NDCS – Impact of Covid-19

The National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) is going through a period of huge change, with Covid-19 causing widespread disruption to the vital external services and support that many deaf children rely on, their friendships, their schools and their audiology services.

Routine audiology services, schools, Teachers of the Deaf and speech and language therapists are no longer able to provide face to face support. At NDCS, they have had to cancel services such as their Roadshow Bus visits and face-to-face family events, for the foreseeable future.

However, they have moved quickly to increase existing remote support and evolve their face-to-face activities into online services.  Without it, deaf children and young people and their families will miss out on vital information to connect as a family, connect with the outside world and continue to learn.

The big purple NDCS Roadshow Bus has been touring the whole of the UK for 30 years, delivering fun and engaging workshops for deaf children and young people, their friends and families and the professionals supporting them.   In the absence of this currently, a number of Digital Roadshow Workshops have been developed to continue providing this much needed service virtually.

They are also producing a number of family workshops, delivered to between 12 and 50 families at a time, online via Zoom, to support families during this unprecedented time.   These include practical topics such as how technology in the home can support their deaf child and learning how to fix basic problems with hearing aids.

Parents are really appreciating this extra support, with one commenting: “Thank you for organising this online event. Very clear and easy to understand. I particularly found the signposting to specific resources on your website useful.”

Your support will allow us to help NDCS continue providing their online support to deaf young people and their families during this unprecedented time.

Please note: photo shows a Roadshow workshop before current social distancing measures.