Applying Evidence to Create Accessible Written Communication. More than Easy Read: learn Easy English to support understanding and participation across diverse audiences.

Applying evidence to create accessible written communication.

More than Easy Read: learn Easy English to support understanding and participation for diverse audiences.

Register for our highly interactive internationally recognised award winning 2 day Easy English course. 

You develop an understanding of Easy English, review current resources and research, including what the evideince is for Easy Reda.. You begin to develop your own Easy English document with the support of Access Easy English staff. This course focuses on all 5 steps to create Easy English, including how to plan what to include, layout and desgin, how to make specific language choices and use of images.

It is a small group course and interactive with numerous opportunities for participants to practise their new skills in activities and in their own document. Website and internet access is explored. Participants consider the organisational implementation of Easy English. 

Before your course:

We send you a hard copy pack of course materials, including our checklist to help you write your own Easy English. 

To maximise your time in training, we email you 2 short recordings approximately 10 days before the course. We encourage you to view these as precursors to the course. 

Identify and bring along a document to your course. You begin to develop it to Easy English during the course.

When:    Saturday 20 February 2027 and Saturday 27 February 2027

Where:   Online

Time:      9:00 am – 5:00 pm Melbourne time (AEDT Australian Eastern Daylight Time)

Cost:       $1,000 + gst

Course suitable for
Anyone who writes information for the public, eg: communications and marketing staff, support workers, planners, therapists, disability advocates, teachers, ethics teams, researchers, local council staff, government department staff, NDIS staff, report writers, My Aged Care staff, access and inclusion team members, Health Promotions staff, ..........

And

Anyone who writes for their own staff - work tasks, safety information, leave, job descriptions, entitlements, work reports....

Learning objectives

Participants will

• receive a participant pack of materials to support your learning  

• learn the legislative framework for Easy English

• learn about adult literacy in Australia and internationally and consider its impact for your organisational engagement

• identify who Easy English is useful for

• explore current Easy English resources available in the Australian and international context

• understand the barriers and poor evidence for the use of Easy Read

• learn to identify Easy English compared with Easy Read, and what the research says

• learn and practise each of the 5 steps to develop Easy English written materials

• begin to write your own Easy English document, including selecting and developing appropriate image supports

• explore the value of and how to engage in meaningful consumer testing of documents

• explore use in websites and social media

• receive references and resources for further study and independent research.

After your course:

You can access up to an hour of editorial review of your draft Easy English document from one of Access Easy English expert Easy English writers.

You can join our closed Facebook &/or LinkedIn group - Easy English network of writers. 

You can register for our regular 1 hour post training webinars to continue to develop your skills. You bring along your draft Easy English to work on in each webinar. 5 topics: 5 different webinars. Come as often as you need. You can also access bespoke and individualised editorial supports from our team.

This course has limited places of just 12 participants.

Remember to bring along a document/brochure/flyer/other written material. You get a chance to start its development during the course.

Not sure if this is right for you?

Examples of our projects at https://accesseasyenglish.com

or

Call Cathy Basterfield 0466 579 855 or email cathy@accesseasyenglish.com.au 

How to register 

Pay with a Credit Card using the Humantix 'Get tickets' tab.

or

Request an invoice for Accounts Payable. Email cathy@accesseasyenglish.com.au .

Access Easy English is owned by Cathy Basterfield.

Your trainer: Cathy is a trained speech pathologist, with nearly 40 years’ experience working with people with multiple and complex communication needs.

She is recognised as a pioneer in the development of Easy English in Australia and internationally, being the first practitioner in this specialist field more than 20 years ago. This includes the development of quality standards and benchmarks for Easy English and writing the first and all subsequent guidelines for writing Easy English.  This is still the basis of quality Easy English. You will receive the most up to date guidelines as a checklist which expands on the original work.

Cathy has a national and international reputation in the development of Easy English and is acknowledged by her peers as a highly skilled and experienced practitioner in the field of Easy English.

Cathy was awarded a Victorian Government Ethel Temby scholarship for an investigative study into international trends and accreditation for Easy English writing and publications in 2011.

Cathy is a published author and is a regular invited keynote international speaker on this subject matter.

In 2023 Cathy presented papers in Australia, Austria, Portugal, Italy and New Zealand. 

In January 2024 she presented in South Korea, and later in the US.

In November 2025, Cathy was an invited speaker for the inaugural Latin-America Easy Language conference in Brazil.

In 2026, she will present in New Zealand.

This course has been completed in Canada, and with people from the US, Cambodia and South Korea. In 2025 we ran this course in Singapore and Malaysia.

Cathy and her team are recognised for their Easy English work with multiple national and international awards:

• Australian Enablement Award 2026, 2022 - Most Outstanding Communicator in the NDIS Sector in Australia

• International Zero Project Shortlist for 2023

• International Global Award 2022 – Most Outstanding Communicator for people with Disability in the World

• APAC Insider Small Business Award 2022 for our Easy English training

• Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI ) – COVIDSafe Business Community Award Finalist 2022. For our pro bono COVID19 content development.

See more at www.accesseasyenglish.com.au  

Cathy is a member of

• Speech Pathology Australia. Certified Practicing Speech Pathologist

• AGOSCI

• ASID

• IASSIDD

• PLAIN

• Easy Language International Network

• Key Word Sign Australia - Victoria.