National Deaf Children’s Society 22/23 review

The National Deaf Children’s Society is dedicated to creating a world without barriers for deaf children and young people.

We work to overcome the social and educational barriers that hold deaf children back, by:

• helping families give the best possible support to their deaf child every step of the way
• ensuring the needs of deaf children and young people come first
• giving expert unbiased support to help deaf children and their parents make informed choices about their lives
• positively challenging unfairness, and influencing key decision-makers to make deaf children and young people a political priority.

Thanks to the generosity of Childlife supporters, we have been able to provide life-changing support and invaluable information to deaf children and their families across the UK over the last year. This has included:

• delivering Family Sign Language training to 200 people, enabling parents and their deaf children to gain invaluable communication skills
• providing vital, timely help and advice via our Helpline service, with more than 3,000 calls, emails and live chat messages answered
• welcoming around 3,900 new members, and providing relevant and tailored information for free to our members through our quarterly Families magazine, monthly e-newsletters, blogs and online content
• running 60 events for families, ranging from newly diagnosed days, to getting your child ready for school, to raising a deaf child, offering more than 1,000 families practical skills and emotional support
• providing parent-to-parent support via our new ‘Your Community’ site
• giving deaf children and young people the opportunity to trial equipment through our technology test drive service
• delivering 17 outreach visits across the UK to schools, local group events and an audiology event for young people transitioning to adult services. A range of workshops were delivered to 211 deaf children and young people, 329 hearing children, 25 families and 94 professionals
• delivering 171 digital workshops for a range of educational settings. 603 deaf young people attended workshops such as Deaf Identity, Emotional Health & Wellbeing, Online Safety, and Technology, while 2,529 of their hearing friends received deaf awareness information to help improve communication and inclusion within their class
• providing seven accessibility in the workplace training sessions for 94 attendees, and two sessions for larger organisations reaching another 253 professionals, to help increase deaf awareness of employers
• delivering an online conference for professionals focussing on employment, with over 170 delegates attending
• providing a programme of online training reaching almost 2,000 professionals to help increase awareness and understanding of childhood deafness issues.

Childlife supporters are helping to make this possible. Thank you.

Ben is Head of Supporter Marketing at the Childlife member charity, the National Deaf Children’s Society.