Is the Government telling deaf people to PIP off on disability benefits?

It took me a while but I finally read through the Department for Work and Pension’s consultation on the eligibility criteria for the new benefits for disabled people, Personal Independence Payments. Otherwise known as PIP. To be fair, there were three, rather long documents, to read through to understand what was being proposed. And I’m still not sure I’ve got it.

For those that don’t know, PIP is the new DLA (Disability Living Allowance), a benefit for disabled people to fund the various additional costs associated with being disabled. Though the Government keep implying otherwise, it’s not linked to employment status. PIP will be introduced from next spring for disabled young people aged 16+. Disabled children have a stay of execution and will remain on DLA for now.

The Government have confirmed that when the move to PIP happens, 500,000 disabled people will lose their PIP. Yup, that’s half a million people who will be worse off. And looking at the guidance, it seems that many deaf people will be among the losers.

This is because in order to get the new “standard” rate of PIP, a deaf person would have to show that they couldn’t understand “basic” information when communicating out and about. Difficulties in understanding anything more than basic information will, on its own, not get you the points you need to qualify. Examples given in the document seem to suggest that only deaf people who communicate entirely and solely in sign language will be eligible for the new PIP. Everyone else, it would seem, nothing.

Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions recently said that deafness was a “moderate” disability. The policy intention is that funding needs to be taken away from deaf people and given to those with more severe disabled needs. This is obviously a rather narrow way to frame political choices. It’s also an approach that treats deaf people as being less “deserving” of support, regardless of any additional support that may be needed to understand more than just “hello” and “bye bye” and which ignores the additional costs and disadvantaged associated with being deaf in a hearing world.

The National Deaf Children’s Society have drafted a short guide on what the changes might mean for deaf young people. This also include some tips and suggestions on how to respond to the consultation. If you think the changes are unfair, I would encourage you to have your say and ask the Government to raise the threshold of support to make sure deaf people get the help they need.

Family sign language video goes global

NDCS campaigner and proud Dad, Nick Beese, recently did some filming in support of NDCS’s Sign Up campaign to ensure all families have access to family sign language. Here’s an amazingly sweet clip featuring daughter Ava chatting with her Mum:

I’m not alone in loving this video; the video has gone viral on youtube and the last time I looked it has nearly 800,000 hits. When I looked this morning, it was around 400,000.

Not all deaf children are lucky enough to be like Ava. For the 9 out of 10 deaf children who are born to parents with no experience of deafness, many will face communication difficulties unless their parents get support on how to communicate with deaf children. At the moment though, too many parents are being forced to pay hundreds of pounds just to learn to communicate with their deaf child. Not what I would call fair.

NDCS’s Sign Up campaign is campaigning for families to have fair access to sign language. You can support the campaign in a range of ways, including by signing a government petition.

In the meantime, a huge thanks to Nick Beese and Ava for bringing the campaign to life in a great way and helping it go global.

Speaking to media about NDCS’s Save Services campaign

Image courtesy of Remark!

Sometimes I wonder if the N in NDCS stands for nagging, judging by the persistence with which some people have been trying to get me to resume blogging about campaigning for deaf children. Well, NDCS is nothing if not determined.

Where have I been? It’s been a busy few months. Lots of councils across England still seem intent on slashing the services upon which deaf children rely on to do well. Depressingly, a few have joined my list in the past few weeks, and I’m not talking about my Christmas card list.

I also lost my media virginity by doing my first TV interview, for the Hub, a programme commissioned by the innovative British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust. Thanks to lots of patient prepping from NDCS’s media team, I was allowed to answer a few questions about NDCS’s Save Services for Deaf Children campaign and managed to slip in the key messages that sum up the issues. Hopefully, the answers helped spread the word about the campaign and motivated a few more people to support the campaign. And thankfully I managed to get through the interview without splurting out some expletive about councils making cuts.

Should I be allowed in front of a camera again? Judge for yourself online – I’m on programme 8.

I promise not to leave it too long before my next blog about campaigning at the Nagging Deaf Children’s Society.

Prime Minister gives big boost to family sign language

How many opportunities does a MP get to ask the Prime Minister a question at Prime Minister’s Question Time? Not very often, would be my guess.

