Saying sorry for being deaf

Earlier this week, I was working on a draft of a NDCS policy position paper on mental health that will give the official organisational view of what good mental health and emotional well-being means for deaf children and the services they should receive for prevention and resolving difficulties that arise. If you’ve got any views on what the policy might include, let me know and I’ll try and slip it in.

In describing what good mental health looks like, I stole a line from the NDCS Healthy Minds resource to state that deaf children should be comfortable with their deafness and never ‘apologise’ for their deafness. So, for example, if they’re out and about, miss what someone says, the words “sorry, I’m deaf” should never be uttered when asking the person to repeat.

And then around ten minutes later whilst in a meeting, I realised I didn’t have my left hearing aid on. Things got fiddly, holding things up and before I knew it, I had uttered the words, “sorry, I can’t hear you at the moment”, thereby breaking the very rule I had written down moments before. Doh.

It was a small thing but it stayed in mind because it reinforced in my head that not much attention has traditionally been given to the emotional well-being of deaf children. And helping deaf children become confident kids who have a range of strategies for dealing with the communication barriers that – sigh – having to deal with deaf unaware hearing people brings, and who never ever apologise for being deaf. Personally, I think it’s an important but overlooked issue, especially for deaf children who go to mainstream schools and rarely meet other deaf children. It’s good to see that the Healthy Minds resource is now being used to fill this gap.

Greenwich youngsters win campaign victory on cinema access

I heard a nice little story last week about how a group of deaf young people in south London decided to do something useful over the holidays and take action on one of my personal bugbears – lack of access to the cinema at convenient times.

The young people from Shooters Hill College and one of my colleagues from NDCS got together with the manager of Greenwich Odeon cinema to say how fed up they were that subtitled films were only being shown at rubbish times. And the result? They managed to win an agreement to a trial of more weekend screenings with occasional later screenings too. The trial will kick off in the week beginning the 5th September and you’ll be able to see times by going to the Odeon website or Your Local Cinema.com.

A great result and well done to the young people involved. I’m looking forward to seeing the outcome of the review of the pilot in November. Hopefully a model for other groups of deaf children around the UK to folllow?

Awarding F for failure to exam bodies on access for deaf children

It’s the time of year again when lots of expectant young people find out how they did in their A Level and GCSE exams. So we thought it would be a good idea to remind the media about how the exam system is stacked against deaf children.

Legislation requires disabled candidates to be given the necessary support they need during exams. Yet we repeatedly get emails from parents with horror stories about their deaf child being unable to access an exam. Examples include transcripts of audio and video tapes not being provided on time, deaf children being asked questions in English about music and being asked to remove hearing aids in case they whistled during the exam (despite the fact this would cause tinnutis for the affected child).

If deaf students can’t access exams, then they’ll be less likely to get the qualifications they need for a good job that reflects their abilities. There are no excuses for not getting it right.

Exam bodies have very bad form on access to exams. Our bad beef began back in 2005 when the regulator suddenly decided to withdraw all support available to disabled candidates, apparently on the basis that this was unfair to non-disabled candidates. It was around two years, after a big campaign led by NDCS, before this support was reinstated. Since then, exam bodies have continued to grumble. They still don’t seem to really grasp their responsibility to design exams in a way that disabled candidates are able to demonstrate their abilities.

We think a fundamental overhaul is needed and, when Parliament returns, we’re going to be doing some lobbying work on the Equality Bill to try and drag exam bodies into the 21st century.

Whatever happened to… the NICE report on cochlear implants?

As it’s a relatively quiet month, I’ve been spending a lot of time dealing with trains of thought that start with: “Whatever happened to…” Mostly, on work issues but sometimes I have found myself drifting into a reverie about, for example, Ace of Base, purveyers of classic Swedish pop from the 90s.

Anyhow, one work issue that we’ve been checking up on is cochlear implants. Back in January, it was announced that all deaf children for whom it was appropriate would have the right to cochlear implants, following a report from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Three months later, the new rules on this came into effect.

