British Sign Language

You’ve probably seen it on TV. Now it’s time to learn how to do it yourself. British Sign Language (BSL) is the first/preferred language for 87,000 deaf people in the UK.  Recent visibility of BSL in mainstream media has heightened awareness of the needs of BSL users across society. Both the Equality Act 2010 and the BSL Act set out legal responsibilities to BSL users.

BSL training for housing workforces is not just about meeting legal equality requirements but also about creating a welcoming, accessible, and inclusive environment for all tenants. It is an essential step in ensuring that housing services are available and accessible to everyone, regardless of their communication needs.

This session is ‘must do’ training for your front line colleagues, supporting them to gain knowledge, skills and confidence to have a basic conversation with a deaf BSL user.

The aim of the training is to support you to:

• To feel confident and professional using basic British Sign Language (BSL) with Deaf customers or colleagues

• Provide a fair, accessible, inclusive and non discriminatory service to Deaf BSL users.

What will you learn?

Skills and Confidence in producing and understanding:

• Fingerspelling alphabet

• How to introduce yourself and ask someone’s name Meet and greet signs

• Asking questions

• Clarifying eg, slow down, I sign a bit.

Knowledge:

• What is BSL and who uses it

• What’s the impact on using BSL as a first language History of BSL

• Bespoke add on options include: Additional conversational vocabulary Signs specific to your area of work.

Who should attend?

• All colleagues who may meet a BSL user in their role.