Sight for Wight is the local independent charity dedicated to providing information and support to visually impaired islanders, their families, friends and carers. Membership is free to all islanders affected by sight loss.

Sight for Wight have found the following basic guidelines are best practice when producing documents for the visually impaired:

• Blocks of text should have a 1.5 line spacing
• Arial is a preferred, accessible font
• Font sizes should be a minimum of 18

Use of Colour:
Asking for the perfect colour combination is impossible as there are so many forms of sight loss, but a few good pointers include:

• Always avoid red and green. The most common form of colour blindness means that people cannot distinguish between these colours
• Generally speaking, solid bright colours are the easiest to see and pastel colours are harder to see
• Light reflection on a surface has a significant impact, so matte surfaces are often better

Contrast is especially important so always choose two contrasting colours - one dark and one light. Below is a list showing colours in groups. Choosing one for the background and one from a
different group for the text provides this essential contrast:

• Dark - navy blue, brown, and black
• Medium - blue, green, and purple
• Light - pink, yellow, pale blue and pale green

The videos below were made by Sight for Wight members and answer the questions, 'how does sight loss effect you on a daily basis' and 'when asked to complete research what barriers are there?'

Living with sight loss - Ruth:

Living with sight loss - Lisa

Basingstoke Hindu Society aims to bring people together to celebrate Indian culture and traditions.

The key messages from the society's feedback on communication with them are:

• It is very important to communicate through and with trusted sources, like community leaders, pharmacists and doctors
• Do not use just email. Contact both with text and voice communication. For example an email or newsletter, with the opportunity to phone or meet up available.
• Think about your message and include a positive slogan people can remember and associate with
• Messages should be short, concise and to the point
• Short videos are preferred
• The colours of red and orange have particularly positive connotations to this community and make messages/communication stand out
• Generic email newsletters with lots of plain text and nothing standing out are to be avoided

This community also voiced that they did not have much faith in their views being listened to. They stressed the importance of getting feedback and demonstrating community working, even if all the suggestions cannot be implemented.

Yellow Door are a long-standing local charity – starting 35 years ago as a rape crisis service and expanding over the years to offer a range of prevention and support interventions to those affected by domestic abuse and related harmful practices. They work with all ages and genders, and the quality of their work has been recognised at national and international level because of the outcomes achieved and the feedback from their service-users.

Yellow Door asked a mixture of young people with an autism diagnosis, and several with ADHD, some questions about how they liked to be engaged with. 

Posters

The group would look at posters if they were displayed in school or a service they use and trust. They would need to be simple and eye-catching, with bold, bright colours and not too complicated. The poster would need to make it clear what the project was about and how to get involved, but not with just a phone number because they wouldn’t trust it. It would have to have a professional-looking, comprehensive website they could visit to find out more.

They would prefer to hear about projects through trustworthy sources like:

• Official charity workers/group facilitators
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
• Teachers at school
• A website they already know and use for something else

Groups and in-person communication

The group felt that they wouldn’t necessarily trust a message coming from someone new or not part of an organisation they already know and feel comfortable with. They might feel anxious that they don’t know what that person will do or what they’re going to end up getting involved in. They probably wouldn’t feel confident asking questions of someone they didn’t know.

For them to consider joining a group they would need to know that there would be people like them there. For example – “there would not be someone aged 14 in a group with all old people.”

“The best thing would be a worker or a member of a community group that you already know being an advocate for it - that would encourage you because you would not feel on your own with it.”

Social Media

The group said that it is really hard to trust anything on social media because there are so many scams trying to get you to click on things or trying to get something out of you. They said that they end up just ignoring all of them, even maybe the ones that are legitimate.

Reimbursement

Being offered reimbursement, like a voucher to take part, was considered a really good thing and motivating, but the group also said that there are so many fake offers now that they just tend to ignore them and not really trust them.

They would only trust that it was a genuine offer if it came through someone they know and trust - like a teacher, youth worker or therapist.

Subject matter

The subject of the research or project would need to be really highlighted on any communications, because one of the biggest things that would motivate them is if they cared about the main issue or topic.

Any communication would need to say clearly how they would help make a difference to if they got involved so that could feel it is worth doing.

Age UK Portsmouth has been caring for vulnerable and isolated older people in Portsmouth and the local area for over 80 years. We are an independent, local registered charity, responsible for our own funding and services, and a brand partner of the national Age UK organisation.
Our mission is 'To help adults in Portsmouth and South East Hampshire enjoy a better quality of life, with a specific focus on all aspects of getting older.'

Best Practise 
•    Information for older and 75+ groups must not be digital only as it becomes totally exclusive 

Good Practise
•    Make the messages clear and honest
•    Use large print - minimum font 14
•    Dark print on white 
•    Do not use mixed font and psychedelic colours. 
•    Health messages featured with participants. 
•    Campaigns as series of learning experiences are ideal

Communication Formats accessible by Older and 75+ Underserved Group participants include:

•    Radio talk shows
•    TV commercials – seemed to watch all commercial channels, soaps and dramas
•    Newspapers – Daily Mail and Express, Belfast Telegraph
•    Reception desk at consultant’s office
•    Supermarkets
•    Sponsorship opportunities – messages on milk bottles
•    Public toilets – both sexes
•    Moving display boards – anywhere
•    Doctor’s surgery
•    Hospital Waiting Rooms – leaflets, posters
•    Alexa messages

Winchester Go LD enables adults with learning disabilities to live life to the full with the choices and independence that they want. We promote self development, friendship, self confidence, creativity and learning. We try to share the experience, skills and talents of our members; we recognise that our members are experts through their lived experience of learning disabilities.

A small working group of people with learning disabilities talked through how they would like to be communicated with.

Good Practise 

• Most members preferred talking face to face than on the phone.
• Talking on the phone can be difficult as we can’t see the person and sometimes the conversation is too fast for us. Phones are good in an emergency.
• Not all of us like answering the phone when we don’t recognize the number.
• Text messages can be confusing sometimes if not clear. 
• The speed of someone talking and length of time someone talks for is important to us (not too fast and not too long).
• For written format it is best to have:
  • Pictures
  • A clear layout
  • Not be too long.

Surveys

• When answering surveys some members preferred multiple choice and liked rating 1-5
• Others found multiple choice questions a lot to answer so the design of the survey needs to take into account how accessible it is. 

This may sound like conflicting information but it highlights the importance of adapting your approach to individuals. 

Working with the community
Even working in small groups, it was difficult to tell level of understanding for some or whether they were copying.

One of the difficulties around this or for researchers is that our members can be very good at masking or giving what they think is the right answer so the person helping needs to be someone who knows the person very well (a main support worker or family member).
 

Bantaba4change helps marginalised BAMER and deprived women and young ladies by finding them where they live and bring them out of isolation to our community projects and address their barriers to employment. We provide them training to build their confidence and skills to become employable. They mentor them, support them into employment and continue to support them during employment. The profit they generate is reinvested in training, recruitment, building social capital, addressing isolation, building community spirit and community cohesion. 

Good Practise

• Simplicity of the language so that most people can understand. 
• Think about what different languages you may need to use. 
• Respect for cultural and religious differences and lived experiences. 
• Face to face is the preferred method of communication but people are increasingly using WhatsApp groups and Facebook.
• The people delivering information and conducting research should preferably come from the community they serve, or someone trusted.
• Timeframe for work is important to think about. Too short a timeframe creates a lot of pressure. 

Madeline, Jim, Jenni, Steve and Ross are directors of Disabled People’s Voice. Each of us lives with a disability, but our aim is to live independently. Together, they have many years of living with and around various kinds of disability, each with its own set of challenges. They want to help Disabled People to help themselves, and want to encourage more people to get involved, by working as Personal Assistants, or by raising general understanding of the challenges that Disabled People typically face every day. 

Disabled People’s Voice ran an online survey asking questions around research and communication. They highlighted the difficulties of running both in-person and online events for people with disabilities. 

Think about these responses when you are planning how to communicate and contact people with disabilities - is your approach inclusive or exclusive?

How do you find information about health and wellbeing matters?

• The most popular response was online searches using Google, Google Scholar and forums.
• Books
• Through other patients 
• Hospital Visits
• Social prescribers
• Newsletters, journals and magazine
• Vitality Health
• Radio and news channels 

But responses also highlighted worries about researching health and wellbeing due to anxiety and not knowing who to trust. 

What makes it easy for you to find out about and understand NHS and wellbeing advice?

• A need to hear it on the radio for those that do not have a TV or read newspapers.
• Information leaflets at the library
• Rateable stories
• Visibility on social media and accessible content which is easy to read and interpret content.
• Clear policy communicated via NHS online and also mirrored through local outlets. 
• Online news channels

What makes it harder for you to find out about and understand NHS and wellbeing advice?

• The NHS website can sometimes be helpful but it has limited information and it’s very hard to understand.
• Not being able to talk face to face with a doctor and having to use online services.
• Worry that you cannot trust online information. 

What makes you sit up and take notice of a health and wellbeing issue?

• If it relates to personal experience
• Information from a source I trust.  
• If me, my family or friends are affected by it
• If it’s easy to understand and straight to the point 
• Stories told from a perspective of disabled people.
•  The information contains verified data.
• Information which is substantiated by relevant health bodies and scientists rather than politicians.
• Stories that are advertised a lot. 
• If it's scientific progress on a topic 

We’re sometimes called a ‘local branch’, but we’re actually an independent registered charity. Solent Mind is part of a network of over 100 Local Minds who tailor trusted mental health services to our communities. We set our own strategies, partnerships and rely on the support of our brilliant local fundraisers.

We collaborate with Mind to make sure their pioneering campaigns, information and research makes a difference in Hampshire. Together, we make better mental health possible both locally and nationally.

This group came together to think about health campaigns and communication and what worked best for them.

Good practise 

• People need to be able to see themselves in the campaign message. People are more likely to engage with campaigns if they can relate to the people in them.
• Campaigns should be targeted at specific groups due to the varying needs– e.g., men’s mental health. 
• Communications should reflect diversity and include people with different identities

What would we like to see?

• The most effective communications rely heavily on pictures and videos with very little written text 
• The use of impactful colours can be very effective, especially when different tones are contrasted against each other.
• Colours need to be relatable
• Language used must also be accessible to people with a variety of levels of literacy. 
• It can be effective for to have massages associated with positive brands – ‘familiarity with everyday brands’ e.g., Coop- time to talk about mental health
• Positive role models can play an important part in raising awareness and getting ‘buy in’ on particular issues. 

But there is a concern that some celebrities only engage with campaigns for their own public relations and reputation.

Telling the Truth 

• Campaigns should be realistic and unafraid of showing the truth, regardless of how uncomfortable or disconcerting these may be 
• Communications which feel ‘dolled up’ are ineffective – the message needs to be authentic and real

The St Denys Activity Group is a non-profit organisation which aims to improve mental health and wellbeing by providing activities which offer mutual support, good times and a listening ear.

The group discussed a “Mental Health Awareness Day” and what would get them to engage and connect with it.

 
Advertising the event

• Go out into the community.
• Go to the organisations or agencies of:
  • Doctors
  • Psychiatrists
  • Hospitals 
• Posters
• Catchy slogans
• Use social media (Facebook)
• Local radio
• National Awareness day
• Word of mouth
• QR codes
• Workplaces
• Make it a family day
• Through Faith leaders and Places of worship to promote a positive attitude to mental health
• Schools
• Colleges

For the event

• Lots of notice for date of event
• Location
  • Is there parking?
  • Is it practical to get to? 
  • Can I get there with a disability? 
  • Is the location wheelchair/elderly accessible? 
  • Can I get a bus?
  • Picking a neutral venue for BAME communities 
• The advertising
  • Is it eye-catching?
  • Can I understand what the talk was about?
• Will there be sign language interpreters or available in subtitles or other languages?
• Will there be refreshments? The group felt this would make them more likely to attend an event.
  • Food that is free and culturally diverse, essential for BAME participants
• Compensation 
  • Travel 
  • Being reimbursed for attendinG
  • Carer or companion being supported to attend 

People taking part noted - “Such was the enthusiasm we had to reassure participants that this was just a mock up and not a real campaign or event we were planning.”