Which is why I’m doubly impressed that Malcolm Bruce MP has now asked two questions in three years focusing on deafness and sign language. Malcolm has a deaf daughter and is Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness. Even so, to nobble the Prime Minister twice on this in front of everyone at the highest level is pretty dedicated.

Image courtesy of NDCS

The first question was to Gordon Brown in 2008; Malcolm asked if he would meet a delegation of sign language users. Gordon agreed and the meeting led to the government-funded project, called I-Sign. The National Deaf Children’s Society was a part of this and led on a workstream to increase access to family sign language. With 90% of deaf children born to hearing families, many families struggle to learn to communicate with their deaf child. Yet most local authorities offer pretty little support to families wanting to learn family-appropriate signs at convenient times at minimal cost. Through the I-Sign project, NDCS created a family sign language DVD and website and working with others helped to pilot special courses in the North West and South West. Do check out the website – it features a beautiful seaside town that makes me wish I could go and live in my computer.

The pilots are now over. But families still need support. Hence, the return of Malcolm Bruce at Prime Minster’s Question more recently to ask if David Cameron would consider rolling out the pilots to the rest of England.

The reply was once again very positive and encouraging. David described sign language as “incredibly valuable”, said the pilots had been “successful” and said he would ask the Department for Education to meet with Malcolm and another delegation. Bingo.

It will be no mean feat to get the Department for Education to agree to a roll-out. But thanks to Malcolm, the mission has made a promising first start. Will the Department refuse to expand on something the Prime Minister refers to as successful?

Watch this space.

Stopping Stoke from slashing services for deaf children

A combination of holidays and post-holiday work mean I haven’t been blogging for a while. But I think I might break the silence to give an update on the Save Services for Deaf Children campaign in Stoke on Trent. Stoke has been one of the big battlegrounds from the start. 2 years ago, they had 8 Teachers of the Deaf. When deaf children start school again in September, there will just be 4. Despite this, the council still maintain the fiction that their changes will improve matters for deaf children in Stoke.

A few campaign tactics from the start have been bearing fruit recently. NDCS set up a petition early on and which attracted nearly 600 signatures. As a result, NDCS was asked to speak before the whole council last week. By all accounts, this had a big impact. One councillor wrote in to NDCS to say it was a “very moving, reasoned and inspiring speech”. The speech got a round of applause and was covered in the respected local paper too.

Encouragingly, the petition has now been unanimously referred to a scrutiny committee within the council which will look again at the decision. Though I’m not holding my breath, the hope is that the council will finally realise they cannot slash the service for deaf children in Stoke by half without it having a devastating impact on deaf children.

The moral of the blog though? Even doing a simple thing like creating and signing a petition can have a big impact in saving services.

Saving services for deaf children launch – rolling blog

Image courtesy of NDCS

6.03pm Am going to wrap up today’s blog. Very pleased that NDCS’s Save Services for Deaf Children campaign has made a splash today, with even MPs tweeting about it. We’re expecting some more media coverage over the next few days which will hopefully spread the word about the injustice of councils cutting budgets for some of the most disadvantaged children in society, when this funding has already been protected by central Government.

There’s loads you can do to support the campaign if you want to:

1) Visit the map, find out what’s happening in your area and share any intelligence you might have.

2) Contact your MP and ask him/her to help save services for deaf children.

3) If cuts are being made in your area, read our guide on how you can take action to fight these cuts at a local level.

The scale of the cuts, and the way in which they’ve been made, in many areas really is just outrageous. So I’m hoping this campaign will force local and central decision-makers to think again.

4.22pm The NDCS Save Services for Deaf Children map shows you what’s happening across the country, but if you want to see a list of which councils are making cuts, you might be interested in taking a look at the NDCS press release that went out today.

3.19pm CYP Now are the latest to cover today’s campaign launch in their online article. It includes a strong response from a Department for Education’s spokesperson:

“Local authorities have a statutory duty to identify children’s special educational needs (SEN) and provide the services to meet them – no ifs and buts.

“We’ve protected schools’ cash levels nationally and made sure local authorities can maintain specialised SEN provision – the best possible settlement considering the dire public finances. We expect local authorities target resources at the most vulnerable children, who need the most support, including deaf and hearing impaired children.”

