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Accessibility

We want everyone to be able to use our website. That means you should be able to:

  • Change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition
  • Listen to most of the website using a screen reader

This guide from AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use.

Accessibility of this website 

We know some parts of our websites are not fully accessible and need improving:

  • Some external links do not have discernible text, making them inaccessible to keyboard navigation and screen readers
  • We use embedded Google maps and Youtube videos using iframes on some pages, which are difficult to navigate for some screen readers
  • We use PDF documents, which aren’t accessible to screen readers

You can find more detail on these issues below.

Contact us about accessibility on this website

If you find any problems not listed on this page, please contact our communications team via email on communications@forwardtrust.org.uk

 

How we’re improving accessibility

In 2021, we redeveloped our website with the goal of improving outcomes for people looking for help with issues related to drugs, alcohol, offending and associated challenges. As part of this process, we aimed to address accessibility issues we identified during an audit in September 2020 to make our website more accessible .

We are hoping to collaborate with other charities to share learning in this area. 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Forward Trust is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

Some external links are inaccessible to keyboard navigation and screen readers

Some external links from images on our site do not have text attributes. This means we don’t meet WCAG SC 2.4.4 or WCAG SC 4.1.2

We will ensure these issues are addressed by July 2021.

Embedded Google maps and Youtube videos

We will explore ways to ensure iframes on our site visible to screen readers on our redeveloped website by October 2021.

Disproportionate burden

The documents on our website do not meet accessibility standards, because they are not fully accessible to a screen reader. 

This problem means we don’t meet WCAG SC 2.1.1. We currently don’t have the resource required to re-create all our documents in an accessible format. We aim to reduce documents on our redeveloped site, for example, by using online referral forms rather than Word forms.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Not applicable.

How we test our website

We last tested our website in September 2020. We use Axe, an automated accessibility validation tool, to test our website against the WCAG standards.

We will test our website again in September 2021.

Complaints

The Forward Trust takes complaints seriously and is committed to investigating and addressing problems as soon as possible. If you have a complaint about a Forward service please contact us by email at forward.feedback@forwardtrust.org.uk  or call our main switchboard and ask to speak to the Governance team.

You can find more information about our complaints policy here.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations for organisations like The Forward Trust. If you’re not happy with how we respond to a complaint, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

This statement was prepared in September 2020 and updated in March 2021.