UK Council on Deafness

February 2007 Bulletin

In this Bulletin

• New Members
• Deaf Day 2007
• Scottish Council on Deafness Conference
• What works for whom?
• Early Day Motions in Parliament
• Access to Work

New Members

Welcome to our new members that have joined this month:

Alban Neve Deaf Association
49 Old Bedford Road, Luton, LU2 7NX.

ANDA provides support for people with a hearing loss and a range of services that help empowerment and social inclusion; representation and advocacy services that enable deaf people to challenge issues concerning equality and discrimination; addresses equality of access to services in Luton, Bedfordshire and surrounding areas.

Deaf Parenting UK
deaf-parenting@hotmail.co.uk
www.deafparent.org.uk

DPUK aims to relieve the needs of Deaf parents and parents to be; highlights gaps in services and ; works with various organisations including Health, Social Services, Deaf and mainstream parenting organisations to improve access to information and services for Deaf Parents. DPUK offers tailor-made services to Deaf parents including Deaf Parenting Skill courses for parents with 0 - 9 year olds and teens; 1:1 befriender services of experienced Deaf parent supporting new Deaf parents; trains Deaf parents to become DPUK trainers in partnership with Parentline Plus.

East Sussex Hearing Resource Centre
8 St Leonard’s Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 3UH.
Tel: 01323 722505
mail@eshrc.org.uk
www.eshrc.org.uk

ESHRC provides information and support, volunteer scheme, deaf awareness training, mobile advisory service, lipreading and sign language classes, communication groups and loop installation in East Sussex.

A full list of all UK Council on Deafness member organisations can be found on the website at www.deafcouncil.org.uk

Membership is open to voluntary sector organisations working with deaf people. Our members' interests cover the full spectrum of deafness. Members can participate in joint campaigns such as the Access to Communication in English campaign; engage with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness; are able to keep up to date with deaf issues through various media; access the weekly Parliamentary Report and by attending the many events that we hold during the year are able to contribute to the debate and help to shape the destiny of deaf organisations in the UK. Other services include grant distribution, general admin support and free access to the Criminal Records Bureau Disclosure Service.

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Deaf Day 2007

The 11th Deaf Day will be held by the Deaf Education and Learning Support Department at City Lit on Saturday 21st April 2007.

The annual Deaf Day held by City Lit is now the biggest event of its kind in the UK. In 2006 there were nearly 60 exhibitors giving information on deaf related topics and a whole range of workshops, some informative, some practical.

Entrance to all the workshops is free but you will need an entry ticket and are advised to book early as the number of attendees is limited for health and safety reasons.

City Lit provides lipreading classes; sign language classes; classes for D/deaf adults and teacher training classes.

Exhibition space is available in sizes ranging from 6’ by 3’ to a whole room. For further information about City Lit and the Deaf Day on 21st April contact:

City Lit Deaf Education and Learning Support,
Keeley Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2B 4BA.
Tel: 020 7492 2720
Textphone: 020 7492 2746
Fax: 020 7492 2745
Email: deafday@citylit.ac.uk

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Scottish Council on Deafness Conference - 15 May 2007

The Mental Health and Deaf & Deafblind People conference will take place at Celtic Park in Glasgow on Tuesday 15th May 2007 from 9am to 4pm. There will be speakers from the UK, Ireland and Europe and also workshops and a small exhibition. The conference will be co-chaired by Professor Peter McKenna, Chair of Psychiatry, University of Glasgow and Lilian Lawson, SCoD Director. For more details and a booking form, please contact Alison Coyle at SCoD, Central Chambers Suite 62, 93 Hope Street, Glasgow G2 6LD; tel 0141 248 2474; text 0141 248 2477; fax 0141 248 2479 and e-mail: alison@scod.org.uk.

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What works for whom?

A review of evidence and meta-analysis for the Department of Work and Pensions reviews existing DWP evaluation evidence in order to identify which interventions aimed at disabled people have worked most effectively including New Deal for Disabled People, Access to Work, Remploy and WORKSTEP.

