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Kent Fire and Rescue Service (FRS), Maidstone employs approximately 2000 staff and is responsible for delivering fire and rescue services to more than 1.6 Million people in Kent and Medway from 66 stations and 4 fire safety offices.
Kent FRS has worked to address the issue of dyslexia in the workplace by changing the culture, how it deals with dyslexic staff and making support and adjustments available through support groups and assistive technologies. Read&Write GOLD has been selected as the chosen assistive technology to support employees with their reading and writing skills.
Chris Caswell, Station Manager at Kent FRS has dyslexia and uses Read&Write in his daily work. Chris enthuses “who would have thought a dyslexic person in a fire and rescue service would have a responsibility for policy and procedural documentation, assessing them and writing policy for the whole fire authority?”
Read&Write GOLD is Texthelp’s award-winning literacy support software designed to assist employees with literacy difficulties. The software works discreetly with all mainstream Windows applications (including MS Vista), allowing users the opportunity to work in an inclusive manner alongside their colleagues.
Kent FRS purchased a site licence of Read&Write GOLD, which makes Read&Write available on every PC and laptop owned by the Rescue Service, automatically making it available to all staff.
The Certified Training allowed staff to get to know all the useful features of the software and how to use it for different work situations from reading documents to composing e-mails and even planning and structuring a document. Chris recalls “it was as easy as point-and-click and everything was read aloud for me”.
Chris’ role as Station Manager requires him to read, assess and compose large operational policy documents. Chris continues “Through using Read&Write, I can scan a page of a document and have it read aloud to me. This allows me to read at a faster pace and better understand the content. I use Read&Write GOLD everyday in my job at my office desk but I also use a USB (Mobile) version so I can work at different locations. I am passionate about dyslexia, how people react to it and how people work with it and Read&Write addresses many of the issues and difficulties a dyslexic person experiences in work”.
For further information on Read&Write GOLD, please contact Elaine on Tel: 028 9442 8105, email elaine@texthelp.com or visit our website www.texthelp.com
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