All Councils in Scotland recently published BSL Plans for their local areas. The Perth & Kinross Council BSL Plan is available here.

The BSL Plan will support people with British Sign Language as a first or preferred language to be fully involved in daily and public life as active and healthy citizens.

Within the Perth & Kinross Council BSL Plan we are committed to having more staff with a basic knowledge of BSL so that they can hold a conversation with residents/service users.

This course will help beginners take the first steps to learning BSL.

This 10-week free course is a development opportunity for staff in front-facing roles (including reception/customer service staff).
These targeted BSL Awareness sessions will follow the curriculum of the introductory unit to BSL level 1.
It opens the doors to the potential of learning BSL at more advanced levels and it’s a great way to learn some basics and become more aware.
This will give staff good basic skills in greeting BSL users, asking for and receiving basic information, and holding a basic conversation with a Deaf person.

Staff will be required to commit to attending each weekly 2-hour session and will need approval for this from their line manager.

Session dates: weekly from Tuesday 28 January until Tuesday 31 March 2020 (inclusive)

Times: 10:00 a.m. until 12 noon

If interested, please register by Monday 16 December 2019 once you have line manager approval. Spaces are limited although the course will be repeated in future years so unsuccessful applicants will be added to a Reserve List.

Delivered by Elizabeth Adam who was born Deaf and is a native BSL user living locally. Elizabeth has taught BSL at Level 1 and 2 for over 30 years. For 20 years of that time she taught BSL at Perth College and for the past 10 years she has taught BSL for Deaf Links. Elizabeth worked for 19 years in Dundee City Council’s Deaf Education Service teaching both Deaf and hearing pupils BSL, alongside teaching BSL to the Teachers of the Deaf employed within the service. Elizabeth is an extremely active member of the local Deaf Community in Tayside, being chair of both the local Deaf Club and Tayside Deaf Forum. Elizabeth was a strong campaigner for the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 to come into being and was present in the Scottish Parliament on the historic day it was passed. She is also an active campaigner and advocate for Deaf rights on a national level and is a respected member of The Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Deafness.

British Sign Language (BSL) 10-week awareness course for staff