Gloucestershire County Council is preparing its deaf residents for major emergencies, using EqualSign, a sign language translation service from EyeGaze.

The 15-minute video, designed for the Council's website and DVD, tells deaf British Sign Language users how they can be better prepared in case of emergency.

Under recent legislation and regulation (Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and the Disability Equality Duty 2006), the duties upon public bodies to communicate effectively with deaf and disabled people have increased.

Michael Warner of Gloucestershire County Council said: “We have to make sure that everyone in the county has access to essential emergency information but we didn’t have the right expertise to produce British Sign Language videos ourselves. We developed a script from our existing ‘Are You Ready to Respond’ materials and gave it to EqualSign whose deaf presenter translated it into sign language – with subtitles where appropriate.”

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