Derby City Council employee works and studies smarter with Read&Write
After her first encounter with Read&Write at university, Livewell Advisor Charlotte Kenny is now enjoying its benefits in the workplace. Here, she shares her story.
Meet Charlotte
Charlotte Kenny is an advisor with Derby City Council’s ‘Livewell’ team, a public health initiative that offers advice and motivation to help citizens lose weight, stop smoking and improve their fitness. She has dyslexia and uses Read&Write to support her to complete her work with confidence.
Travelling regularly around the Derby area to meet clients, Charlotte’s work sees her producing a lot of written content, from emails to reports. She’s also part of a busy Livewell social media team, posting regular news and tips to encourage healthier lifestyles. Helping her in the office and while she’s on the move, Charlotte uses our friendly literacy toolbar to check correspondence and stay on top of day-to-day reading.
Outcomes
- Charlotte works for Derby City Council as a Livewell Advisor
- She first discovered Read&Write while studying at Sheffield Hallam University
- When presented with a selection of software packages at work, Charlotte was delighted to be able to use Read&Write again
- As she juggles work and study, Read&Write It's helping Charlottes to "stay on top of everything and add extra polish to my coursework.”
Familiarity is key
Charlotte’s first introduction to Read&Write came while studying at Sheffield Hallam University almost ten years ago.
“My dyslexia has always made some quite specific things tricky while I’m writing, like getting word endings correct. As soon as I discovered Read&Write I found it a really big help during my degree, especially while I was writing my dissertation on fitness and wellbeing. It immediately made me so much more confident in my writing.”
On joining Derby City Council, Charlotte’s manager explained that she qualified for the government’s Access to Work (AtW) scheme. This provides financial assistance for employees to cover the cost of special adaptations – like computer equipment and training – to support them in the workplace.
Read&Write helps me stay on top of everything and add extra polish to my coursework
From study to work
Offered a choice of recommended software packages by her AtW assessor, Charlotte was delighted at the chance to use Read&Write again after her positive experiences at university. Today she uses the friendly literacy toolbar for proofing her writing, checking hard-to-spell words, checking grammar and making suggestions to enrich her prose. In addition, she’s a fan of Read&Write’s screenshot reader that lets her hear long documents and web pages read aloud.
“I’m finding Read&Write particularly useful right now while I’m studying in parallel for an advanced cardiac health qualification” confirms Charlotte. “There’s loads of reading and essay writing involved: Read&Write helps me stay on top of everything and add extra polish to my coursework.”
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