Deaf users campaign for video relay service

After a decade of having their needs neglected by telecoms providers, leaders of the UK's deaf community have written an open letter published in today's Times newspaper writes Jack Schofield for ZEDNET (11/05/12). 


They are campaigning for a universally-accessible video relay service of the sort that the Americans have operated successfully for the past 10 years. This would enable British Sign Language users to make and receive calls at any time, with no pre-booking, and at no additional cost over a normal phone contract.


The revised EU Electronic Communications Framework, rubber stamped by UK Government, sets out a legal requirement to ensure that disabled end-users enjoy access to telecommunications that are functionally equivalent to those enjoyed by other end-users. 


Unfortunately, the UK government appears to have done nothing substantial to meet this requirement for deaf users, simply handing off the problem to telecoms suppliers such as BT, O2, Vodafone, Three, Talk Talk, Virgin Media, Everything Everywhere and BSkyB.


The deaf organisations say they talked to communications minister Ed Vaizey, and that in November, he "repeatedly called on the telecommunications industry to work with the deaf community to find solutions which meet their communications needs". 


In their letter to The Times, they tell the telecoms providers: "You have failed to meet with us in open forum in response to the Minister’s request and your silence has been deeply disappointing," and that "Positive action by the industry is long overdue. You are delaying the introduction of modern relay services, and exacerbating the isolation and disadvantage which is faced by deaf people who are denied equal access to telecommunications."


The UK does have an experimental video relay service (VRS) called MyFriend, but it requires pre-booking of calls. However, this is a pilot project run from the University of Bristol with the financial backing of the EU. It may well close this summer when the EU funding runs out, and it seems extremely unlikely that the UK government would, if asked, stump up the trivial amount of money required to establish as a permanent service. 


In parliament, Vaizey said, as an aside: "I have been struck by the lack of engagement from business and telecoms companies, which is unbelievably frustrating. In that respect, we would, for example, like to have video technology that enables deaf people to use sign language, and I have told all the telecoms operators, 'Please come to me with a cost-effective solution,' but they have not done that. Eventually, of course, I will have to regulate through Ofcom to make them do that, but it would be so much simpler if they came to me and did it." (17 Jan 2012 : Column 245WH)


The organisations backing the campaign include the UK Council on Deafness, TAG (Telecommunications Action Group), the British Deaf Association, the National Deaf Children’s Society, Sense, the National Association of Deafened People, and the Royal Association for Deaf People, as well as companies and individuals.


This week is Deaf Awareness Week in the UK, and it continues until Sunday, 13 May.

Anne Diamond: Thirty years of wearing an earpiece for television has made me deaf

She’s one of Britain’s best-known television presenters, but Anne Diamond has admitted that using earpieces for nearly 30 years has left her deaf in one ear writes Ted Thornhill for the Daily Mail (03/01/12).

She made the startling revelation on a video she recorded for the website of charity Action On Hearing Loss.

She describes how having her ‘talkback’ devices – through which directors communicate with hosts – turned up too loudly have taken their toll on her hearing.

The 57-year-old, who rose to fame in the 1980s presenting Good Morning Britain for TV-am, said: ‘I have some form of hearing loss right now, after 25, nearly 30 years of wearing a television earpiece. It’s what we call a talkback and I’ve always had it rather too loud.

‘While I don’t need to wear a hearing aid right now, I have been warned that I probably will need one quite soon.’

She explains that around four million people in the UK have some form of hearing loss and would benefit from a hearing aid – but don’t do anything about it.

She said: ‘I can’t possibly imagine not being able to do the job I love, or even the simple everyday things like sitting round a family table and enjoying a meal and being able to listen to the conversation around me.’ Ms Diamond explained that the charity can be a huge help to those suffering from deafness.

She added: ‘They provide a simple, free hearing check that you can do in your own home, explain what to expect from your doctor, and make the whole world of hearing aids so much simpler.’

Ms Diamond was recently embroiled in a row with comedienne Dawn French, who she accused of having gastric band surgery to lose weight.

Diamond herself had the procedure in 2006 and speculated that French's 'astonishing transformation' could have been the result of undergoing the operation.

However, French simply told Diamond to 'shut up'.

