Coming together to celebrate
On the 8th March 2012, experts, champions and allies came together in the Garden Lobby of the Scottish Parliament to celebrate the work of the project and to promote inclusive communication.
The Reception at the Scottish Parliament was a lively and interesting evening. Everyone seemed to enjoy the speeches and the chance to mingle as well as enjoying the atmosphere of the Garden Lobby. Canapés and drinks were served and there was a real air of celebration.
You can read the full text of the speeches by Michael McMahon, MSP and Heather Fiskin, Project Manager for Independent Living in Scotland (ILiS) project:
Speech given by Michael McMahon, MSP
Speech given by Heather Fiskin
One of the experts, Clifford Hughes, described his personal journey from three voice centred careers – teacher, singer and minister – to adapting to a life with a tiny indwelling silicon voice prosthesis following a Laryngectomy for cancer of the larynx. Clifford has shared this story at the project seminars and it powerfully illustrates principle 2 – ‘Every community or group will include people with different communication support needs’.
The speeches ended with the film of Joseph Pomphrey (13) telling us about principle 6 and reminding us all to ‘keep trying’ as young people with communication support needs like him are the future!
The bright yellow project bags were very popular as were the mugs and everyone took away a range of leaflets and information.
The Garden Lobby was full of colourful banners. The project banner (Joseph featured again) was a bold backdrop behind the speakers.
Displays and information were provided by the following organisations –
- AFASIC Scotland
- Improvement Service (IS)
- Plain English campaign – which awarded the ‘Principles in Inclusive Communication’ document with ‘The Pat on the Back’ award for 2011.
- Scottish Council on Deafness (SCOD)
- Scottish Accessible Information Forum (SAIF)
- Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland (CHSS)
- Scottish Government Equalities Unit
The Project Manager, Claire, gave a big thank you to everyone involved in the project. She said how much she and Shirley (job share Project Manager until December 2011) had enjoyed working with the experts – the people with communication support needs. She acknowledged their hard work and that of the partners and supporters over the last nine months. She invited us all to continue to work together to make inclusive communication a reality in Scotland.
Thank you to all the experts, partners and supporters :
The experts
Naomi Crosby
Robert Dalrymple
Gary Ferries
Rob Gale
David Gault
Helen Gowland
Paul Hodson
Clifford Hughes
Alan Mathieson
Edward McGlaughlin
Joseph Pomphrey
Barry Smith
Leanne Weir
David Wright
Students at Donaldson’s School
Paul Ralph and Ian Martin at ‘WithPeople’
Partners and Supporters:
Communication Forum Scotland
National Autistic Society
ICiS Reference Group members
Speech & Language Therapists
Pan-disability organisations
Improvement Service
Scottish Government
Independent Living in Scotland
Plain English Campaign
Inclusion Scotland
Scottish Parliament
Shirley Young – ICiS Project Manager (July – December 2011)
Lesley Culling – Line Manager
Kim Hartley – Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists
