of a process which will add more detail as work towards greater linguistic access builds. The roadmap is not an end in itself but it is hoped it will be a step forward in influencing a continuing process of change.
The Scottish Government and the working group wish to work in partnership to achieve the long-term vision of the group. It is less about achieving targets and more about issues becoming part of the daily activities of all sectors of government from policy making to the implementation of policies. The deaf field has initiated many of the necessary developments but it has started from a deficit position compared to other sectors. There is often an absence of the expected infrastructure and of the core funding streams in the relevant agencies on which to base new developments. This undermines the sustainability of many initiatives. The roadmap has identified many of these and it is hoped that this will help the Scottish Government and others to redress the balance.
The aim of any activity is to create shared ownership of the issues and often efforts will need to be directed at building the infrastructure or at providing a 'trigger' to establish the validity of new developments. As with all the activities of the Scottish Government's Equality Unit these should be aimed at establishing and mainstreaming the activity and should in the long term to be funded by the appropriate sector or body. Progress will be made by taking forward linguistic issues across a wide range of activities and agencies and the arrangements made in the Concordat between central and local government should provide opportunities to influence local services.
The task in the future is essentially about influencing the agenda and changing processes which may at times be slow, but taking this approach is essential so that in 3, or 5 or 10 years' time linguistic access will be an integral part of the policy making and implementation processes across government. The implication of this is that any significant policy or funding emanating from the Scottish Government in the short term should be framed within a process which eventually leads to mainstreaming of the desired outcomes.
The roadmap begins with a description of linguistic access in Scotland and outlines the history of the BSL& LAWG and the goals of the group for the next three years. Next it sets linguistic access within the context of the Scottish Government and refers to the changing legislative equalities landscape. The report provides an overview of the current situation and of the personnel involved in linguistic access, as these cut across each of the areas which are discussed later under government priorities. Each of the government's five strategic priorities are then addressed in separate sections in more detail.
2.3 THE BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE & LINGUISTIC ACCESS WORKING GROUP 2000-2007
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/disability/remit/Access-Working-Group
The British Sign Language & Linguistic Access Working Group ( BSL& LAWG) convened by the Scottish Government's Equality Unit has been in existence since 2000. The group consists of representatives from national deaf organisations and government officials (see appendix 3 for more detail). It enables government to discuss and address issues at the heart of linguistic access for Deaf, deafened, deafblind and hard of hearing people guided by organisations with specialist expertise and with day to day contact with the groups of deaf people mentioned in this report.
The report Creating Linguistic Access for Scotland mentioned earlier which was commissioned by the then Scottish Executive (now Government), outlined a strategic approach to improving linguistic access for deaf people which has guided the work of the BSL& LAWG.
The working group has a robust vision of what needs to be in place to improve linguistic access for deaf and deafblind people and it maintains a determined focus of deploying resources towards long term aims. It envisages a world where deaf people would be automatically afforded the same life chances as their fellow citizens. In such a world:
- families with deaf babies would be supported to meet the linguistic needs of their child at the appropriate age;
- deaf pupils would have the same school attainments as their peers;
- BSL would be offered as an educational tool for deaf pupils who prefer it;
- pupils could study BSL and Deaf culture as a curriculum subject, from primary school through to university;
- all public services would be deaf and deafblind aware;
- deaf and deafblind people would be provided with timely information;
- information would always be provided in a range of accessible formats;
- the implications of deafness would be understood and valued by society.
The working group believes that to fully achieve the world envisaged above, changes will need to be made in many policy areas and in services. This will often depend on building an infrastructure to sustain activities which have either not previously existed or if they have existed they have been short lived. This leads to the next critical step in taking forward the group's vision, which will be to identify mainstream funding so that improvements are sustainable. Government will need to take action across many fronts to achieve this but so will other agencies such as local authorities and health boards.
Currently deaf people and professionals working with them are often excluded from the normal funding streams, with the result that vital services are not available. To take just a few examples public funding is not routinely provided for:
- Profoundly deafened or deafblind people to attend rehabilitation courses;
- People who become deaf in adult life to attend lipreading or communication tactics classes following diagnosis;
- Training of language service professionals such as lipreading teachers, note takers, lipspeakers, communication support workers;
- Training of BSL/English interpreters;
- Training of BSL/English translators;
- Training of BSL teachers;
- Sign language courses for deafened people or for parents of Deaf children.
The BSL& LAWG has directed most of its energies towards identifying what needs to happen to increase the number of professionals who provide linguistic access in Scotland, such as BSL/English interpreters, but in many instances this has required a step backwards before the difficulties could be addressed. This is often because there are either no people or very few people who can provide the training for the professionals. For example, there were hardly any BSL tutors able to teach advanced BSL, so substantial funding was invested by the Scottish Government to provide a Graduate Diploma in the Teaching of BSL Tutors so that there is a trained pool of tutors to train others who can in the future provide advanced BSL teaching. This will lead to more professionals being able to study BSL to use in their work (teachers, doctors) and more potential students for interpreter training. Building up a route to sustain professional training is essential but takes considerable time and resources and is not achieved quickly.
Having started along the road to address some of the main barriers to linguistic access, the working group wished to take their work to the next stage, by using resources provided by the government. They wished to raise awareness of linguistic access across government. From April 2007 a BSL & Linguistic Access Project Manager post was established, initially for 11 months. This heralded a year of intensive activity by the group in order to produce the information for the roadmap. The Project Manager worked within government to make links across policy areas and to make links between the group and relevant officials. The Project Manager post was extended on a part-time basis for a further 3 years (2008 - 2011) to support implementation of the roadmap.
From 2008 the BSL& LAWG reverted to a less intensive round of meetings. Over the next 3 years the group will meet quarterly, with a new single sub-group. This group will focus on planning how the group and the government can make more robust links with the wider Deaf community.
How will the vision of the working group be achieved? The process of embedding and improving linguistic access within the daily activity of government directorates and other agencies will be fundamental to any lasting changes. The roadmap will help support and advise the Scottish Government and its partners in developing a comprehensive and cohesive approach to improving linguistic access. It describes the long-term vision, the current position and the steps necessary to move forward in a sustainable way. The roadmap is a dynamic work in progress and will be adapted as goals are achieved or in response to external drivers, such as changes in legislation. It is a major challenge for the deaf sector, for public agencies and for government departments that need to make changes in policies, in delivery and in many cases in 'mind sets'.
The BSL& LAWG wish to work with service providers to apply the learning from short-term projects into their day-to-day delivery. It is a fundamental approach of the group to all aspects of linguistic access that they should be mainstreamed and funded alongside comparable activity.