We’ve just had another unemployed deaf person pop in to our office to see if we can help them find a job . My initial reaction is to scream. No, not at the person who’s dropped in but at the disorganised Kafka-like world we all find ourselves in.  The RNID Employment Service now only supports Belfast, Glasgow, Manchester – these were the very people who emailed me an extraordinarily rude note two years ago saying it was none of my business how they ran their employment service (I had emailed them to let them know that we kept getting their dissatisfied customers turning up on our doorstep).

However I digress.

I can’t even begin to talk about the hearing oriented Job Centres and Job Clubs.  I still mourn the passing of the fabulous Deaf Job Club run by Mika Brojer (long gone to the great Job Club in the sky) and other great hardworking deaf staff employed by the RAD at Green Lanes, London.  I know DeafPlus in  East London offer a good support service  and other places do as well but it is still very much a lottery. We at Deafworks can’t even produce a handout for those people desperately looking to us to help (we are not a job finding agency) as the support network is so piecemeal and competitive.   Dering is a deaf owned company specialising in employment and is an excellent stopping off point (http://dering.biz) – I can highly recommend them.

However this takes us away from how we all can support deaf unemployed people better.   I worked with unemployed deaf school leavers years ago and am fully aware of the issues around literacy levels, lack of work placements, poor interview skills, few jobs, etc (the same issues that bedevill unemployed hearing people too) so putting all that to one side – how can we help  unemployed deaf people in a more efficient and cohesive way? Answers on a stamp please.

I had an interesting experience today.  An experience all deaf people have and really don’t think about – or we don’t allow ourselves to consider. I was walking to my car and bumped into my local estate agent. We chatted for a minute or two  walking to my car which happened to be parked outside a hairdressers, one (by coincidence) we both use. The hairdresser came outside and said “Hi” to both of us. At that point,  I said “Cheers” and drove away as I knew maintaining a conversation with both of them would just be too difficult and stressful, even though they are both very nice guys and easy to communicate with on a one to one basis. So what happened there? I turned down an opportunity of a fresh and new conversation which might, just might, have taught me something new. So if we all miss opportunities like this that hearing people have ten times a day, surely our expanding knowledge and social skills is going to grow at a slower rate – how can it be otherwise? That does not mean hearing people are wise and wonderful (not at all) and that we are not, but it does mean we might have less spontaneous opportunities to expand and grow our conversational muscles.  How many conversations did you miss today?

Exactly what is Hearing Awareness and how will it help? I posted a question on my Facebook for ideas on what could be included in a hearing awareness workshop. Some interesting comments and great ideas but most of them centred on what deaf people have learnt about their hearing colleagues and friends.  Perhaps we need to ask hearing people (who have some experience of working with, or living with, deaf people) what they would like to see included in a course for deaf people to learn more about hearing people. I am thinking back to previous conversations I’ve had with hearing colleagues and they have tended to say things like “deaf people think we can hear things a mile away – actually we can’t!” (slight exaggeration there but you get the gist), “I can’t talk to you & the person on the phone at the same time”, “I get annoyed when the deaf person expects me to drop everything and focus on them” (we could argue the toss with that one) and so forth. There are some very valid points for hearing people to make and I really would be interested in what these might be (and why). Over to you!

London is great for BSL arts events (there are some which have lipspeakers too) – in fact, there’s almost too many of them! I hate it when there are two in one night – there just aren’t enough D/deaf arts visitors to share around galleries. Ggrr. (By the way I know why this happens so please don’t all rush to explain) Publicity is still a huge problem for most galleries and public institutions.  Deafworks is often contacted for help on this topic – but as internet advertising and social networking is changing so fast and with most websites (such as the RNID) now only advertising their own events, it is really difficult to get your message out there. Facebook is good for the people on Facebook but not for others. I have started adding arts events to my website (http://www.deafworks.co.uk/resources/deaf_arts_events.php) but it means that a deaf individual has to log onto different websites to find out what is going on in their area. There has to be a better way of marketing all that is going on in wonderful London & other places.