Research Report No. 407 can be accessed from the DWP website at
www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rrs2007.asp#whatworks

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Early Day Motions in Parliament

Legal protection and promotion of Sign Languages

EDM Number 775 tabled by Malcolm Bruce MP on 30 January 2007 reads:

That this house calls for legal protection of, support for and promotion of British and Irish Sign Languages in accordance with Council of Europe resolutions, recognising that it is estimated that over 200,000 British residents regularly use sign language, many of them as a first language; calls for the parents of deaf children to be given free tuition in sign language and information and choice over the role sign language can play in their child's development; that sign language be offered as a school curriculum option to increase awareness of the languages and to increase the potential pool of interpreters; that deaf adults be given the opportunity to study their own language at degree level and be given the right to free interpreter and other communication support services in a wide range of circumstances; further calls on the Government to adopt the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in particular Article 21(b) which calls on governments to 'accept and facilitate the use of sign languages' and that sign language users are provided with the resources they require in comparable terms to the users of other UK minority languages such as Welsh and Gaelic which receive more than one hundred times the funding provided to promote and protect sign language.

Early Day Motions are useful for raising awareness of issues in parliament. MPs tend to only sign them if they are requested to do so by a constituent, so do please contact your local MP and ask them to sign Early Day Motions that you support.

Another Early Day Motion that you may wish your local MP to sign is EDM Number 151 tabled on 20 November 2006 by Phil Willis called

Lipreading and Sign Language Training

That this House notes that the Government does not provide free lip reading and sign language classes to all learners on the basis that they are not basic skills; acknowledges that lip reading and signing are vital means of communication for those with serious hearing impairments, their families and their carers; and calls on the Government to review the classification of lip reading and sign language courses with a view to redefining them as basic skills.

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Access to Work

Following on from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness meeting with Anne McGuire, Minister for Disabled People on 19 December 2006, JobcentrePlus have issued clarification on a number of issues of concern to deaf people:

“Access to Work provides help for disabled people to enable them to stay in, or take up, a job. It can provide a grant towards extra travel costs, special equipment, adaptations to premises or support workers. The programme helped over 30,000 disabled people last year.

Access to Work is delivered through Business Centres across England, Scotland and Wales. Recently we have been trying to improve consistency, to ensure customers receive similar levels of support, wherever they live. This has resulted in several questions from customers and representative organisations. Here we answer some of their most frequent questions:

Has Access to Work changed its policy on providing British Sign Language interpreters?

No, our policy has not changed. We have recently re-issued guidance to try and improve consistency in how the programme is delivered in our Business Centres.

Will Access to Work fund more than one interpreter?

Access to Work will provide the minimum support necessary to allow someone to do their job. For a short and simple meeting we can fund one interpreter. If the meeting is likely to be long or complex, a variety of options may be considered, including using new technology, allowing the interpreter to take more rest breaks or using a second interpreter. Access to Work will look at each case individually and agree a solution with the customer and their employer.

Why has the mileage rate for interpreters been reduced?

Our policy has always been to use the Department for Work and Pensions standard mileage rate for programmes - currently 25p per mile. During our drive to achieve consistency we discovered that not all Business Centres were using this rate. We have asked them to do so, to ensure that all interpreters are dealt with consistently and fairly.

Has Access to Work support been withdrawn from public sector employees?

The report Improving the life chances of disabled people recommended that people working for government ministerial departments should have their support funded by their employer, rather than Access to Work. This will allow us to use any savings to help more people. We will, however, continue to offer advice to those people affected and, if necessary, will arrange and fund third-party assessment to identify possible solutions. Public Sector employees will not be left without support.

This change, which came into effect from October 2006, only affects ministerial departments. It does not affect the agencies under them.”

For a list of ministerial departments visit: www.parliament.uk

For further information about Access to Work issues contact:

Jane Iliffe
Products Division
Level 3 West
Rockingham House
Sheffield
S1 4ER

Email: jane.iliffe@jobcentreplus.gsi.gov.uk
jane.iliffe@jobcentreplus.gsi.gov.uk

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Please send information for the next Bulletin, by 2 March 2007, to:
UK Council on Deafness, Westwood Park, London Road, Little Horkesley, Colchester, CO6 4BS.
Email info@deafcouncil.org.uk.

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