Campaigning for deaf children

A man with a mission, a soapbox AND a placard...

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Still no answers from Government on audiology training

Mar 9, 2010 1:08am

I mentioned a while back that our requests for information from the Department of Health on cuts to audiology training have not been terribly successful, if the letter we received a few weeks back from the Department was anything to go by. Sadly, things have not improved. Last week, we...

Subtitled Youtube access for deaf people

Mar 5, 2010 6:15am

Happy day. Youtube have confirmed there will be automatic subtitling on its English videos. Back in November, Google announced it would be aiming to do this. Today’s announcement confirms it for Youtube. The story has already been covered on BBC news and the National Deaf Children’s Society has done a...

Deaf question time for education politicians

Mar 5, 2010 1:16am

Back in January, I mentioned that a tremendous trio of deaf students from Heston Community School in west London went to Westminster to interview MPs from each of the main political parties on on their parties’ approach to supporting deaf children to help parents of deaf children decide how to...

Update: BSL not equal to other languages, says Government

Mar 3, 2010 2:09am

A while ago I blogged about how the Children, Schools and Families Bill might discourge primary schools from the option of teaching British Sign Language if they want to. NDCS has been exchanging a lot of emails recently with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to try and...

Audiology memories

Mar 1, 2010 1:06am

All of NDCS’s work on the Hear for the Future audiology campaign got me reminiscing over the weekend about my own experiences of audiology as a deaf child. Other people go to parties or relax over the weekend, but it was raining a lot so I thought I would reminisce...

Department of Health ignore concerns on audiology services for deaf children

Feb 25, 2010 11:43pm

This month has not been a good one for my anger. The Government denying equality on exams to deaf students. Deaf students having to wait for their Disabled Students Allowance. UK Film Council deciding that access to the cinema for deaf people is not a priority. And the Department for...

BBC news exposes how social care services are failing deaf children

Feb 24, 2010 11:47pm

We knew that social care services for deaf children were bad… but a piece of research now published by the University of Manchester has confirmed just how serious the failings are. Some of its findings, just to pick a few, include: * 60% of local authorities don’t regard deaf children as...

Will new pupil and parent guarantees make a difference for deaf children?

Feb 19, 2010 3:05am

A busy week doing campaign work on audiology training, access to exams and British Sign Language in primary schools. In an attempt to try and juggle four things at the same time, I also wrote up a draft National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) consultation response on the Department for Children,...

Government to discourage teaching of sign language in primary schools?

Feb 16, 2010 8:28am

I’ve blogged about some of my ‘official’ work on the Children, Schools and Families Bill. But I’ve also been doing some extra-curricular ‘unofficial’ lobbying work behind the scenes, trying to get clarification on something quite worrying… In a nutshell, the Bill proposes a new law whereby schools will have to teach...

How you can help stop cuts to audiology training

Feb 9, 2010 9:04am

For the past month, the National Deaf Chidren’s Society (NDCS) has been looking into what’s going on with the Government’s plans to reform audiology training. What have we found out? 1) The cuts are definitely happening. We’ve seen a letter (though we weren’t meant to) from civil servants at...