Who are your clients and other participants?
What are their needs?
Do they have a first language other than English or French?
What are the markers for literacy?
How do you recognize literacy problems
Your clients and other participants were identified in Step 1. Knowing who your clients are can help you design communications that they can read.
First language other than French or English? If a client’s mother tongue is not English or French, and if there are also literacy problems, the situation becomes more difficult. The tribunal then has to be inventive in its ways to solve this double problem.
Clients’ needs are, of course, directly related to the reason they are coming to the tribunal. These will vary tremendously due to the great variety of tribunals. However, legal literacy will usually be an issue for unrepresented clients.
Clients with literacy problems will also have legal literacy problems. In general, they will need help from tribunal staff and members even if they have a lawyer.
We are concentrating here on their literacy needs and how we can identify those with problems reading.