Who we are
“[Working with Words] are an excellent organisation which works with people with learning disabilities to provide accessible versions of complex documents for people with learning difficulties. I highly recommend them.”
Tower Hamlets Council
Background
Working with Words makes information easy for people with learning difficulties and people with low literacy. - We also train people with learning difficulties in work and life skills. Our objects descibe our organisation's key aims.
- We have been in existence since 1998 - we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary this year.
- We are based in Woolwich, which is part of the London Borough of Greenwich,
- We are a registered charity (Charity no 1075001) and a limited company (Registered in England and Wales no 3564550).
Our early days
- The original idea for an organisation to make information accessible for people with learning difficulties came for members of Voice in Greenwich, a self advocacy group. They had found that people attending their group had been finding letters from benefits and housing offices too difficult to understand.
- The organisation was originally set up as part of the Millennium Project which was funded by the European Social Fund, alongside Access to Employment (pdf, 741kb) and a training project in Greenwich.
- We have worked closely with Greenwich learning disability services to offer training to service users from the outset.
- In 2001 we received a substantial grant from the Community Fund to develop our training and work and to integrate young people from local schools and colleges into the organisation.
We also received further funding from the European Social Fund for the 'Time to Pass Go' Project in 2002. - In 2003 we received funding from the European Year of Disabled People. This funding enabled us to develop the Count Us In Project which resulted in a video, audio CD and booklet about how to make meetings more friendly to people with learning disabilities. This was a long term project, and it enabled several people with learning difficulties to gain skills in acting, filming and scripting.
- More recently we have received funding for the 'I'm a Person Too' Project - a collaboration with Advocacy in Greenwich and other Beacon awarded local councils.
Income: funding and contracts
- We have worked consistently with the London Borough of Greenwich who fund us for our training work with service users.
- We have received funding from many organisations such as the Community Fund, the European Year for Disabled People, the European Social Fund, Lloyds TSB, Awards for All, and many others.
- We also receive money from our wide range of customers who pay us for the work that we do to make their information accessible.
Our work on accessible information
Our first paid work was in 1998 where we made a survey about residential services in Greenwich accessible. - Since this time we have work with many different customers including: Transport for London, the Health Commission, the Ministry of Justice, The Department of Health, Nationwide Building Society, The Valuing People Support Team, Mencap and many others.
- You can see a list of our customers on this web site.
- We have produced accessible documents in a variety of formats: for print, for presentations, audio CD's and MP3 files, DVD's and web sites.
More about accessible information
- Why accessible information is important
- Our work making information accessible
- Our customers
- Comments from customers
People
Click on the links below to find out more about who we are.
More about us
- Volunteering at Working with Words
- Our Green Mark Status
- Our Annual Report (pdf, 1.17mb)
- Our Customer Newsletter (pdf, 752kb)