No word on what action they will take though. NDCS wrote to the Secretary of State for Education earlier today asking him to intervene.

2.41pm “Vital services being cut, meh, happening everywhere, what can you do, what time is Britain’s Got Talent on?” is something I imagine a few people may be saying in response to NDCS’s Save Services for Deaf Children campaign.

Well, yes, these are difficult economic times, etc. But there are 3 things to take into account here.

1) The Government has already protected money for specialist support services for deaf children. The schools budget was kept at flat real per pupil in the last Comprehensive Spending Review. And what’s more, the Schools Budget is ring-fenced so you’re not allowed to spent it on other things, like Kit-Kats. So local authorities shouldn’t have any less money for these services. Other children are seeing their education funding protected, so why is it, in 28 local authorities, deaf children are facing cuts?

2) There are lots of things councils could do to save money. For example, NDCS is keen to see more councils join forces on services for deaf children. This would achieve economies of scale, whilst also helping to ensure a more comprehensive service can be delivered. Most local authorities seem to be rushing rather quickly to make front-line cuts before considering whether they can make savings this way.

3) For heaven’s sake, deaf children are already among the most disadvantaged children in society today. The last time I looked, there was still a massive attainment gap between deaf children and other children, even though deafness is not a learning disability. They need more support, not less. So why are deaf children’s services being targeted for cuts?

1.59pm Already quite a few parents have been leaving comments on the map to share intelligence about what they know about any cuts or changes to services for deaf children in their area. Given the reluctance by many local authorities to be open about their funding plans, NDCS is relying on parents to help them identify where cuts are being made.

Comments can be left anonymously and the locations don’t appear as exact on the map (so don’t bother trying to go and visit anyone). As an aside, a relocation of one of the parent comments went amiss the other day and a parent accidentally ended up being located in the middle of the North Sea before being placed correctly in Glasgow. NDCS – campaigning to save services for deaf children, but also saving parents in distress in the North Sea.

Interested in how NDCS created the map? More information here >

12.44pm With NDCS, it never rains but… As well as launching our new interactive map and our guide to parents for saving services, NDCS is also launching today a new campaign action for supporters. NDCS is asking all supporters to contact their MP to highlight these cuts being made to vital services. NDCS’s website makes it quick and easy and, through some voodoo wizadry that I don’t understand, it can also insert extra information for your MP about what’s happening in your own area.

11.45am One of the reasons NDCS wanted to publish its interactive map of cuts to deaf children’s services was that so parents could see if their local services were under threat… and take action if so. In many areas, councils are not coming clean with parents of deaf children. In 45 cases, NDCS had to issue Freedom of Information requests to force the council to reveal their plans. One parent of a deaf child in Stoke on Trent only found out about reductions when her child mentioned he hadn’t seen his Teacher of the Deaf for a while. If I were a cynical man, I’d say that councils are trying to make cuts by the back door and hoping that parents of deaf children won’t notice, or by the time parents do, it will be too late. There are still a sizeable number of local authorities who haven’t given us enough information. It’s just outrageous.

Where cuts are being made or services are still at risk, NDCS has produced a guide for parents on how they can campaign to save services for deaf children locally. NDCS is also continuing to directly support local parent campaigns in a number of areas including Stoke on Trent, Cumbria and Wiltshire, to name but a few.

11.24am Guardian journalist Cathy Heffernan has done a great comment piece on why Teachers of the Deaf are so important and the “gut-wrenching” cuts – well worth a read.

11am As well as our cuts map, NDCS has an image which shows where education services for deaf children are being cut or are at risk.

9.47am Lots of radio interviews happening, including Sky News radio and BBC London Breakfast. I will see if I can root out some transcripts. NDCS is also working hard to secure local press coverage in some of the areas where swingeing cuts are being made.

8.55am Here’s the NDCS news story on the campaign relaunch for Save Services for Deaf Children. Very pleased to see it’s already been covered in the Guardian.

8.26am The focus of today is going to be the “map” that I talked about earlier. On this, NDCS has put everything we know about what each local authority is up to on funding for education services in 2011/12. And it makes for grim reading – 28 local authorities have told us they are making cuts. That’s nearly 1 in 5 local authorities that are targeting deaf children’s services for cuts. On top of this, a further 24 have yet to confirm whether or not they’re making cuts.

