ALLIANCE responds to the consultation on the BSL National Plan
- Area of Work: The ALLIANCE
- Type: News Item
- Published: 14th September 2023
The ALLIANCE response to the consultation on the next British Sign Language National Plan
The ALLIANCE has responded to the Scottish Government consultation on the British Sign Language (BSL) National Plan 2023-2029. Our response represents a range of BSL and tactile BSL users across the ALLIANCE and its Scottish Sensory Hub, findings from recent engagement exercises, and feedback from staff involved in these engagements. Key points of our response include:
- Data gathering is transformative when it is applied to progress human rights and social justice. For this reason, it is crucial BSL data includes disaggregated data to reveal inequalities which may be concealed within aggregated data.
- All workplaces need to be more sensory aware and consider the benefits of as well as a need to keep people with age-related experiences of sensory loss in employment longer.
- Skills development should include a more rounded understanding of communication and language barriers with a view towards developing a consistent set of national symbols to add richness of comprehension for all. Workplaces need to cater for all employees routinely, rather than relying on requests for reasonable adjustments.
- It is critical to work with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) and other professional groups to ensure lived experience BSL users obtain qualified teacher and other relevant professional status.
- Equal opportunities for people whose first or preferred language is BSL is necessary to secure employment in the field of arts and media, improving representation. Plans need to support both the growth and support of BSL in a context of integration with others. To harness the culture and creativity of all BSL users, there should be concerted efforts to expose inequalities and identify power hierarchies wherever these exist, to ensure no one is discriminated against or prevented from participating.
You can find our full response in the resource section below.
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