When: Tuesday, 2 December and Thursday, 4 December 2025
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
- 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 the 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 group - Easy English network of writers.
You can register for our regular 1 hour post training webinars to continue to develop your skills. 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.
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
How to register
Pay with a Credit Card using the Humantix 'Buy Tickets Now' tab.
or
Request an invoice for Accounts Payable. Email
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 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 that 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.
Cathy is a published author and is a regularly 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
2025: Cathy is an invited speaker for the inaugural Latin America Easy Language conference in Brazil.
This course has been completed in Canada, and with people from the US, Cambodia and South Korea. In 2025, we have run this course in Singapore and Malaysia.
Cathy and her team are recognised for their Easy English work with multiple national and international awards:
- International Zero Project Shortlist for 2023
- International Global Award 2022 – Most Outstanding Communicator for people with Disability in the World
- Australian National Enablement Award 2022 - Most Outstanding Communicator in the NDIS Sector
- 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 COVID-19 content development.
See more at Access Easy English
Cathy is a member of:
- Speech Pathology Australia. Certified Practising Speech Pathologist
- AGOSCI
- ASID
- IASSIDD
- PLAIN
- Easy Language International Network
- Key Word Sign Australia