The map also shows the feedback we’ve had from parents about their services and any cuts that have already happened. The map is a great place for parents of deaf children to go and find out what’s happening in their area, and share with NDCS any new information or their views on what’s going on.

8.10am Yes, the rolling blog is back for today’s relaunch by the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) of the Save Services for Deaf Children campaign. The aim of the campaign? To remind key decision-makers that deaf children are already among the most disadvantaged children in society today, and should not be forced to bear the brunt of public spending cuts.

Sadly, NDCS has uncovered lots of evidence that swingeing cuts are being made to education services that deaf children rely on. NDCS is publishing what they’ve learnt so far today – via a new fancy interactive online map.

NDCS is also seeking to spread the word far and wide that we need help from parents and other NDCS supporters to save these services, and hopefully NDCS will be in the papers, on the radio, everywhere. This blog will obviously be the place to be though.

I’ll do my best to do regular updates throughout the day. I’ll also do my best to avoid typos but apologies in advance for any incoherence.

Any questions or comments, leave them below and will try and respond asap.

Deaf Awareness Week – tip number five

Image courtesy of NDCS

Deaf Awareness Week will be over at the end of this weekend for another year . Sadness, indeed. How was it for you? I think any opportunity to shout out about the simple things that can be done to include and involve deaf people is a good thing. With that in mind, here’s my fifth and final personal deaf awareness tip.

5. Don’t be scared to ask.

I won’t be offended. I probably won’t mind. Yes, go ahead and ask me about my deafness and how I communicate.

I’m often surprised people don’t. Do I look fierce? I may be increasingly grumpy with age but I’m not Gordon Brown, I don’t stab people with pens or call them a bigot behind their back. I’m always happy to talk about myself and my experiences as a deaf person. Frankly, I can’t think of many things more interesting. So go ahead and ask me what helps me understand what’s being said and how I prefer to get my voice across. It’s nice and I appreciate it. It’s better than having impossible conversations, trying to stumble on, hoping for the best before finally discovering that we weren’t actually talking about Chewbacca from Star Wars.

It’s also better than making assumptions about a deaf person’s communication approach straight-off. As a child, I didn’t sign, and would always be confused and irritated when people just started signing to me, without also speaking, before checking that I actually signed myself.

This is not to say that communication isn’t a two-way responsibility. It’s obviously important for deaf people themselves to take charge of their communication and proactively explain to other people what works for them. But many deaf children are not particularly confident in doing so, either because of their age or because they haven’t been empowered to be assertive about their deafness. So my fifth and final deaf awareness tip of the week is: don’t be scared to ask. Get down to a deaf child’s level and ask them to explain to you what communication approach works for them – sign? speech? combination? flags? drums? Make sure they know that they can stop you and ask you to do something in a different way. Check and refine your communication approach as you go.

And that’s it from me. Don’t forget that these are just my own deaf awareness tips that are most important to me – the National Deaf Children’s Society have something more official. And you can also check out a poster done by Welsh deaf pupils last year.

Finally, remember, deaf awareness is for life, not just for one week in May!

Deaf Awareness Week – tip number four

Time for another of my own personal deaf awareness tips? Here’s my fourth:

4. Never say “it’s not important”

Imagine a deaf child struggling to follow what’s going on and asking their friends what everyone is talking about, and the response is “it’s not important” or “it doesn’t matter”. There are few things more deflating or more likely to make someone feel left out.

I can understand some of the reasons why a hearing person might say this. It may be a casual throw-away remark. Explaining it may take more time than it took to say it in the first place. The remark was directed at someone else. Etc, etc. It’s rarely said in malice.

But the point is if it was important enough to say in the first place, then it’s important enough to make sure it’s been understood. Otherwise, it’s like excluding and punishing a deaf child for being deaf. To me, it’s virtually a human right for a deaf person. Few things are more likely to demoralise and undermine someone’s confidence. And there are many deaf children already who are not exactly bursting with confidence.

And if you’re saying “it’s not important” because the deaf child hasn’t understood, then this is just another way of saying “it’s OK to give up” to a deaf child. Is that a message we want deaf children to take on board?