So how’s it gone? Well, if no news is good news, then it seems to have gone reasonably well with most primary care trusts appearing to just get on with it and following the new rules. We’d be interested to know if that’s the experience of others on the ground as well.

Particularly as some localised problems have popped up recently. We’ve become aware of a case in the North West of England where a deaf child has been confirmed as a candidate for a second cochlear implant but the primary care trust have refused to fund it, without giving any clear reasons. NDCS is supporting the parents on this particular case and the campaigns team stands ready to intervene.

Interested to know others views and experiences in this area. And, of course, if there’s anything you want to know whatever happened to, happy to see if I can oblige.

And Ace of Base are still going strong apparently…

Zero information on acoustics in academies

A while back, we did a snapshot survey of local authorities to find out if the new schools in their area had been checked for their acoustics. A few got back to us to say that they didn’t know… because all of the new schools in their area are academies.

Academies are schools which have been given a bit more flexibility and freedom to run their own affairs. They are independent of their local authority and are run by a ‘sponsor’ which can be, for example, a large business or a philanthropic organisations. They are often set up in areas of deprivation to shake up the system a bit and try and improve results.

So after getting these replies from local authorities, we decided to approach all new academies directly to find out about their acoustics. We were particularly interested to see what the acoustics are like given that many seem to have bright new buildings with innovative and open plan designs. Not a particularly unreasonable request, we thought. Parents of deaf children are likely to want to know the same thing and the information should be reasonably close to hand.

We contacted over 80 academies directly. So far, nearly 3 months later, only 14 have replied. Meaning that 4 in 5 academies have not bothered to reply.

What makes it worse is that there is not much more we can do to get this information, besides a few stroppy emails to chase. ‘Freedom of Information’ legislation does not allow us to demand information from academies in the same way that we can from public authorities. It means that parents of deaf children and organisations like NDCS have no rights to information about academies.

It raises a few concerns about whether deaf children and their parents are getting the support they need from academies…

Disability benefits to be cut?

Last week, I started getting emails telling me there were 100 days left to save Disability Living Allowance benefits. Well, it got my attention. It started off as a trickle and then a deluge of emails. After some detective work, we saw that Benefits and Work have led a very effective campaign which has got – according to their website – 14000 people signed up for regular updates within a week. To give some context, around 400 people so far have taken action on acoustics for the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS). Frankly, I’m jealous.

So what’s prompted all of this? The Government has published a green paper – a fancy way of saying a consultation where the Government thinks aloud, rather than puts forward specific policy proposals – on reforming the funding for social care. Some of it looks quite interesting and these bits have been welcomed by some disability organisations. But it does suggest in very vague terms that the Government could consider ending disability benefits and using this to fund social care provision for severely disabled people.

The campaign has been very effective in raising an issue that might otherwise have been missed. But one downside is that it has got some parents of deaf children worrying that their Disability Living Allowance might literally end in 100 days. It won’t. It is highly unlikely anybody’s benefit will be cut in the short term. If the policy proposal does get pushed through, it is likely that there will be transitional arrangements in place.

That said, there is no room for complacency. NDCS will be responding to the green paper to say Disability Living Allowance, which many deaf children benefit from, needs to be protected. And NDCS is encouraging others to respond as well.

Let us know what you think of the campaign by leaving a comment below.

Shake up for Ofsted inspections of deaf children

Last week, I blogged about the first of two interim reports from the Lamb inquiry into parental confidence in the SEN system. The second one looked at an issue which NDCS has been pestering the Government about for ages – the deaf awareness of Ofsted inspectors.

The pestering commenced last summer when we published our Must do better! report into the barriers holding deaf children back at school. In it, we called for a stronger focus on deafness at Ofsted, pointing out that if inspections of provision for deaf children are not conducted with the necessary rigour, underpinned by good awareness and expertise in deafness, Ofsted cannot play an effective role in driving up standards for deaf children. If the line sounds rehearsed, then it’s because it’s something I’ve been saying with alarming regularity since then.

