Literacy Awareness Week

A campaign to use simple language on all official forms by Social and Family Affairs has was welcomed by the Clare Citizens Information Service, as part of Literacy Awareness Week. Simple English will be the hallmark of leaflets, application forms, letters and advertisements from the Department of Social and Family Affairs which makes over 938,900 payments every week benefiting about 1.5million people.

In the 1997 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), 25% of the Irish population were found to be at the lowest level of literacy. The IALS found that people needed most help with reading information from government agencies and filling out application forms.

Staff attended literacy Awareness Training which was conducted by the Adult Learners Guidance Service on 26th Sept and delivered by Loretta Hughes, Adult Literacy Organiser. Mary Skerritt, Information Officer, attended the Conference on Literacy and the Legal and Justice System in Dublin on Saturday 27th September.

Copies of A Plain English Guide to Legal Terms was distributed to all advisors at FLAC clinics who were encouraged to be more ‘Plain English’ Aware. We also endeavoured to introduce them to some of the wider societal implications of low levels of literacy as a barrier to legal and justice systems. Copies of The Role of the DPP and ‘Attending Court as A Witness’ were also distributed to various groups.

The service is continually coming into contact with people with low literacy levels accessing and understanding rights. This is a very sensitive issue and staff have to be conscious when assisting and advising particularly in the whole are of form filling for clients.

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