So my fourth tip is to always try and include a deaf child in everything you’re saying, and to never EVER say “it’s not important” (even when it really isn’t important).

My final deaf awareness tip follows tomorrow. Any final bids for what I should cover?

Deaf Awareness Week – tip number one

Don’t pull down the bunting just yet – it’s Deaf Awareness Week!

In the interests of spreading some of that magic “awareness”, I’m going to be blogging this week my top 5 deaf awareness tips. The National Deaf Children’s Society have a definite list in their communication tips flyer but these are my own tips, most important to me, which I’ve picked up in my little life as a deaf child, young person and pretend-grown up. I’ll blog one tip each day – here’s my first.

1. Don’t patronise me.

As a child, one of the things that used to really rile me was people assuming that because I was deaf, I was dumb and stupid. That I was going to be a poor little mute thing, not going to do very much. So many times, I would detect a faint look of surprise when people saw that I – a deaf child – could use the medium of my lips to create speech. This would then turn into a look of astonishment when I not only spoke, but could construct a WHOLE sentence. Some people virtually passed out on the floor when they found out I went to a posh university. Anyhow, the end result of all this was that I was an insufferable show-off as a child, determined to demonstrate that just because I was deaf, I was not stupid.

I hope things are better now. But I still detect sometimes a prejudice that deaf children are never going to achieve as well as other children, and that the National Deaf Children’s Society is wasting it’s time in campaigning to close the attainment gap. And I worry that some deaf children pick up these subtle messages, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think this is not only wrong, but offensive and dangerous.

So my first and, most important, deaf awareness tip of the week is never to underestimate or patronise deaf children when you’re communicating with deaf children and grown ups. Our ears may be wonky but our brains work just fine, thank you very much.

Back tomorrow with my own second deaf awareness tip. Do let me know below what you think of my first or if you want to share your own important deaf awareness tips.

Making jokes about deaf children

Ahh, Comic Relief. I settled down on Friday night for an evening of mirth and doughnuts. As the clock approached midnight, Jimmy Carr appeared on the telly. Ahh, I love Jimmy, I thought. Time for another doughnut. What followed was so unexpected that my cleaner is still wiping the doughnut stains off the wall. Yes, Jimmy Carr made a joke about the National Deaf Children’s Society.

I have rarely been so confused about my feelings and emotions, and I’ve watched The Only Way Is Essex. On the one hand, I was thrilled. Jimmy Carr has heard of the National Deaf Children’s Society! He quotes us on Friday night primetime TV! Beat that other deaf charities!

But then I thought, actually, shouldn’t I be offended by this?

The joke was thus: “11 Comic Relief singles at Number One is pretty impressive. Beat that National Deaf Children’s Society.”

If you’re looking as puzzled as my other half was, the joke is that it would manifestly be ludicrous for deaf children or the charity that works for them to do music or get to number one.

Which made me go: “Hey! Deaf children and grown ups listen to music! I may have terrible taste in music myself (I rather enjoyed the Susan Boyle performance on Comic Relief a bit too much after all) but I still “get” music. And we can make music too! My Mum says I have a beautiful singing voice AND I got a certificate for drumming at school!”

In other words, the joke did rather perpetuate the myth that music is alien to deaf children. I can see why some people might have been offended.

So does this mean it’s just not on to make jokes about deaf children?

I feel very wary of entering the debate but me? My own personal view as a card carrying deaf person who used to be a deaf child? I’m embarrassed to say I actually chortled a little at the joke. It was just a joke. It wasn’t particularly aggressive or victimising in its nature. I may have made worse jokes myself about my own deafness.

I guess equality means equality in being the subject of a few jokes once in a while. I don’t honestly believe that Jimmy has it in for deaf children – he is clearly acting a sarcastic persona as part of his comedy. I still love Jimmy, though my love now comes with a slight frown.

Overall, it was nice little light relief in a context where most of my day job is focusing on stopping cuts to services for deaf children. I’m saving my anger to fighting those cuts.

In the meantime though, I’m now on a mission to try and persuade Jimmy to come and make a record with some deaf children. 12 number ones by the time the next Red Nose Day comes along? Bring it on…