For example, earlier this year, we asked Glenda Jackson MP to table a PQ about it which elicited an interesting reply from Ofsted. We followed this by briefing the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee on this issue. John Heppell MP directly challenged the Head of Ofsted on the issue. And more recently, we sent a submission to the Lamb inquiry highlighting some of the examples we’d come across of Ofsted inspectors being deaf unaware.

All of this has culminated in the Lamb inquiry proposing that a) Ofsted inspectors should be specifically required to report on provision for children with special educational needs in all school reports and b) that inspectors should have more disability awareness training. The Government has already accepted these recommendations.

I’m not sure NDCS can take all of the credit for this, but I think we’ve been a leading figure in putting the issue on the agenda. If anything, we deserve an award for refusing to shut up about it. And now we’ve got a great result which should result in big improvements in the way Ofsted do inspections.

What do you think? Do you think it will have a positive impact? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Fancy a run in the park?

My spies inform me that NDCS still has places for the Royal Parks Half Marathon in London this October. All you need to do is raise a minumum of £299. Oh, and run 13 miles obviously.

If you’re interested, have a look at NDCS Challenges. Closing date is next Friday.

The run will also provide you with a unique opportunity to see the beetroot faced gangly creature in purple clothing, rarely sighted in this environment. Yes, I’m also running it for a 2nd year running – so you won’t need to worry about coming last.

Cinema access website one step closer to winning top award

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Your Local Cinema.com had been nominated as Best Arts Project for the National Lottery Awards. Well, they’ve gone one better and made it to the finals!

Wowzers. If you want them to go one step even further and win the thing, then you need to get voting. You can vote online (click on ‘Best Arts Project’) or you can vote over the phone. The number is 0844 686 8020, it costs only 5p from a BT line and it’s an automated line so you can hold the line for 15 seconds without saying anything and it’ll be fine. It would be fantastic if they win…

I wasn’t allowed to talk about it before but the reason I was doing a TV interview a while back was for a feature encouraging people to vote for Your Local Cinema.com. You can see the video here but be warned that there are no subtitles. It leaves me in the slightly odd position of not being entirely sure of what I’m saying. I’ve had words with them by email and hopefully it will be sorted soon. Fortunately, I’m too pleased that they’ve made it to the final to be absolutely furious about it.

Anyhow, get voting! Votes must be in by noon on the 14th August.

UPDATE (12/8/09): You can now see the video with subtitles here.

New rights for parents of deaf children

The Lamb inquiry into parental confidence in the special educational needs system pumped out two more interim reports on Monday. The first one was on the quality of statements of support for children with special educational needs. And it contained a recommendation that left some of my colleagues flabbergasted – a new right for parents to appeal if the statement for their child is not updated or modified to reflect changing need.

Lots of parents have told NDCS that statements seem to be set in stone once they are drafted. So a child moving to secondary school might still have the same statement they had when they had as a very young child. There are apparently examples of statements for older children saying that a child is not yet toilet trained. Children don’t stay the same forever, so why should statements? NDCS stressed this point in our formal submission to the Lamb inquiry.

Currently, statements should be annually reviewed and a parent can ask for an interim review. But the local authority doesn’t have to change the content of the statement unless the parent demands a re-assessment, a long and painful process for many parents to contemplate.

So the recommendation, which has already been accepted by the Government, is big news, which is likely to make a big difference. Another recommendation that guidance should be produced for local authorities on how to draft statements will also helpfully shake things up. Part of me still wonders whether more needs to be done to monitor and check the quality of statements but maybe that will come in the final Lamb inquiry report, due out in the autumn.

And I haven’t even started on the second interim report which had also offers the promise of more big changes for deaf children and Ofsted. Come back soon for more info on this…