The lawyers trying to give deaf people a hearing | Law | guardian.co.uk.

I think it’s been very well written and does explain the situation Deaf people face when trying to access legal advice services.

The Deaf community is at a precipice at this moment in time. Why? Those of us who have a Deaf identity are facing the biggest challenge we’ve ever come across: the desire to be considered “normal”.

I’ve noticed a worrying trend for some time; there seems to be far fewer individuals who are actually proud to be Deaf and dislike the terms “hearing impaired”, “hearing loss”, “hard of hearing” etc.

Mainstreaming

More and more deaf children are being educated in the mainstream which means individuals are being completely isolated from the Deaf community, and most importantly, BSL and exposure to the positivity associated with being Deaf as opposed to trying to conform with hearing peers and hearing families and pander to the narrow-mindedness of medical professionals.

Cochlear implants

There seems to be a growing tendency for friends of mine who I always thought were proud to be Deaf to opt for a cochlear implant.

Now, I don’t have anything against CIs per se, if the implantee makes the decision knowing the full facts and associated risks. It’s only when children who don’t have a say in the decision to have a CI are forced by parents who are being influenced by medical professionals and the medical model of deafness and their insecurities and desire for their kids to grow up normal I have an issue with.

I recently discovered that 90 percent of deaf children now have CIs. That’s a gobsmacking statistic.

However, in the last 3 months, two friends have had CIs, another is planning to have one, and yet another is thinking about it. The one thinking about it is a friend I’ve always considered to have a strong non-conformist Deaf identity.

Why is it happening? Why are my friends so eager to be able to “hear” all of a sudden? Aren’t they proud to be Deaf any more?

Action on Hearing Loss

The RNId’s £320,000 rebranding has sickened me. Hell bent on a mission to cure deaf people, while providing communication and social care services which contradict it’s new vision, the RNId, now known as Action on Hearing Loss, is portraying Deaf people as freaks of nature who are all desperate to be cured.

I abhor the whole concept of AOHL. It stinks. It’s a massive encroachment on my self-esteem and self-worth as a human being. And worst of all, AOHL is just a brand; the RNId is still the RNId – have a look at the footer on the new AOHL website or on the Charity Commission’s website if you don’t believe me – which means that they still profess to represent Deaf people!

And yet, there are Deaf camps who are welcoming this change of focus. *shudder*

Deaf4Life

Deaf4Life is currently consulting its members to consider a change of name. The options are “Deaf Forum” or “Hearing Loss Forum”. I’d be happy with “Deaf Forum” but “Hearing Loss Forum” makes me shudder.

The moderators say that hard of hearing people are put off joining the forum because it says “Deaf”. Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think hard of hearing people need to belong to a community. They are hearing. End of. They may have deteriorating hearing for various reasons but they are predominantly hearing. With some assistance from hearing aids, they don’t face the barriers and discrimination Deaf people have to put up with on a day-to-day basis.

The fact that hard of hearing people may not necessarily meet the definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010 – a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out day-to-day activities – speaks volumes (no pun intended).

Why are Deaf people pandering to the majority? There are an estimated 125,000 Deaf sign language users in the UK according to the latest GP Survey. That’s compared to 4 million hard of hearing or deafened people (according to AOHL’s revised figures from 8.9 million!).

As a minority, Deaf people need their own space without an invasion of hard of hearing people. Why can’t they go and create their own forum if they’re so desperate to belong to a community?

What to do?

If there was ever a time for Deaf people to unite and present a united force, it is NOW.

We NEED the Federation of Deaf People to reform and fight for our rights. We need Deaf organisations like the British Deaf Association and the Royal Association for Deaf people to make a stand.

I’m worried; very worried.

Why?

Why was RAD DLC set up? It is a well known fact that many D/deaf people find it difficult to access mainstream legal advice services for various reasons, the main being that many private legal advice services don’t realise that the goods, facilities and services provisions of the Equality Act 2010 also apply to them, which means that they don’t readily provide BSL/English Interpreters or other communication support for D/deaf people, or at least try to pass on the costs to them.

In the public sector, in my experience, law centres and Citizens Advice bureaux are acutely aware of their obligations under the EqA, but due to funding, or lack thereof, are unable to provide the ‘reasonable’ adjustments required.