There are also video messages on the charity’s site from One Foot In The Grave stars Richard Wilson and Annette Crosbie, EastEnders' Rita Simons and Genevieve Barr, an actress who was born deaf. 

Ms Crosbie uses two hearing aids and said: ‘I know what it’s like to go slowly deaf.’

She emphasises that Action On Hearing Loss is working hard to remove the stigma attached to the wearing of hearing aids.

Werrington community rallies to save local pub from Tesco development

A disabled man who claims he would have nowhere to go if his at-risk local pub closed down was at the heart of a protest to save it over the weekend writes Matthew Reville for the Peterborough Evening Telegraph (14/11/11).

Deaf-blind Alex McNeill (31) was one of 620 people who signed a petition to protect The Ploughman pub in Staniland Way, Werrington, during the protest.
They want Tesco to re-think its plans to bulldoze the pub as part of a £40 million overhaul of the Werrington Centre that would expand the supermarket.

The spirited protesters, which included Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson stood in the pub’s front garden - in direct view of Tesco staff and shoppers - from noon until 5pm on Saturday.

The supermarket’s slogan is ‘Proud to be supporting our local community’, and protesters mocked up signs parodying the Tesco logo that read “Save our community local”.

Mr McNeill, who is totally blind but has some hearing, lives in Rainbow Court, Paston Ridings. He is a popular local in the pub and gets a taxi there at least twice a week to meet with friends.
He said: “If it was to close, how would I see all my friends? Where would I go to meet up with them? I would have nowhere to go.
“This pub has to be saved. Why would anyone want to replace what this pub offers just to get a bigger Tesco.
“The Tesco is already big enough. Nobody has called for Tesco to get bigger, but as people turning out today showed, everyone wants the pub to stay open.”

The Ploughman was recently named 2011 Pub of the Year by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Peterborough and District Branch.
It has also raised just under £5,000 for charities since Andy Simmonds became landlord two years ago.

Mr Simmonds said: “I was really happy with how many people joined in, it was exactly what I wanted. It was a show of local support for the local pub.
“Tesco are showcasing themselves like a peacock. They want us out of sight and out of mind. The pub is in a prominent position, and they don’t want people to see it before seeing the store.
“I would love to work with Tesco as partners in the regeneration of the Werrington Centre. I hope they talk to us about co-existing in the future.”

MP Stewart Jackson joined the protesters for an hour on Saturday after signing the petition, and plans to personally discuss the groundswell of public opinion against the proposal with Tesco bosses.

Mr Jackson said: “I will be meeting with people from Tesco in the next week and talking to them about the concerns I, and all the people here, have got.
“If they are committed to the people of Werrington they must understand it has to have a community pub. We should try to persuade Tesco to give The Ploughman and its supporters a fair hearing.
“Since Andy took over it is really flourishing as both a pub and a community centre.”

Peterborough City Councillor for Werrington North Judy Fox also joined in the protest. She said: “Me and my husband (Cllr John Fox) are regulars in the pub, we would both hate to see it go.”

Pensioner June Firas (75), from Gatenby, Werrington, said: “I come down here to play darts once a week. Where will I go if the pub closes?”

Tony Keen (50), from Canwell, Werrington, said: “How can the Werrington Centre be a community centre if there is no pub here? It’s a contradiction.”

Nobody from Tesco was available to comment.

More than 200 people have signed an online petition: www.savetheploughman.com.

Pointing the way to a successful campaign in challenging times

The director of communications at the National Deaf Children's Society reveals how they built and launched an effective media campaign against government cuts writes Victoria Shooter, for The Guardian (25/10/11).

Charities are preparing themselves for challenging times. Vital support services for the vulnerable people we represent are in danger of being reduced and in some cases completely eradicated, due to government spending cuts. At the same time charities are in competition with one another to raise awareness of extremely important issues. The challenge for us all is how to stand out from the crowd and galvanise our supporters to act.

In May, the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) launched its Save Services for Deaf Children campaign in response to local government cuts to specialist educational support for deaf children. We reached more than 16 million people with our message and made local authorities sit up and take notice. Here we share with you how we built and launched the campaign.

