Our work

State Trustees is owned by the Victorian government and provides financial and legal services. It is a great example of an organisation not only making sure public-facing information is clear, but also supporting that with training for staff who communicate with its clients regularly.

We have worked with State Trustees Victoria on several projects in the past. This includes rewriting the State Trustees website into plain language, editing a set of letter templates, and running plain language and accessible communications workshops.

State Trustees contracted us again to deliver 10 online plain language training sessions for about 100 staff members across different parts of the organisation. The goal was to make all its internal and external communications simpler.

Each of our 3-hour training sessions covered the principles, benefits and core elements of plain language. We workshopped State Trustees text examples with each group to provide a tailored and practical experience. We supported the training with a manual, which we also customised for the client.

We received overwhelmingly positive feedback in our post-session surveys. People praised how engaging the sessions were and appreciated that we had designed the session to meet their specific needs. Participants were also grateful for the tools that we shared to help them use plain language in the future.

Written feedback from participants included:

I will definitely be writing much better letters for the client and partners. Thank you.

Great presentation, please keep doing what you're doing best.

It was a reminder to make the words simple and concise. I will definitely be more direct from here on in. The handout we were give prior was fantastic to reference to.

I will be reviewing all of the documentation that I have developed for wider distribution. The examples to practice were very helpful.