RAD Legal Services, of which I’ve been the Head for over one year, has gone some way to plug the gap in mainstream service provision with advisers who are fluent in BSL and able to communicate with its D/deaf clients using a wide range of technology as well as face to face. However, law centres are embedded in their communities and answer to committees of local people. They assist vulnerable people when they suffer injustice, educate people about their rights and tackle local problems. RAD DLC can do what RAD Legal Services doesn’t have the capacity to do: educate and campaign for the rights of D/deaf and D/deafblind people.

Who?

RAD DLC’s management committee has just three hearing members out of 12. The remainder are D/deaf or D/deafblind and range from Deaf professionals to service users. More details about who they all are will be revealed when the website is launched towards the end of this year.

Why is RAD involved?

There will be some critics who dislike the fact that the law centre is “RAD DLC” as opposed to just “DLC”, particularly those who don’t believe that Deaf organisations should get involved in things like this. I would like to make it clear that the management committee decided to use RAD in the title of the law centre for the following reasons:

It was an employee of RAD, i.e. me, who was instrumental in setting up RAD DLC in the first place;
It is a recognition of the support being provided to the law centre by RAD i.e. finance, HR and most importantly, staff such as me and other caseworkers; and
RAD is recognised as the only provider of legal advice services for the Deaf community in the UK; having such a close association will be beneficial for the law centre and avoids having to promote a completely new organisation from scratch.

I’d like to make it clear that the management committee has the power to decide to drop RAD from the title of the law centre at any time of its own choosing.

Next steps

At this moment in time, RAD DLC is currently undergoing a review of its strategy and direction. Once underway, there will be an official launch of the law centre and its services, so watch this space.

Leon and I became penpals when we were both in school, me at Llantarnam Comprehensive School and Leon at the Federal School for the Deaf, Penang; introduced to each other through a “letter exchange” between the Deaf pupils at each school, back in circa 1992. We wrote to each other for donkey’s years, exchanging not just letters but also artwork (from Leon) and stamps and various mementos and goodies. One such goodie was a framed RM$2 banknote which I received for my 19th birthday, which I still use as a bookmark.

In 2003, Leon visited the UK for the first time as part of a whistlestop tour of Europe, and he came to Wales to meet me, my family and my friends, and stayed with me for the duration. We got along like a house on fire and communicated with each other in a mixture of BSL and ASL. It was surreal to meet a penpal face to face, and pretty cool at the same time.

Leon then moved to the USA to study art at the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, and he now resides in New York City as a working artist, and has become a well known artist in his native Malaysia, and even has >his own Wikipedia page!

In recent years, as we’ve both matured into adults and forged our own careers, Leon in art and me in law, we’ve stopped sending each other letters. However, thanks to the advent of the Internet, we have remained in touch, albeit infrequently.

I found out yesterday, via Deaf News Today’s Twitter feed, that Leon has been recognised for his work on TIME magazine’s year-end cover picture of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange using the text of a leaked cable. You can read all about it here.

I think Leon’s story is an astonishing one, and I am proud to call him a friend. Leon, we’ll come and visit you in NYC in the near future, promise!!

I have a multifaceted life: I’m a husband, father, son, brother, solicitor and a manager. I’m also Deaf.

Now, if I was to go out in public, and meet a stranger (I’m thinking hearing), what’s the first thing that would come to mind about me after having a conversation and finding out a few facts about me?

“Oh, he’s Deaf.”

or

“Oh, he’s a solicitor.”

or

“Oh, he’s married and has kids.”

I bet you, they’d find themselves more concerned with the fact that I’m Deaf.

That brings us to another point; the combination of the words “Deaf” and “solicitor”. I’m sure some of you won’t be surprised to learn that the moment people realise I’m both these, the normal reaction is: “Oh really!? Wow! That’s amazing!”.

This just proves Deafinitely Girl’s point: that the fact of being Deaf is always predominate in people’s minds, and they often find it difficult to think of me in any other way.

What does that say about our society? I’m sure the same is true for other individuals who are “different” in some way. Hell, even I’m doing it, because I’m reinforcing the idea that some people are “different”.

Right, this is getting a bit too deep for this time of night. G’night!

The Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) and the Legal Services Commission (LSC) are proud to announce the launch of a pilot specialist casework service in British Sign Language (BSL) via the Internet to eligible clients. RAD Legal Services has been working in partnership with the LSC and online interpreting service provider Significan’t Ltd to develop the service, which will go live on 22 September 2008.

Deaf BSL users living in England and Wales with a low income or receiving benefits will be able to obtain free and confidential legal advice through a webcam with a broadband connection. Caseworkers are fluent in BSL, and will provide specialist advice at Community Legal Service Specialist Quality Mark level.

Advice topics will be phased in stages, starting with Welfare Benefits from September 2008. Employment will follow from November 2008, Housing from January 2009 and Debt from March 2009.

William Hayden, Development Manager, Direct Services, at the LSC, said, “The Community Legal Advice (CLA) helpline is currently inaccessible to Deaf BSL users and therefore the CLA is not meeting its obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. They are acutely aware that they have a gap in their services. Nevertheless, with the development of new types of technology such as video communications and the Internet, there are now fresh opportunities to dramatically improve access to the CLA for Deaf people.”

Jeff McWhinney, Chief Executive of Significan’t, said, “RAD is the first organisation in the UK to utilise TokBox technology – developed and used in the United States – to deliver legal advice online. Significan’t are proud to work with the RAD to turn this technology into a reality and benefit Deaf people seeking legal advice and support in the UK.”

Tom Fenton, Chief Executive of RAD said “This is a unique opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness specialist advice in BSL via the Internet. It will provide evidence of the need for access to legal services for Deaf people.”

For further information visit www.radlegalservices.org.uk.

Media enquiries – contact:

Lorna Bareham
Marketing & PR Administrator
Royal Association for Deaf people
18 Westside Centre
London Road
Stanway, Colchester
CO3 8PH
Email: lorna.bareham@royaldeaf.org.uk

How dare they come up with a slogan like: Imagine A World Without Sound. I don’t need to imagine it thank you, and guess what – shock horror – I actually like it! But the RNId being the RNId, they just have to go the whole hog and do that whole “poor deaf people” thing, with this introduction that makes me want to vomit:

Take a moment to imagine if you couldn’t hear birdsong at dawn or danger signals in the street, enjoy wonderful sounds like a baby giggling or listen to your favourite music. This site celebrates the value of sound. By joining in we hope you’ll appreciate the importance of sound too and will make a donation to help us continue our work. We want to campaign for issues faced by deaf and hard of hearing people, provide services to individuals and organisations and carry out vital research into deafness and hearing loss.

Oh puh-lease!

And:

Help us change the world for deaf and hard of hearing people

Well, the RNId hasn’t done anything for me up to now, so what makes them think they’re going to achieve this? I don’t want to be fucking cured, I want a BSL Act and equal rights and access for Deaf people.

That video clip, with a little girl running into a road to fetch her ball, and hey presto! she’s got an hearing aid so she could hear that huge lorry hurtling its way towards her and get out of its bloody way! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

What the fuck is the RNId thinking? Do all the people who work for the RNId actually know what they’re doing? Do they consult with the Deaf community at all (I seriously doubt it, given their holier-than-thou and we-know-better-than-you attitude)?

The thing that makes my blood really boil though, is that the RNId are asking for more money to “cure” deafness. Piss off! And another thing; they actually rely on public funds to run ridiculous campaigns like this. What exactly do they hope to achieve?

Oh yes, they want hearing people to feel sorry for Deaf people, so they’ll give the RNId more money to pay even higher salaries to their stupid hearing staff.

Let’s start a campaign to close down the RNId. I’m sick of them.

I was just reading this post, which provides an extremely insightful account of a hearing person’s experience of the Madrid WFD Congress. It summarises rather neatly what it’s like to be Deaf, how we perceive being Deaf, and what being part of the Deaf community is like.

My life is rather curious. I’m fully immersed in both Deaf and hearing worlds, and find it easy to switch between BSL and spoken English (making me bilingual).

I’m married to a deaf woman who has deaf parents and a deafened brother (deaf because they are oral and do not use BSL). The rest of my family and Rachel’s family are all hearing. My parents and sister have recently started to learn BSL, following a great deal of prompting from me, which gives me rather a thrill.

I work for a deaf charity, which is focused on BSL users, and most of my colleagues are Deaf BSL users.

At the moment, my life is pretty much split between South Wales and London, providing a neat oral/BSL divide. I guess you could say that I would like the two very important parts of my life to be merged into one. Whether that ever happens, remains to be seen.

BSL translation coming soon.

Following on from Dennis’ post on The Talkie (albeit focused on unity within the Deaf community in the USA), it would be interesting to see whether unity can be achieved within the Deaf (( Deaf, used in this context to cover Deaf, Deafblind, deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing people )) community in the UK. With this in mind, I’d like to ask each of these groups of Deaf people what they’d like to see happen in the UK, to establish whether the various groups have any common denominations with which to unite. Here are a few suggestions, based on my personal experience and observations.

Deaf

• Legal protection for BSL, in the form of a BSL Act;
• Improved access to mainstream services;
• Better subtitling and more BSL on TV channels and the web; and
• Education through BSL (for Deaf and hearing)

deaf

• Improved access to digital hearing aids;
• Inclusion in the Deaf community;
• Recognition of the right to use oral means of communication without criticism; and
• Better subtitling on TV channels and the web.

Hard of hearing

• Improved access to hearing aids; and
• Better subtitling on TV channels and the web

Quite surprising how many common aims these groups have.

What else do these groups of Deaf people want from society today? Discuss.

BSL translation coming soon.

There has been a spate of posts on Deaf UK and individual blogs recently discussing audism. Erick Ketcham, an American Deafist ASL user, has recently joined Deaf UK, and has contributed some thought-provoking posts on the following topics:

• There are cultural differences between the UK Deaf community and the American Deaf Community;
• There are more oralists than BSL users;
• Deaf English have an “hearing” identity, and because they cannot hear, they use BSL;
• Using the term “deafmute” will encourage audist thinking among hearing people;
• “Deafism” occurs when a Deaf person puts down or discriminates against another Deaf person;
• When Deaf people discriminate against hearing people, it is “reverse audism”;
• Parents of deaf children who are not willing to learn BSL are audists, as they are depriving their child of a normal life with full communication accessibility. This can be classified as emotional and mental abuse;
• There are two groups of hearing people: “hearing allies” and “mask of benevolence”;
• In America, oralists that refuse to sign in ASL are not considered a part of the Deaf community, and are shut out completely; and
• Research in America has shown that Deaf children that learned ASL at the same time as hearing children learned a spoken language outperform oral children by a far margin.

(By the way Erick, do you not have a blog?)

The reasons why I wanted to highlight these views here were so that non-readers of Deaf UK can read them, and also because I find them absolutely fascinating.

I’d like to respond to some of these comments:

There are cultural differences between the UK Deaf community and the American Deaf Community

Judging by Erick’s posts, I would say that this is very much clear, although I hadn’t realised just how different. There must be a number of Deaf individuals in the UK with similar views to Erick, but if there are, they’re keeping their views quiet. They need to come out of the woodwork and lead the Deaf community out of oblivion.

Deaf English have an “hearing” identity, and because they cannot hear, they use BSL

This is not correct. I don’t use BSL because I can’t “hear”. I use BSL because I love the language and to communicate effectively with Deaf friends, colleagues and clients.

Parents of deaf children who are not willing to learn BSL are audists, as they are depriving their child of a normal life with full communication accessibility. This can be classified as emotional and mental abuse

This is an extreme view. I was brought up oral, and my family do not use BSL. However, I think to call my parents “audist” would be a step too far. They chose not to use BSL because they were led to believe by “professionals” that oralism was the way to go. Also, in recent times, with encouragement from me, my parents and my sister have agreed to learn BSL. This is due to the fact that Rachel and I are very likely to have Deaf children, and we intend to bring them up bilingually, and would like their grandparents to encourage this bilingualism, and not force the kids to conform to their preferred communication methods.

Research in America has shown that Deaf children that learned ASL at the same time as hearing children learned a spoken language outperform oral children by a far margin

I do strongly believe in this point, which is why we intend to bring our children up bilingually, with emphasis on BSL in the early stages of their development. From personal experience also, I honestly believe that if I had used BSL from childhood, I would have done better academically. All I can remember during academic studies is how hard it process information when focusing on the communication aspects of learning.

More debate on such issues is desperately needed within the UK, so keep it coming.

Related articles

• The UK Deaf Community
• Audism
• Audism: Part Two
• Audism – reached the parts where Heineken can’t?
• Audism, apparently the label for everything