Deafworks » Blog

Who visits D/deaf prisoners?

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:22:18 +0000

Someone we know was sent to prison last year. We have no idea where he is or how we can visit him. It started me thinking and I was reminded of Deafinitely Theatre’s recent play “Double Sentence” which is pretty self explanatory but for those of you not in the know, the play recognises that deaf prisoners have already received a sentence for their crime but then get another one on top (‘concurrent’ if you like) – the lack of appropriate communication which makes for an incredibly lonely and confusing time. We know someone ‘high up in the Prison Service’, shall we say, and he agreed that trained prison visitors are allocated to a prison rather than to allocated prisoners. So if our friend is in a North of England prison, who visits him from the South of England? I am aware of a previous BDA (British Deaf Association) study into supporting deaf prisoners but couldn’t track this down and that also the RAD (Royal Association for deaf people) is involved in prison visiting. There doesn’t seem to be any clarity and it would be great to get a simple answer to the question “How can I apply to be a prison visitor to a deaf prisoner?”

Where do unemployed deaf people go?

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:38:16 +0000

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.

How many conversations do we miss?

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:06:27 +0000

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?

Hearing Awareness

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:04:49 +0000

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!

BSL arts events

admin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:00:46 +0000

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.

Partially hearing or profoundly deaf? Take your pick!

admin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:20:41 +0000

I met someone today who says she is profoundly deaf and I was so tempted to have a discussion with her (but didn’t). You may ask is it that important? What bothers me is that we use terminology without understanding what it really means. Audiological terms are defined as what a person can hear with (not without) a hearing aid, but most people define themselves (in audiological terms) as what they can hear without a hearing aid. This is an incorrect use of these terms. Partially hearing (or partially deaf) indicates that with a hearing aid you have some useful hearing. Profoundly deaf means even with a hearing aid you will get very little benefit from it. Why is it important to be clear? Well, the first thing I would say is that it is not a competition. You don’t have to be “as deaf as you can” so as to prove that you are really deaf. It also puzzles work colleagues when you say you are profoundly deaf (as indeed you are without a hearing aid) then proceed to have a perfectly comfortable conversation or hear the fire alarm. It just doesn’t hang together and then we get into “well, she can hear if she wants to” which doesn’t help anybody. Let’s just be upfront and honest about who we are and accept there’s no need to pretend to be somebody we are not.

Why aren’t disability awareness DVDs often subtitled?

admin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:24:42 +0000

Why don’t disability awareness DVDs have subtitles? What’s that about? I’ve just received one in the post – it’s pretty awful all round but that’s not the point here (but still a point worth discussing elsewhere). The point is how can any disability trainer hope to demonstrate inclusion when they don’t even subtitle their own training material? I know from experience that the team making the DVD are not necessarily au fait with the issues involved (yes, I know they should be, but so often are not) which is why we often end up with a crap unsubtitled product that we can’t ever use.

We should practice what we preach

admin — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:22:56 +0000

I had an interesting experience the other day. I was watching three people in a cafe – it was clear one was a deaf person, the other was her hearing line manager and the third was the interpreter (how do I know this? body language & type of interaction, but that’s another story). The manager talked most of the time but it was clear she wanted the deaf person to talk and offer her opinions. She (the deaf staff member) and the interpreter looked at each other the whole time and there was very little eye contact with the manager. Anyone observing and not being aware of who was who, would simply have seen two friends chatting with the third person slightly out of the loop. We (as deaf people) would be furious if people left us out of the loop eg: the manager and the interpreter talking to each other and yes this is exactly what we often do ourselves – leave the hearing person out! How can we hope to progress in the workplace if this is what we do? Just a thought.

(PS : by the way, I did not recognise any of the three people )

Why do ENT depts never change?

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:16:09 +0000

I went to my local ENT (Adult audiology next to the Nuffield since you ask) last week and what do you know? It is exactly the same – apart from the blancmange walls, the staff are as rude and surly as ever. They have a notice (we’ve all seen them) which says “Abuse, threats, violence will not be tolerated. We want to help you but we will not hesitate to protect our staff”. If that isn’t a threat, then I don’t know what is. Don’t they ever stop to think why customers / patients/ clients (in other words, us) might get angry and / or upset? How’s this for starters – when I went to collect my prescription from the same hospital, the chairs face away from the pharmacy so you can’t see if they are calling (or even waving frantically, which of course they never would). Are they messing with our heads or what?

Why waste budget underspends? Just give it to deaf volunteers!

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:48:38 +0000

I have heard this twice recently – where organisations have an underspend and so they decide to use up the money by having a jamboree at a posh hotel for the staff (usually hearing) & volunteers (usually deaf) . Is this really the best way to use up the left over money? Why not just write a cheque to all the deaf volunteers instead? Without them, there wouldn’t even be a project!