Saving services

At the beginning of this year, we began to get reports from parents of deaf children about rumours of funding and job cuts to specialist support. Particularly concerning were cuts to specialist teachers of the deaf, who are crucial in deaf children's success, helping them to develop good communication skills and making sure that classroom teachers know how to teach a deaf child.

A very important part of our role at NDCS is to help deaf children and their parents to get the support they need, whether this is working on individual cases with councils, or campaigning nationally and regionally for change. As soon as these reports began to emerge, we began planning to protect these services.

We knew that to build our battle plan, we needed to get detailed information on what was happening on the ground. So, we ran an online survey of parents, promoting it through our e-newsletters, on our website and our online forum Parent Place.

740 parents responded with details that enabled our local teams to dig deeper and find out what was really going on.

Clearing the smoke

Despite some excellent intelligence from parents, we soon encountered significant resistance from local authorities reluctant to share details of their plans and even the cuts they had already begun to make. We needed more robust information to get an accurate, national picture of the cuts - and the clock was ticking. We issued 45 local authorities with detailed Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, using our expertise to craft questions that would generate the clearest answers.

We wanted to know about the current level of support being provided to deaf children, whether this had been reduced recently, or if there were any plans to cut it. This meant being very specific with our questions to avoid ambiguous answers. Once the FoI requests were issued we could establish a timeline for the launch of a national campaign: all councils would be legally required to respond to our requests within 28 days.

Building our case

Although 11 councils failed to meet the FoI deadline, when combined with written correspondence from other local authorities, we had enough data to create a national picture of cuts to support for deaf children.

We were shocked at the results: almost one in five of the local authorities we had data for (141) had made a cut to educational support for deaf children. Quite simply these cuts should not have been happening – central government had ring-fenced the education budget it gave to local authorities. This gave us a clear call to action for the secretary of state for education Michael Gove to launch an investigation into these cuts.

We also wanted to create a number of ways for the public and members to get involved. We created a static map depicting the cuts with the Office for National Statistics and created an interactive online map where parents and other members could report cuts to deaf children's support in their area.

We created template letters for people who wanted to support the campaign to send to their MPs and councillors asking them to challenge local cuts decisions. We also created a guidelines booklet for parents to fight cuts in their area, downloadable from our website.

Bringing the campaign to life

Our regional teams had already begun to work closely with parents in areas where we knew cuts had been made, such as Stoke-on-Trent, where the number of teachers of the deaf has been halved in two years.

Many parents had compelling stories, including one mother whose two-year-old son was having support from his teacher dramatically cut. He is at a crucial stage of developing his speech and communication and support for his teacher of the deaf is now vital. His mother Katy says she will consider moving to get her son the support he needs.

Stories like these not only galvanise MPs and councillors into action, but are essential to secure effective media coverage, bringing the experiences of deaf children, young people and their families to life.

Lift off

With our statistics, case studies, visuals and calls to action in place, we launched the campaign in May.

The results:
• Our findings made national news, prompting calls and emails to pour in from local authorities keen to talk to us about the future of support for deaf children.
• Our spokespeople were interviewed from Cumbria to Cornwall, appearing on TV, on the radio and in print.
• The campaign has reached 16 million people so far.
• Two local authorities have subsequently reduced the severity of cuts to deaf children's services and we are continuing to push for more councils to urgently review their decisions and protect this vital support.

This is a live campaign, with more reports of cuts coming in from our beneficiaries. We are continuing to lobby councils, galvanise our supporters and get media support for our cause.

Top five tips to build a strong media campaign

• Be very clear about why people should be concerned about your cause. Let them know why it is so important.
• People power. Our power comes from the people we support and represent. Their experiences, stories and passion are invaluable to any campaign. It is also crucial that we provide the tools, confidence and support that empower our beneficiaries to speak out.
• The devil is in the detail. Be thorough, challenge the information you are given and be prepared to stand by your findings.
• Don't pull your punches. Decisions are being made now that will have a huge impact on the people we support. If someone isn't playing fair, don't be afraid to name and shame them.
• Take people with you. Be clear how your activity fits with your organisational strategy. Clarify what you are trying to achieve, who should to take action and what they need to do to help you achieve your goal. Know how you will measure the success of your campaign.

Victoria Shooter is the director of communications at the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS)