• more on design & development for people with intellectual disabilities
• implementing best practice
• issues in user testing with intellectually disabled users.

For more information on the days events, participants and presenters go to the Inclusive New Media Design website.

Lord Rix said: “At a time when 73% of all councils in the UK are planning significant cuts in their services for people with learning disabilities, the Rix Centre provides a far more positive example through our pioneering projects and community support. It’s wonderful to see how our work is already making a major difference to people’s lives in Newham and beyond.”

• User testing;
• Design for assistance;
• Use symbols to enhance accessibility;
• Big is beautiful;
• Use multimedia;
• Personalise;
• Go beyond inclusion and create something special; and
• Integrate accessibility into the budget.

User testing
There is no substitute for real user testing, advises Ann McMeekin, freelance Web accessibility consultant.  Users with learning difficulties have to be involved with the testing early on.  

Design for assistance
Design Web pages so as to enable assistants to sit with those with learning disabilities and work together.  This includes keyboard control of what happens on the screen, says Nick Weldin, Multimedia Profiling Worker at Paddington Arts and a freelance.


Use symbols
Symbols, especially when combined with speech, can enhance accessibility.  Designers can use symbols for navigation or go as far as having fully “symbolised” pages.  “Anywhere you can use text you should be able to use symbols,” says Simon Detheridge of Widgit Software.

Big is beautiful
Make all the visual items on the page larger, advises Antonia Hyde of United Response, the learning disabilities and mental health charity.  Make icons, graphics and pictures large.  Make any control to change colours etc very large.  Make access points and signposts large.  And make help options large, says Hyde.  


Use multimedia
Use a range of media reinforcing each other to improve inclusion, says Jonathan Hassell.  Hassell looks after audience experience and usability at the BBC.


Personalise and go beyond inclusion
Create something special for groups of different users with different abilities, says Hassell.  What may work for one, does not work for another.  For example, what works for the blind may not work for those with learning disabilities.

Integrate accessibility into the budget
Do not put accessibility features as a separate line item in a budget, warns McMeekin.  It is then far too easy for managers who control budgets to cut it in order to lower the costs of the project.  

The panel of experts was convened and chaired by Andy Minnion, director of the Rix Centre.  It completed the Centre’s Inclusive New Media Design (INMD) courses.  Designers spend two or seven days debating accessibility issues and developing designs alongside the learning disability community.

To find out more about the accessible design and the Inclusive New Media Design project:
Click here to read “Experts reveal eight keys to accessible Web design”

Click here to read the presentation of “Multimedia Advocacy for people with Intellectual disabilities”

Ajay first came at Rix in 2007. Thanks to his skill and his imagination he got a job in few days. Ajay is responsible for all the technical equipment in the courses run at the centre, for example, digital cameras, microphones and headphones.

He helps people with learning disabilities to use different softwares, digital cameras, recording sound and with scanning images.

Thanks to the competence acquired at the Rix Centre, Ajay has been able to build his own website, using an ’easy-build’ template. You can visit it at http://web.thebigtree.org/ajay.

The Government has called for more new media developed by the Rix Centre to be used to support the struggle for equality for people with learning disabilities
Lord McKenzie, Parliamentary Under Secretary at the department of Work and Pensions, said this week: "I am very impressed by the way the Rix Centre and others are using multimedia to help people with learning disabilities to communicate more effectively.

"It is clear that the young people taking part in these projects have become more confident and feel really liberated at being able to express themselves in their own way."

Speaking at the Rix Centre’s My New Media Life conference this week Lord McKenzie said: "New media can play a vital role:  by empowering those who find it difficult to get their view heard; empowering them to be truly involved in shaping their care and support; and empowering them to play an active part in the community."

The director of the Rix centre, Andy Minnion, said the concept of using multimedia to transform the lives of people with learning disabilities is proven.  "We need to gear up so that the technology is embedded in standard practice in care for people with learning disabilities."

There are 1.5 million people in the UK with learning disabilities.  They find it hard to organise their thoughts, to remember things and often find communication and socialising difficult.  Multimedia technology can radically improve their lives as long as it is designed so that people with learning disabilities can use it.

Lord McKenzie praised The London Borough of Newham, which is working closely with the Rix Centre on using multimedia for the learning disabled community. "This is one example of the great work local authorities are doing in this area and the significant impact they can have."

The government’s advocate for the best practice in social care, the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), called at the conference for the wholesale adoption of this technology developed by the Rix Centre. 

Allan Bowman, chair of SCIE, said he did not want the diffusion of this approach from one authority to another to be a “leakage”.  “We need a deluge from one Borough to another,” he said.

My New Media Life presented the state-of-the-art of new media to support the learning disabilities community to 170 delegates from local authorities, directors and mangers of social care.  Its focus was on the experiences of people with learning disabilities, their carers and families.

The conference was opened by Lord Rix, after whom the Rix centre is named.  

The Rix Centre is a research and development centre and charity committed to realising the benefits of new media technology to transform the lives of people with learning disabilities.  The 1.5 million people with learning disabilities in the UK, their families and carers can have their quality of live radically improved by the appropriate use of new technology.

The Rix Centre is based at the Dockland’s campus of the University of east London.  It was formed in 2004.

Photos of Lord McKenzie, Andy Minnion, Lord Rix and a group photo of the people with learning disabilities involved at the conference is available from the Rix Centre Web site www.rixcentre.org.

For more details contact Andy Minnion, Rix Centre, 020 8223 7561.

"New technology holds the key to supporting people with learning disabilities, says charity". Under this headline the Guardian online features the ’My New Media Life’ event.

In this article, Andy Minnion, the Rix Centre’s director, explains to Sara Gaines how ’My New Media Life’ represents a starting point for a "multimedia revolution" in the world of social care.

Click here to read the full article

The learning disability community will benefit from Rix Centre research and development work on a new accessible web site ‘roll out’ in a project called ClickStart in 2009.

In this latest stage in the Rix Centre’s research of accessible communications, thousands of people with learning disabilities, their carers and families will be able to exploit newly designed accessible Web sites in 2009 to transform their lives as a result of a new project, Click Start, which kicks off this week.

The Rix Centre will play a central role in this project, refining the technology, training and implementation for this innovative accessibility solution and evaluating the way it is used in a project that is funded through the Learning and Skills Council.

The Rix Centre will build and trial version 2 of its innovative ‘Easy Build’ Website Templates and train representatives in nine East London Boroughs in pilot its implementation. Nine London Boroughs will be able to help local groups supporting the learning disability community to easily build their own Web sites, which will also feed into a special highly accessible ‘easy-read’ web portal for each borough.  Research suggests that at least 17% of all families in these boroughs are affected by learning disabilities.

One key feature of version 2 of the Easy Build websites will be a template for local authority services such as swimming pools to quickly build a web page easily accessible for people with learning disabilities giving details of their services.

Andy Minnion, director of the Rix Centre, says: “People with learning disabilities often have difficulties with, among other things, reading text and manipulating conventional multimedia interfaces with mice and keyboards.  Easy Build overcomes these problems with built-in accessibility."

Creating common interest in the learning disabilities community

The Rix Centre has high expectations for this new phase of research activity in partnership with the East London community and there are immediate benefits for those with learning disabilities, their families and supporters.
“Making Web sites accessible for people with learning disabilities by involving those people in their creation also helps develop a community of common interest and link together the various agencies that are there to support them in their daily lives.  People with learning disabilities change their role from being simply ‘recipients’ of services to being active participants, creators, advocates and advisors,” Minnion says.

The pilot ‘roll out’ of Click Start in January to March 2009 will be based on the pioneering research work the Rix Centre has already done with Newham Borough Council to build the Newham Easy Read transitional portal www.newhameasyread.org.

The Big Tree blog site is launched. We will be posting info here about the work that we have been developing and software we have made or found that can useful for working with people with learning difficulties. Nick Weldin will be writing about things that are helpful for people with more profound learning difficulties.

You can find out about the latest open source software we have been using with people with learning disabilities to surf the web and guidance for extending your browser by installing various plug-in’s like ‘Cooliris’ that allow you to explore sites like ‘YouTube’ or ‘Google Images’ as a visual interface. This has massive potential for people with learning disabilities to able to access these kinds of sites more easily. Nick will be discussing this work and many other things that we are currently working on here at The Rix Centre.

We hope that this site will be come a resource for people who want to get more involved and to adopt some of the techniques being demonstrated on the blog. The idea is that we can share this information and create a community around the use of this way of working with people who have a learning disability.

Visit The Big Tree blog, to join in and to have a say.

The course was led by Gosia Nowicka with the assistance of Deborah Williams and Ajay Choksi.

Over 45 people attended the graduation ceremony, some of them possible course members in the future.

Andy Minnion, director of the Rix Centre, told the ceremony: “This is just the kick off point.  Using multimedia advocacy, people with learning disabilities can communicate more of their wants and needs.  It helps them and their supporters.”

The Multimedia Advocacy Course is run every semester.

"Outside In Pathways" won the 2008 Jodi Award for their project in which a group of people with learning disabilities made films using digital technologies at the V&A Museum, London.

The event, held at the V&A Museum, was introduced by Andy Minnion, director of the Rix Centre. Tony Cave was one of the members of the winning project to display his work at the event (see picture).

Tony enjoyed being part of the project and liked drawing and sticking pictures as part of collage making. He would really like to be involved in more projects in the future.

Named in memory of Jodi Mattes (1973-2001), who worked as part of the British Museums’ web team and later in the NAB, the awards honor Jodi’s efforts to ensure the museum’s COMPASS website was as accessible as possible. Jodi’s parents, Harry and Estha Mattes, and sister Sara, attended the award ceremony.

People with learning disabilities have a skilled and doughty fighter for their cause among the powerful in government and parliament: Lord Rix.

“Practically every domestic bill going through Parliament affects the lives of the 1.5 million people with learning disabilities and their families,” he says.

“The battles never really stop.”

Lord Rix, at 85, examines in detail the laws Parliament passes and represents the interests of the learning disability community.  He is supported by a research office at Mencap, the first such parliamentary research office outside parliament which Rix argued for and got established in 1981.

The speech he made in early June on the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Bill is a clear example of his championing work.

65 percent of people with learning disabilities want to work: only 17 percent have work

He told the House: “The Bill quite rightly recognises that disabled people, particularly people with a learning disability, have been desperate for more education provision that leads them to meaningful, full-time, paid employment and an adult life.  Only 17 percent of people with a learning disability are estimated to be in employment, while 65 percent want to work. 

“Sadly, this is almost starting to feel like a permanent statistic, as I have been highlighting it continuously in my role as president of Mencap, the charity representing the United Kingdom’s 1.5 million people with a learning disability.  The past decade has seen many plans and policies put forward that are intended to help people with a learning disability to find work. 

“It is a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing, for employment levels have remained stuck at around 17 percent, compared with 49 percent of all disabled people. 

“I look forward to the day when I can stand up in this House complaining about the employment of people with a learning disability being at only 40 percent to 50 per cent, and I hope that this year’s legislative programme will help to take us to that point and beyond.”

Winning funds for short breaks

His words are backed with action.  He proposed as long ago as 1995 that people with learning disabilities and their carers are funded for short breaks.  Eventually he got the funding included in the last Children and Education Bill and now £400 million is allocated to pay for them over three years.

And on the day we interviewed Lord Rix he asked a penetrating question of the government: “Is the Minister aware that in 2007 and 2008 there were approximately 7,000 prosecutions for racially motivated crime and yet only 141 prosecutions for disability hate crime?  Does this mean that disability hate crime is much less of a problem, or is it simply that the Crown Prosecution Service and the police are failing to take it as seriously as other hate crime?”

A rather shame-faced minister replied that the government had not collected statistics as well or as accurately as it should.  The figures underestimated the number of disability hate crimes, the minister said, pledging to get to grips with the statistics.

Coordinating pressure

Lord Rix helps to coordinate the work of MPs and Peers interested in learning disabilities in Parliament.  He is joint chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Learning Disabilities.  Its last meeting, which Lord Rix chaired, attracted 15 MPs and peers and 43 others to a discussion on how the Equalities Bill going through Parliament would affect people with learning disabilities.  Lord Rix has no party affiliations: sitting as a “cross bencher”.  As such has influence in any and all parties.

He not only works on the stage of the House of Lords.  “There is a lot of work ‘off stage’ talking to ministers,” Lord Rix says.

Using fame to get heard

It was his success on the stage which led him to his current championing role.  His daughter Shelley was born with Down’s syndrome in 1959.  By 1961 he was lobbing and fund raising to champion the cause of all people with learning disabilities in the country.  He used his fame as an actor to open doors others could not and to get heard where others could not be heard.  

He met the then Minister of Health, Enoch Powell, to ask if the parents of newly born babies with learning disabilities could be told of their local support society.  Powell told him that the NHS was not a “postal service” and that it was “absolutely unnecessary” and doctors and nurses knew how to handle it.

“In the 1940s, 50s and even the early 60s parents of children with Down’s syndrome were told to put the child away in care, forget them and to start their lives again,” Lord Rix says.

Inclusion

Today Lord Rix has a single word of advice for parents with learning disabilities.  “Inclusion".  They need to be accepted as part of the human race.  Included in sport, in schools, in holidays.  Whatever they can attain they show with their attainment their value.  Until 1970 many people with learning disabilities were considered uneducable.  They were considered second rate, the established view was for a long time that people with learning disabilities had nothing to say.

“This is where the Rix Centre helps so much.  It helps them to communicate.”

Lord Rix is only the second person made a peer for his work in the charity sector.  He is only the third peer who was an actor, following Lawrence Olivier and Bernard Miles.

On the boards again

Lord Rix not only operates in the House of Lords and “off stage” lobbying government but he is taking a one-man show on the road called Peer Around Whitehall.  That is a reference to the Whitehall Theatre, at the other end of Whitehall from House of Lords, where he managed his acting company and performed.  In all he gave 12,000 performances in 11 farces some of which he co-wrote.  His farces became a high point of TV when broadcast in the 1960s. 

In his one-man show Lord Rix talks about his years as an actor and manager on the stage where he was dubbed “The King of Farce”.  The review of his first performance, in Louth, called it “a performance fit for a king.”

His skills as a presenter have also been used to promote the issues of the learning disability community on TV.  He lobbied the BBC for a special programme and got a pilot slot for Let’s Go in 1976 which he presented.  It ran from 1977 to 1982.

A champion driven

What drives a man of 85, who could be resting on his laurels, to work so hard for the learning disability community?  Again, he is pithy in his comment: “Guilt.”  He feels guilty that he and his wife, the actress Elspeth Gray, took the advice of the doctors in the late 1950s and had Shelley put in a home, hence his strong advice to the parents of children with learning disabilities now to include their children in their lives.

Lord Rix uses his presentation skills as an actor, his organising skills as a manager and his commitment as a parent to represent the learning disability community to the public and the powerful. 

The community could have no better champion.

On 24th September 2009 eight people with learning disabilities and eight support workers from RCHL, a leading housing and community care organisation in Essex and London, graduated from the Rix Centre’s Multimedia Advocacy training course at an event held in Whitham, Essex. The graduation event was a celebration and showcase of everything that the graduates had learnt over the course a twelve week Multimedia Advocacy training course at the Rix Centre. During the course each service user produced a multimedia Person Centred Plan (PCP) using sound, digital photography, video and text, and in the process discovered entirely new ways to listen, communicate and engage with each other. The PCPs were projected on a large screen at the graduation event as part of the presentation ceremony where the graduates were presented with their certificates.

Speaking on the day Paul Allen, Chief Executive of RCHL, talked about the impact of the Multimedia Advocacy project on his staff: ’It’s just been blowing staff away. They’re seeing things they’ve never seen before, they’re identifying ways of communicating with people, finding out things about their life experiences.....it’s fantastic that this procedure, this process, this project has enabled that to happen.’

 Summing up the project Paul Allen concluded ‘I feel that we’ve got a moral commitment to make this available to all the service users in RCHL, not just in Essex’ ‘so that is the challenge for us.’

The three Champions helped the Rix Centre run a series of workshops across the borough for the Tower Hamlets 6 Lives project. During the course of the project the Champs learnt interview techniques and were trained in multimedia advocacy and video production techniques to capture the experiences and points of view of people with learning disabilities. They went on to contribute to the editing process and video post-production which resulted in the creation of a 6 lives Project DVD

The workshops used the Multimedia Advocacy approach to capture the experiences that participants, many with profound disabilities and complex needs, have had using healthcare services in the borough.