Forschungsprojekt
Projektart: Gefördertes Projekt Studie Modellprojekt
Büropraktiker*in für Leichte Sprache – modellhafte Evaluation eines neu entstehenden Berufsbildes und Entwicklung von Qualitätskriterien für ihren Einsatz.

Initial situation and objectives
"Easy read" represents a variety of the standard German language and was developed intuitively in practice. It is regarded as a form of barrier-free communication and is intended to make it easier for people with learning difficulties in particular to understand spoken and written language. Easy read makes use of various rules or sets of rules. These include the use of examples and short sentences, the avoidance of foreign and technical words, and the illustration of texts. The concept is currently undergoing a standardization process in accordance with DIN.

As part of the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Barrier-free Information Technology Accessibility Act (The Information Technology Accessibility Act 2.0), public authorities and agencies are also required to offer written information, such as on websites, in easy read. Consequently, the entire field of application has developed relatively quickly in recent years, and a more commercialized market of different providers with inconsistent quality criteria can be observed.

Texts in easy read are usually written on the basis of submitted texts in difficult language or everyday language by so-called translators in offices for easy read. These texts are then checked for comprehensibility by at least two reviewers with learning difficulties in accordance with the Network for Easy Read. In most cases, however, the reviewers are not directly employed in the offices for easy read, but in a workshop for disabled people (WfbM) and often use part of their working time for reviewing texts. For this reason, the work of the reviewers is only marginally paid and receives little professional recognition. In order to increase the professional participation of people with learning difficulties in the primary labor market, the CAB Caritas Augsburg has developed a qualification measure for office practitioners for easy read as part of a pilot project. In this 12-month qualification measure, contents 1) on office management and 2) on easy read were taught and tested in the context of predominantly outsourced external workplaces such as in offices and authorities - i.e. also outside the easy read offices.

Basically, the project "Office Practitioner for Easy Read - Model Evaluation of a Newly Emerging Occupational Profile and Development of Quality Criteria for its Use" is intended, on the one hand, to examine more closely the activities and developments of the Offices for Easy Read and, in particular, the workplaces offered there for people with learning difficulties and, on the other hand, to evaluate the newly emerging qualification measure "Office Practitioner for Easy Read" of CAB Caritas Augsburg.

To this end, the project is carrying out the measures described here:

- Nationwide inventory of the offices for easy read
For this purpose, quantitative and qualitative surveys of the managers of the offices for easy read took place throughout Germany. A total of 65 managers from various offices took part in the quantitative online survey. For the qualitative survey, 15 telephone interviews were conducted with experts from almost every federal state. The quantitative as well as qualitative surveys of the managers of the offices for corpse language should make an important contribution to the understanding of the following aspects:
- areas of responsibility of the managers in the offices
- assignments (i.e. the type of texts to be translated)
- order situation
- clients
- creation process of texts in easy read
- inclusion of people with learning difficulties
- qualification of examiners
- development of the offices for easy read
- hurdles and problems in the offices
- Standardization of Easy Language

- Evaluation of the qualification measure "Office Practitioner for Easy Read"
The qualification measure of CAB Caritas Augsburg was evaluated with the help of guideline-based interviews. Nine participants, nine supervisors or mentors, and seven relatives were interviewed in order to capture the subjective views of all participants on the qualification measure. The focus was on the subjective job satisfaction and learning successes of the participants, but also on the support of all participants in the implementation of the qualification as well as the perceived opportunities and limitations in the establishment of the office practitioner for easy read on the primary labor market. In addition, positive and negative aspects of the qualification measure as well as suggestions for improvement for the further development of the training concept were surveyed from the perspective of all three groups of people.

- Development of quality criteria and recommendations for action
Based on the results of the study, quality standards for the work of the offices for easy language as well as recommendations for action for the further development of the innovative qualification measure "Office Practitioner for Easy Language" were derived.