A national conference to highlight the issues faced by deaf children in the UK will take place for the first time this month.
The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), in partnership with Harrow College and other organisations including Royal Association of the Deaf and the British Deaf Association will stage the first national conference of its kind called “Deaf Children – are we keeping them safe?”. The event will take place on 26 May at the University of Manchester with over 100 delegates expected to attend including managers from Local Authorities, Social Services, Police Services and Safeguarding Boards.
The Harrow College support of this event will be comprehensive. Tracey Critchley is Coordinator for Deaf and hard of Hearing Students at Harrow College. Tracey is also a member of the Advisory group on Safeguarding Deaf Children with the NSPCC, advising on access problems to Social Services, Mental Health Services and other public services.
At the conference, Tracey will be facilitating workshops to highlight and improve the barriers to child protection experienced by Deaf children and young people. Some of the Deaf students from Harrow College have made a film about this topic which will be shown at the conference. The student group chose to highlight the importance of communication as a tool to everyday access and well-being as the most important thing they would like to change about their life experience so far.
Research has found Deaf children are increasingly at risk, both physically and mentally, due to the severe lack of Sign Language awareness /provision in public services and a national shortage of Sign Language interpreters. This often means that Deaf people have to book appointment two weeks in advance in order to have an interpreter present and, even then, the interpreter often misses the appointment. This means there is no emergency access for Deaf children like for hearing children/people.
Click here for more on the Communication Support services available at Harrow College